There is a sudden change in the tone and tenor of public debate ever since Anna's fast at Mumbai 'failed' to get people's support. Anna was unwell and had to retreat physically to recuperate. Most of the commentators including some of the paid news channels and some politically sponsored writers/speakers/political commentators and some of those who knew everything in this universe including when the ice would cease to melt at Antarctica. They not only wrote off Anna and his movement, they also began to find fault. Some of these great and sagacious observers noted with trepidation that had Anna succeeded, it would have sounded a death knell to our democracy. And when the same Anna was sprinting down the Ramlila maidan not long ago, the media and the neutral commentators were all going gaga over it. Government was roundly criticized by all and sundry and the whole nation seemed so much enamoured of Anna and his team simply because he upheld the highest tradition of public participation in a true democracy. Democracy did not mean only those talking in the talking shops. It meant those speaking from the streets as well. 

All those lofty observations have now been consigned to the nearest dustbin. Why? Because they see the upper hand of the political masters before whom these people kowtow day in and day out. Why? Because they are all honourable men and women. 

Indeed, much water has flowed down ever since. Anna and his team did not have any definite outfit, least of all a political outfit. There were demands from the volunteers from all over the country to float an outfit, create a structure so that the movement could be given a concrete shape. Anna too seemed to have agreed to the idea of creating a structure. That is why he had spoken about creating a constitution so that people at the helm of this movement could be entrusted with definite task and could be held accountable for acts. The team was extra cautious because it knew that not all of those involved in this movement against corruption were free from taint and they could very well give a bad name to the movement. That would have been more injurious for the health of the movement than the fact that due to Anna's indifferent health and some strategic errors (?) gave this movement a jolt. Setback! Yes, one may easily say that. Failure! I am not so sure even as many make it look like that. But in any case the movement itself does not stand discredited for whatever the new critics may say. And those who say it was a movement against democracy are abjectly wrong. Democracy is people and people in great numbers are associated with this movement even after MMRDC fiasco. Delhi's inclement weather was primarily responsible for this failure. The other reason was Anna's miscalculation. He urged people not to converge to Mumbai and instead join the stir at their own respective places. This way he dissuaded many from other places to hjoin