"Be wary of false prophets is a timely message on false prophets.  A prophet is one who enlightens the public on truth and not on falsehood. It is the crowd of young people misled by a false prophet who himself did not have the knowledge of truth and also by the media who created a larger than life image for Anna.  It is not merely awakening the youth of India against the dragon of corruption.  A true prophet leads the youth of this nation to a practicable solution.  According to Anna, the Jan Lok Pal Bill is the solution. Social activist Anna Hazare clamors for a “strong” Lok Pal to curb corruption in high places as if by the passing of the Lok Pal Bill of the version submitted by him to the Central Govt. would get rid of corruption in our nation by a magic band. Corruption is likened to a snake.  This snake can be killed by a stick in your or my hand and we do not need a monster to kill a snake. Why should create a dragon like organization giving its absolute power to punish the corrupt?  How can a true prophet be expected to get a bill passed in Parliament which sought to create a very big monstrous central institution even overriding the federal powers of the states for bringing 80 lakh state government officials and 40 lakh central government officials in the country under its purview.  

Truly, false prophets attract crowds to spread their message of hatred against established government and not to spread the knowledge of truth.  False prophets attract media to spread their messages whereas true prophets propagating messages of universal love avoid showing their faces before television channels and shun popularity.

Truth walks on its two legs whereas falsehood has its wing. The message of Anna Hazare was spread fast through its wing but the movement has petered out because his message was not based on truth."

(The author Job Anbalagan may be contacted on his email id: jobanbalagan@gmail.com) 

One Mr.Zafar Iqbal, a former IAS Officer of Maharashtra cadre has sent me a mail after reading my blog which is quoted below:

I chanced about your views on Anna Hazare, about who I, as a former IAS Officer in Maharashtra, have known about, personally. You have put it very properly and I hope that more and more people begin to realise the hollowness of the man. 

His first claim to fame/social change was that he “took the law in his own hands”: he belted a few drunken eve-teasers from his village with his regulation Army belt, having recently retired from the Indian Army. Granted that it had some salutary effect in his village. But is that the kind of law we want in our country? 

Then he is said to have “solved” water scarcity problems in the village by making people share the scarce water resources. Why can this not be duplicated over the rest of the scarcity-hit parts of Maharshtra, where his village, Ralegaon Siddhi, is located? Where is the holistic and proven track record of his achievement? 

He is known to have “walked out” of most meetings with the administrators and political leaders, who are, whether you like or not, part of a system of governance, in our country. And to try and replace that would call for a far greater change management than he is asking for. 

Corruption is cancer, is a curse, is a cause of so many other evils of our country. Who can say no to that? But to say that we can get rid of it by one Lok Pal Bill would be a naïveté of a belief. In our country, as anywhere, corruption exists because of too much governance and wherever there are people willing to give money, there will be people willing to accept it. 

After trying to reduce the licence-permit Raj we will need to reduce the “Inspector Raj” to be able to “REDUCE” corruption which hurts all of us at the most daily levels of our lives. Only that will reduce corruption to any limit possible. 

Calling the government’s attempt a “Joke-Pal” Bill is undermining an existing system as badly as would an armed revolution would do. 

AND, reconnecting an illegal power connection, as a former colleague of Mr Anna Hazare, the former IRS Officer, Mr Arvind Kejriwal, did, is ONLY perpetuating that corruption! 

Calling Mr Anna Hazare someone who is 10,000 times better than Mahatma Gandhi not only exposes the immaturity and pitiable lack of knowledge of the person who said that as well as the person who wrote about that in the National Newspapers.   

Today’s’ media makes or breaks careers. There is such a thing as an “over-kill”. For instance, take Mr Srinivasan, the “former” Chairman of the BCCI. Of late our newspapers are full of his photos and nothing but more and more about him. As if no other news has been made in the country or the world. Likewise, Mr Anna Hazare was needed by the media then to fill its pages. That is all. He, surely, as you have so well-surmised, is no prophet! 

I thank you for boldly writing that piece of yours as few would have had the courage to write against the tide. (I wonder if my views too could be shared by more people as yours!)

Regards,