What one saw on the morning of April 9, 2011, when social activist Anna Hazare broke his fast unto death after the government of India accepted his demands relating to the enactment of legislation to set up an independent institutional mechanism to deal with corruption was the end of the initial tactical phase of this confrontation between the government and a group of civil society activists and the beginning of the strategic phase.
The victory in the initial tactical skirmishes was with the civil society activists led by Anna Hazare. Confronted with a rapidly developing movement, which assumed the dimensions of a storm within four days of its start --aided by widespread anger and disgust over the perceived foot-dragging by the government on the issue of action against those allegedly involved in serious cases of corruption-- the government of Dr.Manmohan Singh caved in and accepted all the demands in order to buy for itself time to recover from the surprise caused by the assertion of Youth Power on the issue and the emerging unity of action between social and student activists. This was a phenomenon that the government had not anticipated.
The government accepted the demands of the civil society coalition not because it was fully convinced that their demands are legitimate, but because it realised that having been taken totally by surprise, it had no other option but to concede their initial demands. It was a tactical concession to the view-point of the civil society coalition and not a strategic acceptance of it.
The government's decision to concede a tactical victory to the civil society coalition was based on two apparent calculations. Firstly, the unexpected coalition between the social and students, activists may not be durable and may break asunder with the flux of time. Secondly, once the coalition demobilises its fighters after its tactical victory it may find it difficult to re-mobilise them if another confrontation develops and this could give the necessary time to the government to prepare itself for the next round. Histories of people's movements often show that once they demobilise half-way, they find it difficult to re-mobilise. We are seeing this in Egypt now.
It would be unwise on the part of the government to take advantage of the breather offered by the agreement on the setting-up of a joint committee of government and civil society representatives in an attempt to create divisions within the civil society coalition. It could prove counter-productive and further weaken the credibility of the government. The national movement against corruption spearheaded by Anna Hazare and the long chain of government inactions on the issue of corruption that preceded it have clearly highlighted certain realities: