Babagiri

After Anna Hazare, the next star in the horizon seems to be Baba Ramdev. Quite interestingly, Ramdev could’ve been the original hero in this crusade but he was done in by his lack of clarity or maturity, which even Hazare claims to be the case, in how to place himself vis-à-vis the popular sentiment against corruption.

Anna, for all one knows, looked at it as a crusade. But Ramdev looked at it as dip-stick test to find out his reach and to find out if this was the moment to start his career in politics. Ramdev, on several previous occasions, had spoken out against black-money and corruption, and also about his intent to start a political party but he never took his campaign, if there was any, anything further than making statements. He lost the plot to Anna, and realized, only very late in the day, that the mass following he had could have been easily galvanized to give him a greater standing in public. His Ramlila affair seemed a too hastily arranged effort and even there the flip-flops that marked the entire drama reduced everything to a daily soap plot.

When he could've got some mileage, he exposed his naiveté through his list of demands. People came back saying one should focus on the essence of his demands and not in details but any average person on the street has also been making a similar set of demands – then where does it place Ramdev with respect to others? Another opportunity, a rather unfortunate incident in itself, in the form of the government excesses at the Ramlila grounds, was again thrown away by Ramdev when he made statements of building an army to set things in order. Clearly, he has a lot to learn about politics. His joining Anna’s movement would’ve done him more good than what he envisaged by opening another front on the issue of black money. His going on fast wouldn’t redeem him any lost ground as his credibility stands questioned in the face of doubts about the origin of his assets. It’s a botched up affair and Baba, at least for a while, should go back to what he does best.