ANNA HAZARE AND NON-VIOLENT SECULAR TERROR

 With emergence of Hindu Terror and the recent Oslo Christian Terror, Muslims have lost the exclusive status in the fundamentalist religious terror bandwagon. But by taking all these religions by surprise India is witnessing the blooming of an innovative, social network powered, middle class backed, media savvy, street smart, Non-violent secular terror led by Anna Hazare and organized by India against corruption. You are in for a rude shock if you compare the basics of terrorist strike with Anna Hazare’s movement.

A terrorist strike results from meticulous planning, die hard fundamentalist ideology, dedicated man power, shrewd brain washing and the success rate depends on bloodshed and the number toll of victims. Terrorist neither repents nor make an attempt to understand diverse perspectives it is my way or high way.

Anna Hazare and co. were literally holding a democratically elected government hostage inorder to toe their line in the Jan Lok Pal bill. The bill according to Hazare is the magic wand that will wipe away corruption from India, that too only when prime minister is brought under its ambit. Anna Hazare’s movement was not a natural movement emanted from the people, but a centrally planned initiative by India Against Corruption that shrewdly cashed in on the public who found difficult to count the number of zeroes in the 2G corruption and adopting the social network and communication strategy employed by people in middle east to over throw dictators.

The next move was the portrayal of Anna Hazare by Non-violent secular terrorists as the twenty first century Gandhi. Thus the village reformer from Ralegaon Siddhi in the state of Maharashtra was given the mandate to become a national reformer to lead the second freedom struggle. These rash comparisons of freedom struggle with anti corruption movement and Anna Hazare with Gandhi is unjustifiable and rude. As Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Tushar Gandhi says, “Hazare’s fast is different because Bapu’s fast was to reform an adversary into a friend, while Anna’s fast is against an enemy. It is like a “me versus you” kind of thing.”

Once the leader was coronated, the Middle East model of using the social network and other medium of communication was used to garner support and the Non-violent terrorists executed it to perfection. It involved sending fake SMS es asking people to give missed calls to 022 6155 0789 (which is the number of India against corruption) in support of Lokpal Bill wrongly stating that government has asked for a support of 25 crore people. But after many thousands gave missed calls, India Against Corruption stated that it was hoax only on August 14, just two days before the scheduled fast of Anna Hazare. If they were truthful they should have conveyed it much before and when this article is written their website shamelessly state ‘1.3 crore missed calls as on August 15.’

Yet another ploy was sending e-mails and SMS that left innocent public bewildered by the amazing benefits they are going to get once corruption ends and black money stashed abroad is brought back. Check out this message: 1,456 lakh crore comes back?”. India will “financially” be “number one”. Each village, we are told, will get R100 crore; there will be no need to pay electricity bills or taxes for the next 20 years; petrol will cost R25, milk R8; India’s borders “will become more stronger (sic) than the China Wall”; we can build 28,000 km of “rubber road (like in Paris)”; houses for 100 million people; 1,500 “Oxford-like universities”; 2,000 free hospitals. (Source: Hindustan Times) Thus there was a mad rush to click on the like buttons in facebook and follow buttons in twitter.

The non-violent terrorists with their populist apporroach attracted the middle class Indians to their ranks. Most Indian middle class has low regard for the government machinery and considers running the government as simple as partying. Thus lighting candles, wearing Gandhi topis parading through the streets, fasting at noon only to feast at night was rightly incorporated by the mangers of non-violent secular terror.

The innumerable lesser known but down to earth social activists are ignored in this non-violent secular terror and the anti corruption movement comprise of only a handpicked few like  Shanti Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan,N. Santosh Hegde, Kiran Bedi and the like. While many RTI activists are brutally murdered in various states while they expose corruption, the non-violent secular terrorists who also stand for the same cause are not worried (may be they care for only the central government!) In the mean time Babas are out in the open to fish in the muddy waters like Baba Ramdev’s fast against black money and Sri Sri Ravi Sankar’s new found enthusiasm to wipe out corruption by joining with Anna Hazare.

The fundamentalist hardliner view of a religious terrorist is making a full bloom in the non-violent secular Terrorists led by Anna Hazare. The arrogant attitude displayed in the attempt to bring the prime minister under the Lok Pal bill and stating that there is no other way and to challenge a democratically elected government is undemocratic and uncalled for. It is ridiculing the Indian Constitution that has kept India together for 64 years.

Drop down to a government office and you are sure to see a board which reads ‘giving or accepting bribe in the form of cash or kind is punishable offence.’ Still we pay bribe to get things done. It would be foolish to think that centrally formed institution like Lokpal wipe away corruption from whole of India. Anna Hazare the champion of non violent secular terrorism must be reminded that India cannot be compared to a small village like Ralegaon Siddhi.

The Indian media plunged into new low with the reporting of Anna Hazare. Rather than holding onto unbiased reporting, the media went along the flow being perfectly aware that what is going on in India will backfire in the long run. Opinion polls conducted in some national news papers says support for Anna Hazarey has touched more than 90%, and many even consider his as role model, but many fail to understand that even if 10 people took part in the poll, the poll results are published as if it is the opinion of the billion people in India. When the anchors of leading news channels ask people to follow twitter and like facebook pages of secular terrorists who question the constitutional authority, it is outright misuse of the freedom of press granted by the constitution.

 As Anna Hazare gears up for hardly bargained fifteen days ‘indefinite’ fast in Ramlila Maidan in Delhi along with the secular terrorists, it is high time that  the intellectuals, scholars and people with grey matter respond to the non-violent terrorist wolves clothed in sheep skin in both offline and online world. We must take a cue from the most literate state Kerala, where no one took to street in support of Hazare when he was jailed. Anna and co. who once publicly pooh-poohed the support of political parties are now silently accepting the support of RSS and affiliated Hindu organizations, along with Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Sankar with thousands of followers are disturbing signs.  The non-violent secular terrorists are as dangerous as religious terrorists. Are we heading for an emergency?