5 REASONS WHY THE LOKPAL MOVEMENT SUCCEEDED

In my last post I had promised that I will discuss about the reasons behind the tremendous success of the Jan Lokpal Movement. Here, given below are 5 reasons explaining why the movement was such a big success.

1. EFFECTIVE CROWD SOURCING : While the overall direction of the movement was managed by a small core group of individuals, every one was allowed to chip in with new ideas, strategies, resources etc. and get associated with the movement. Everything right from mobilizing people to key public places for show of strength to feeding the assembled crowd at RamLila Maidan was all done by individuals not connected directly with the core group. The interesting thing to note here is that although the design of the movement was totally devoid of any order and hierarchy, yet individual actions synchronized beautifully to new information resulting in an output which could easily put to shame the output levels of a highly organised formal machinery. The crowd source philosophy also helped the movement to open a channel for continuous flow of new ideas which would have made desion making quicker and less vulnerable to errors of judgement.

But more than anything else it made the people feel that they were making significant contribution towards bringing of positive change in the country.

2. PROJECTING THE RIGHT IMAGE: Everyone will agree that any act involving display of raw aggression is generally counter productive. Although subtle aggression is widely appreciated as a sign of confidence and self belief its overt display is generally construed as weakness in ones internal thought process and a confusion about true objectives. Unless used effectively aggression is more likely to win foes than friends. By being largely neutral on the aggression front the core group of the movement was not only successful in projecting an image of strength, confidence and decisiveness but also succeeded in generating strong public opinion against the Government and political establishment. The government as well as most of the mainstream political parties on the other hand tended to over rely on aggression to active their objectives which we all know how costly it proved to them. Intact the initial display of mindless aggression proved so counter productive that during the entire episode, Government was invariably on the backfoot. While some might be tempted to think that the government didn't have a strong argument against the movement must keep in view the fact that our country has one of the most vibrant democratic setup in the world and the people of India, so far as my understanding goes have not given up on our parliamentary democracy, at least not yet. Intact the Government was well within its rights to decide the issue of Lokpal through the laid down parliamentary process. Where it went wrong was in conveying the right intentions which again is, like I said earlier an image problem.

3. SEGMENTATION : We all know that the corruption issue has many facets and involves many segments of the society who may have varying degree of exposure to the problem and heterogeneous views on how it needs to be tackled. The complexities involved in bringing diverse segments on board generally compel campaigners to stick to just few segments which exhibit traits of homogeneity. Such strategy although widely used in business for marketing of products, creates constrains and boundaries of adoption which may lead to limited support for the movement ultimately resulting in its failure. The Jan Lokpal Movement deftly handled this problem by consciously focusing one two issues. One, they made the tackling of the corruption issue relevant to as many sections and divisions in the society as possible, thereby drawing their support. Secondly, in order to avoid association with only one social group they ensured that they remained neutral with respect to association with divisions based on caste, religion, political group, income, occupational profile etc.

4. SELFLESS OBJECTIVE: Selflessness is a celebrated virtue across the globe even more so in India on account of its dominance in almost all major religious ideologies found in the sub continent. By keeping themselves and the movement away from any discernible gain from the introduction of Lokpal, the core leadership of the movement placed themselves at a fairly advantageous position than the government which is largely seen to be filled with self serving individuals who are maximizing their gain at the cost of public welfare. The selfless charm of the core leadership of the movement, contrasting as it was to those who occupied positions in the government, struck a chord with the general public in the country which was brimming with anger and disgust for the establishment over rampant corruption and a series of high profile multi million dollar scams.

5. ANNA : In my last post i mentioned that Anna Hazare is just a face of the movement carefully choose by the core leadership to reflect the desired image. I still hold that view. The points mentioned above outlines intangibles that contributed in the success of the movement. But intangibles cannot be seen or felt, and there for unlikely to arouse any emotional attachment to the cause among those subjected to them. For a movement to succeed, just like in brands, there must be tangible cues to support the intangible core ideas. Otherwise, the message is ignored. In case of the Jan Lokpal Movement, Anna was deliberately decided upon to project the intangible message through his presence. Here's how the connection works out. Since Anna Hazare's name has been associated with movements against corruption for past many years, he has more credibility than any other person in the country to talk about anything which is ostensibly related to battling corruption. His sedentary and simple lifestyle, Gandhian philosophy, child like enthusiasm about the cause, self sacrifice for the cause etc. all reinforce the intangibles discussed above. Just his presence, his name was enough for the movement to gain acceptance from the public. Think about it, how many of us would have given a thought to Arvind  Kejriwal or Prashant Bhushan going on indefinite fast, but with Anna it was different, every one wanted to be Anna, even for a few days or hours (thus the "I AM ANNA" caps). And the flow of credibility was actually mutual, i.e. If the movement benefited from the association of Anna, Anna too gained credibility as a national icon.

As I make those post, the Government has already announced the introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill in the parliament which is a big triumph for not only the people associated with the movement but the country as a whole. Anna announcing the end of his long fast said its only a partial victory, to completely eradicate corruption from the country he will , in the coming days press the government to reform the election process, judiciary etc. I think it will be difficult for the team to catch the government offguard next time but given the innovativeness shown by them we have all the reason to eagerly wait for their next move.

YF-ITHINK