Why Anna Hazare does not impress me

I am a hard-nosed start-up entrepreneur, trained to create value out of thin air. My business involves motivating people, making them believe in a do-or-die cause and then ‘Pied Pipering’ them towards an end goal. I relate to Anna Hazare and his valiant efforts. However, Anna fails to impress me. This is why:

Intent

The intent of Anna Hazare’s mission confuses me. Is it to end corruption or to insert his own bill in the Indian government system, or both?

Is this ‘intent’ really worth the brouhaha? Ending corruption is like ending prostitution. Noble in intent but impossible in execution. I’m not ‘for’ corruption. I’m questioning if a struggling, underdeveloped country like ours needs to focus more on eradicating poverty and illiteracy, rather than struggling to cure a disease called corruption; which sometimes hurts but does not kill?

Method

I don’t appreciate mass agitation; let’s hold the government and country to ransom method. Isn’t this movement wrongly educating Indian ‘influencers’ that they can paralyse everyday life in the interest of their cause? Also, shouldn’t the approach be to solve one tangible issue at one time? Say, if it’s corruption at the Octroi Naka in Mumbai, then let everyone get together and just eradicate than one problem. If that is successfully resolved than we leap to the next problem.

Promise

What will Indian citizens like me really get at the end of this? Another bagful of promises from the government? Or a real tangible end result? Unicef promises to erase polio from India and they are systematically doing so year after year (less than 10 cases reported in India this year). Promise me something realistic and make that happen. Then I will buy from you next time also.

End Goal

Every movement, every business, every mission has an end goal. In Anna Hazare’s case, what I see is a loosely hanging, ‘in-the-air’ movement. It seems to drift, gather steam and then dissipate again. What exactly is the end goal? Is it just to get some Bill into the Indian government’s system? That’s it? What after that?

Scalable

Anything that creates massive value (monetary or social) has an infinitely scalable DNA. It’s like a movement developing a life of its own, that propels itself towards, fulfilling its cause. I do not see ‘disruptive’, pressure-tactic movements and missions being scalable. On the contrary, they deflate quickly and self-destruct.

Sociality

Honestly, the more I look at the current Anna Hazare movement, the more it looks like a ‘social’ rock concert. Indians celebrating rebellion more than the cause for which they assembled. I bet that less than 10% of the youngsters rallying don’t even know what the Lok Pal Bill is — leave alone what’s inside it. Also, given that this event takes law and order in its own hands, is this mission what we want young Indians to emulate? Is this the place where our young sons and daughters should gain their first ‘social’ experience?

Anna Hazare has to realise that what he did 50 years ago is passé. He should be motivating Indians to attack real social matters with their brains and not with their slogans and stomachs.

Alok Kejriwal is a serial digital entrepreneur. He blogs at rodinhood.com