Excellent write up on why the Anna Hazare movement is not color revolution & hence usual suspects opposing it

A few thoughts on the current situation. (By Rudradev on BR)

1) This is not, by any means, a "colour revolution." I have watched the US media for 15 years now, and I am very attuned to the sort of reportage, the pitch and tenor of media coverage associated with those things. From Kosovo to Ukraine, East Timor to Myanmar, Sudan, Iraq, Iran and most recently the Arab Spring uprisings (Syria, Yemen, Libya but NOT Bahrain) there is an easily recognizable tone and extent to which US State-Dept. supported "popular uprisings" are covered in the media.

This is in stark contrast to the US media's coverage of the Hazare business... even though India-office reporters are filing their stories, often stuffed with hyperbole to attract professional attention, those stories are tucked away in the South Asia section. They are not front page stories or headline news by a long shot.

When there is a "colour revolution", the spin is 400% clear, reportage of it dominates the international news, and Americans who have never heard of a country before get bombarded with televised images of people in the streets there. Nothing like that is happening with the Anna movement.

Note, this does NOT mean that US State Dept. isn't watching the situation very closely, or that they won't try to interfere in the future as things develop. However, it makes no sense at all for them to promote the greatest threat faced by the *actual* beneficiaries of the Indian "colour revolution"... the ones who came to power in 2004/2009. Do you really think the West would prefer anyone leading India, over the MMS/Maino squad? No chance. Why would they orchestrate something to shoot their own stooges in the foot? Neither the Hamiltonians nor the Wilsonians in DC stand to benefit from that.

2) Anna Hazare himself, may or may not have been propped up by the Congress as a "managed opposition" (I personally do not think he was, but it doesn't matter.) Even if he was propped up by INC to stage an anti-MMS coup and install Rahul Gandhi as PM, the movement has turned into a tsunami beyond anyone's ability to control or manipulate at will.

Even Anna himself is riding a tiger now. Even Anna is constrained, by the sheer scale and intensity of the popular movement he has unleashed, from backing down or compromising too much with the GOI. The genie of middle-class political awakening is out of the bottle, and it is nobody's plaything.

If at all it happens that Rahul Gandhi (and his backers) organized this whole thing... and that Rahul Gandhi is able to capitalize on this, not only with some Kodak moment (taking blessings from Anna and introducing JLPB) but riding this tidal wave of mass political mobilization all the way to legitimate PM-ship... then I have to say, Rahul Gandhi is 10^6 more capable a politician than I ever gave him credit for, and India would benefit from having him as PM.

Of course, IMHO, the chance of that happening is about the chance of an interplanetary collision with Uranus.

3) An interesting by-product of this is the fragmentation of the Indian Left.

With the loss of the WB Bastion, the parliamentary Left in India has been shaken at its very foundations. What has been galvanized is the politically active civil society (PACS) Left... the Left of NGOs and loudmouth media personalities. They are scurrying in every which direction to capitalize on this Anna Hazare episode in any manner possible, in the hope of claiming a mantle of National Left Leadership that now rests very uneasily on the CPI(M)'s shoulders.

The interesting thing, however, is that unfolding events are bringing to the fore deep divisions within the PACS Left. Such divisions, earlier, would only become apparent when the Left partook of power (as with the Janata Dal administrations of the '90s.) When NDA or UPA were in power, the Left was protected by a friendly media, courted by parliamentary coalitions, and could play kingmaker without fracturing in the limelight. Today the PACS Left is fracturing where we can all see it, and they are not even in power. This is a great thing.

Major fissures are appearing between the Centre-Left (Kejriwal, Bhushan and the Anna crew); the pro-Maino, pro-Missionary Opportunistic Left (NAC, Harsh Mander, Aruna Roy etc.); and the Borderline Maoist Left (Dotty Roy, Swami Agnivesh, Nandini Sundar and gang.) This is being played out in the national media every day.

Coupled with the blows recently suffered by the Parliamentary Left Establishment (CPI-M loss in WB), this provides an excellent opportunity for the Indian Right to cripple the political Left even further, and possibly to advance national security interests by isolating and discrediting the Maoist far Left as well.

The Right has to be careful how it proceeds. The Indian Left are like Pakistanis. Just as an outright Indian military attack on TSP would consolidate TSPA, jihadi tanzeems, Paki politicians and Pakiban... high-profile posturing by Sangh Parivar would unify an Indian Left that is falling apart at the seams. That is not the way to go.

The way to go forward is to quietly, doggedly erode and poach at the most likely candidates and draw them to the Right of Congress... so that only the pro-Maino opportunists and Borderline Maoists (hopeless cases) are "left" to constitute a totally discredited Left in the Indian people's eyes!

I really, really hope the BJP is playing this quiet game, given such a golden opportunity. Watch people like Sri Sri Ravishankar, and the pro-NDA centrist politicos to see what they are doing, whom they are reaching out to. Baba Ramdev could really cash in on this, too, if he plays his cards right. This is not Rahul Gandhi's moment... it is L K Advani's, if he has the wits to seize it.

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