The fall of Anna Hazare

Kisan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare , took the country by storm when he launched his campaign to slay the demon of corruption. However, the septuagenarian Gandhian from Maharashtra, who shot to popularity with the anti corruption crusade, slowly and steadily traversed the path of a heart-rending decline in the face of Indian party politics and his own inability to stray away from vanity.

Here are a few instances which led to his fall in the public eye:

The lopsided battle against corruption:

Back in 2011, when the campaign for the Jan Lokpal bill was going strong, Anna displayed his uncharacteristic hatred towards the Congress by calling them a bunch of "gaddars" for not clearing the bill in the parliament. When journalists asked for his reaction regarding the Parliamentary session on the Jan Lokpal, where even BJP refused to bat an eyelid, Hazare just walked away. His misdemeanor took everybody by surprise. Anna Hazare squandered a lot of his time on just staging the anti-corruption bill, he lost most of his popularity because of unfair criticisms about the Parliamentary procedure.

The fallacy of fast unto death :

Anna Hazare with his strategy of fasting which seeked to bring pressure on the government was in no way similar to the Gandhian way of non-violent agitation. Hazare exploited this exercise and turned it into a mere joke. Every time there was an agitation it would lead to a 'fast unto death' called in full view of the public and 24/7 media.

The split within Team Anna : Hazare and Kejriwal diverging paths

The two took to different future plans to carry forward their fight against corruption. While Kejriwal was inclined to form a political alternative to fighting corruption by forming a party, Anna decided to stick to his idealistic belief of not being involved in anything political but social movements launched across the country and saw it as the best solution to fight corruption. The split only ended up in a vicious blame game between the two, when Hazare stated that the Aam Aadmi Party was using his name during their campaign despite his opposition to the party. Following the split is when envy took over Anna and the Aam Aadmi Party started gaining momentum. Anna out of vanity, did not support AAP knowing that his presence in the party will help it gain a lot more followers.

'The voice and conscience of the village of Ralegan Siddhi demands to be seen as the saviour of nation itself '', writes Ramchandra Guha

In the article Ramchandra states that the timing of Anna Hazare coming into prominence among people was when the media was abuzz with a number scandals like the Common Wealth Games, Adarsh and the 2g scam. The public, angered by the rule of the UPA moved towards the saintly figure of Anna Hazare. Little did they know that he was a bit of 'village patriarch'. However, he cannot be dismissed for the efforts of bringing change and development in his native village. Mukul Sharma, who did extensive research in the village states in his book Green and Saffron that 'he found Hazares' approach "deeply brahmanical", where liquor,tobacco and even cable TV was prohibited in the village.

U-turn from Gandhian Ideology of non-violence: Will go headlong against Pak

According to an article in the Tribune ( January 11, 2013), Anna Hazare called for a 'tit for tat' reply to Pakistan for the LoC unrest. He said that a decisive war against Pakistan was the only solution and that he wouldn't mind going to the borders to fight them.