My right thumb!

“Unfortunate but unavoidable”, was how Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put it yesterday, when pushed to react to public outrage over the midnight raid by Delhi Police on the Ramlila Maidan, where Baba Ramdev was staging his satyagraha. Three words, which when coupled with Kapil Sibal’s ‘hurt and outrage’ expressed yesterday, seem to have settled the balance of power firmly in favour of the government. A government that is now in no mood to benevolently allow the politics of fasts to continue. The immediate fallout: The government frowning upon Anna Hazare’s proposed protest fast in support of Baba Ramdev at Jantar Mantar.

Simultaneously in Haridwar, Ramdev was in a conveniently forgiving mood. His brand of fast-politics has been repelled in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh by the UPA and Mayawati respectively. Faced with the ominous threat of multiple investigations into his organisation and its functioning by various Ministries of the government, Ramdev now says he has “followed his sanyasi dharma and forgiven the Prime Minister”.

The stick approach clearly seems to have worked for the UPA government, with Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hedge now saying that the Civil Society Representatives will participate in negotiations with the government on the drafting of the Lokpal Bill on June 15, 16.

It’s the right approach by Anna Hazare and his followers. The representatives of civil society have won a hard-fought victory by forcing the government to the negotiations table over the Lokpal Bill. Their place, now, is across the negotiations table and not on the streets on New Delhi. Their responsibility is to accurately reflect the opinions and demands of the civil society that they represent, in the negotiations over the Bill. The only way they can be true to their cause, is by participating in the negotiations, not boycotting it. The stakes for civil society are too big to be frittered away in petty politicking and childish boycotts.

And involved engagement of the UPA Government with the aim of protecting civil society’s interests are paramount and must remain so.

But these are also testing times for the UPA Government. Giddy with the success of its stick-approach having worked, the government now needs to ensure that it doesn’t gloat in victory. The UPA must remember that it is a popularly elected government of the people, for the people and by the people.  Acts like imposing Section 144 in New Delhi and refusing permission to Anna Hazare, to fast in protest at Jantar Mantar, are signals of the government tottering dangerously on impinging civil liberties.

Governance is as much about acting in national interest as about protecting the people’s interests, and the UPA will need to prove through the Lokpal Bill and its decisions on the black money issue, that it is truly a progressive alliance, equally adept at both.