Anna must rein in Prashant Bhushan otherwise should dissociate him from his team.

Sadly, Prashant Bhushan after earning immense love and respect of people for his anti-corruption crusade seem to have lost his way. As a Petitioner and Lawyer in 2G Scam case, he has done a commendable job. His courage and advocacy skills as a petitioner and lawyer in 2G scam case, have shaken the country and the govt., sending several ministers, MPs and top industrialists in Jail and probably some more may follow the suit. Also, as a key member of Anna Team , through his boldness, courage and intelligence, he has facilitated the Lokpal Movement against corruption very successfully so far. However, it seems success, love and support of people, earned by him for espousing the national cause, seem to have gone to his head. He seems to be considering him all knowledgeable, all powerful and most intelligent person on the earth. Also he seems to have been bugged by “terrible intellectualism”, which earlier bugged other intellectuals and human right activists like Arundhati Roy etc. As a result, he has started echoing the tone of Pakistanis and separatists in Kashmir asking for conducting plebiscite in the country. His such irresponsible remarks have sent shock waves across the nation causing deep hurt to the nationalistic sentiments of the people. And yesterday’s incident, although being most unfortunate one deserving all condemnation, probably was also the manifestation of the anger and deep hurt of nationalistic sentiments of some people, who took his seditious statement to their heart. Whatever happened yesterday was very unfortunate; however yesterday’s incident should have led him to introspection that after being “darling of masses” till a few days ago, why, all of a sudden, he has become the “biggest villain” in the country? Now those very social network mediums like face-book, twitter etc., earlier supporting him so wholeheartedly in his war against corruption, seems to be replete with hate-messages and hate-remarks against him. This new development should have made him realize his mistake and amend suitably. However, instead of learning from his mistake and making suitable amendments in his speech and action on this sensitive issue, he continues to sing in the same tune. Also, he seems to be antagonizing same people and organizations, who have supported Anna’s movement so whole-heartedly. He is calling them “fascists”, ”communal” and asking ban on all such organizations. It is really very irresponsible of Prashant Bhushan. He doesn’t realize that how his irresponsible statements, earlier on Kashmir and now against very those people and organizations(who earlier supported him in his anti-corruption crusade), are weakening Anna’s movement against corruption.

Now, it is high time Anna should intervene, ask Prashant Bhushan to apologize for whatever he said earlier on Kashmir or at least ask him not to make similar statements in future. If Prashant Bhushan is willing to change his track, it is good otherwise he should be dissociated from his core team. This would be extremely unfortunate for Prashant Bhushan, who has done so much for the war against corruption; however, in order to keep the sentiments of the movement high and continue to enjoy the support of the masses, Anna may have to take this extremely painful decision.

In the interest of Anna’s movement against corruption, all sensible and right thinking people would pray to the God that good sense prevails on Prashant Bhushan and he changes his track and controls his ego, overconfidence, arrogance, “terrible intellectualism” so that Anna is not forced to take this “extremely painful” decision of dissociating Prashant Bhushan from his movement against corruption.