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    Anna’s Arrest – Are We Seeing The Return Of Emergency?


    Even though it is the prerogative of the parliament to frame laws, it is entirely a fundamental right of any citizen of this great country to protest. Every citizen is bestowed with this fundamental right by none other than our constitution. The massacre at Ramlila ground in the recent past and today’s detention of Anna Hazare by Delhi Police without any provocation seems a clear violation of the guidelines of our constitution and depriving the citizens of the nation to show their displeasure in the government’s style of functioning via their protest.

    It is about time somebody must own this up and explain everyone the reason behind such audacity. A mere statement of – ‘Security is a state subject’ and we are none to interfere or influence on the decisions of the local authority is not going to help as all know who are the real order givers and planners of such blatant violation of someone’s fundamental rights. The statements of the DCP Crime Branch of Delhi when asked against what precise crime he is arresting Anna Hazare was a good enough pointer at the real decision makers. His reply of ‘We are just following the orders of the higher authority’ goes a long way to prove that it is not entirely a state matter alone or in fact it never was.

    When Anna did his fast for the first time the government was cornered badly to an extent that they finally accepted to have a debate on formulating a strong Lokpal bill and agreed to have five members of the civil society into the drafting committee of the bill. Rest as they say is history and we all know how conveniently and aggressively the government advocated to safeguard the very corrupt establishments, officers and offices out of the purview of the bill. There were NO judiciary, NO lower bureaucrats, NO Member of Parliament as long as they are active members and of course NO Prime-Minister found under the purview. It is one thing to disagree on someone’s view but it is entirely another to out rightly discard it and treat it as a piece of crap just because you are the so called Manish Tiwarish ‘Elected & Electable’. The government promptly threw the bill proposed by team Anna to the dustbin and presented their placated version in the parliament. Is this any kind of democracy, where being in the government you act as per your whims and wishes suitably showing a middle finger at the views of the larger mass, the people who have elected you to avail such power and don’t even care to explain the reasons?

    This nonchalance of the government towards its own people’s wishes prompted Anna to announce his second phase of fast from August 16th and very rightly at that. This is a pretty legitimate way of showing your displeasure towards the current state of affairs and be heard of your legitimate demand. Millions including me are still struggling to negotiate a suitable reason on why government has to be so nervous of such peaceful demonstrations of displeasure if they are not at the wrong end of the fence. After all it is a free and democratic nation where people have this right from their birth as long as their protest doesn’t become a matter of security. And seriously when the terrorists are planting bombs wherever and whenever they wish to and end up killing people in dozens, the government has it’s task cutout to safeguard it’s people from these fanatics than arresting a 74 year Gandhian old man on the ground that he could be a possible security threat. I don’t even want to term this a joke.

    First it was the Delhi police which furnished out 22 conditions before they could allow Anna to go ahead with his fast. Conditions for protesting peacefully in a democratic country? Really? Even though putting conditions to restrict one’s fundamental right is deplorable to begin with, couples out of those 22 were outright unconstitutional. The reasons given for such mockery is unconstitutional further.

    • Anna should make sure to end his fast within three days – Even though this demand is condemnable at the face value, it still could be accepted if the government can give it in writing that they would also eradicate corruption during the same period. Can they? More so when they have four of their cabinet ministers languishing in Tihar jail for various acts of corruption. If they can’t then how can Anna commit this after looking at the cunning behavior of the major lot from the government? Someone must educate these politicians that Anna’s fast is not a farce which most of the political clowns seems to carryout to gain some political mileage or to satisfy some self-greed. It is not a protest which is stage managed as Rahul Gandhi seems to be doing in UP and getting arrested as part of a hogwash. It is a real protest with some noble intention and desire, unlike to strengthen one’s votebank.
    • There shouldn’t be more than 5000 people at the Dharna site – Someone needs to reconfirm the authorities who think every mass gathering is the resultant of ferrying poor people in trucks (hence can be limited to a certain number) with a promise of packaged food and Rs 100/- that the state level politicians do to please their so called high commands. The guys at the government must understand that it is not the arranged gathering of poor people in numbers that they do whenever their so called prince visits to the tribal parts of the country with a mineral water bottle in his hand. The protest is a protest of the masses that have long seen corruption engulfing this great country to its darkness. People with honest intention of passing on a corruption free nation to the next generation are on the streets which certainly can’t be limited to 5000. I am sorry if Congress believes there only 5000 left in this country those are not corrupt while the rest very much represents their side.

    As expected, none there at the Delhi police end seems to know the exact reasons for such absurd preconditions. All seems to be just following the order from the hierarchy up with the buck ultimately stopping nowhere. This is the worst kind of governance one can see where one finds his fundamental rights being severely sabotaged yet none at the business seems to take up the ownership to explain why such an idiotic step is taken at the first place. The excuse of a large number of people protesting on the streets might just be a matter of security concern as well as inconvenience to the traffic is not even laughable; it is out rightly deplorable. The same Delhi police which manages such big protests or some nonsensical political gimmickry on daily basis can’t handle some peacefully protesting people? That is some nonsense right there in the explanation. And where this concern for the common man getting strangled in the traffic came from all of a sudden? This spontaneous affection for the common man is quite strange when the same government seems no way concerned for the common populace as far as the back breaking price rise and double digit inflation is concerned.

    That said, I still struggle to figure out why the government is so nervous? If they claim they are equally serious about coming up with a strong Lokpal, they should rather be happy that Anna is making their work simpler than throwing stones at him. What is that the government fearing so much? Why such tyranny and the naked display that how badly bankrupt they are when it comes to ideas? Why arrest a crusader on the basis of your own presumption only? Why wet your pants if you have done no wrong or have got nothing to hide?

    The questions seem endless and with all probability none going to be answered by the people at the helm as responsibility is the last thing they want to shoulder. They only prefer to arrange nonsensical press conferences inside Air-conditioned rooms to defend their bizarre actions by furnishing equally nonsensical reasons. If nothing works then the National Pride is brought in-between (CWG) to paint all those questioning as traitors of some magnitude. If still something is left to be salvaged then there are ample number of Manish Tiwaris in Congress who would come forward and blame all those criticizing and advise them to join politics instead. But here I want to clarify one thing once-and-for-all : Everyone can’t do everything. Since the political masses like Mr.Tiwari and alike waste a lot of public money in the pretext of democracy, the so called princes of different parties been permanently deployed with choppers to fly them in-and-out of tribal areas; there is a need for someone to earn that money so that your nonsense can be kept on funded since you guys are the worst set of parasite one can find. Hence Mr.Tiwari we can’t join politics as we have to work and cough out 30% of our hard earn money for the luxury of rascals like your brethren. Henceforth I hope none challenges people to come forward and join politics whenever being questioned for their misdeeds as it is as good as the hotelier suggesting one to open a restaurant if he complains about the quality of food he been served. Let’s for once define a limit to the amount of nonsense one should display or tolerate.

    This day could easily get into one of those black days of our democracy. People who are fighting against corruption are arrested and put behind bars while the corrupts and corruptible are defended. From government machinery to the law enforcing agencies all were being misused to defend the corrupts and confine the honest. Prohibitory orders issued at various places in the national capital on the basis of some bizarre presumption so that people can’t expose the intentional misdeeds of the government. Thank you Mr.Chidambaram for shedding some good amount of crocodile tears when you has to say, it was painful arresting Anna Hazare. Thankfully I never knew what could be the situation when emergency was enforced by Indira Gandhi to hide her maligned intentions and wrongful entry into the parliament back in 1977, but I am sure it wouldn’t have been much worse than this.

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