Wisdom of crowds
The Indian Express
The Indian Express
editorial Posted: Thu Dec 29 2011, 02:41 hrs
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It made a wan sight — the expanse of Mumbai’s MMRDA ground, the site for the next phase of Anna Hazare’s “second independence struggle”, looked even larger because of the small crowd pressing into the centre. Less than a tenth of the numbers expected actually showed up. What a change from a few months back, when Team Anna seemed to be the unstoppable force that collided with the immovable government. All this summer, Team Anna spoke to roaring crowds, and claimed to speak for them. They pitted this mass of people, united for a single cause, against the cloistered Parliament. Even in places where they didn’t have the numbers, strategically placed television cameras inflated their strength, made a bunch look like an army.
And these images were crucial for Team Anna, they used these to convey their legitimacy among the people, and their right to speak truth to the remote, “treacherous” elected representatives. They went to the constituencies of many of the UPA’s leaders, conducted their own surveys and referenda in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies and claimed, for instance, that 96 per cent of the people would not vote for their MPs again if the Jan Lokpal Bill was not passed. Their implicit threat, with the “jail bharo campaign”, was to embarrass the government and disable normal life as their agitators massed into prison. If Team Anna had not hinged their entire campaign on the power of their numbers, perhaps the showing in the MMRDA maidan would not have been such a statement on their reduced clout.
Crowds matter — and it is their will, filtered through representative institutions, that is manifest in legislation. But Team Anna, perhaps intoxicated by the sheer numbers they drew to their events, seemed to think that crowds were all that mattered, and that made their version of the bill the only right one. They had little patience for deliberation, the idea that some crowds might disagree with other crowds, or that brute majority was not the only consideration in enacting a law.
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It made a wan sight — the expanse of Mumbai’s MMRDA ground, the site for the next phase of Anna Hazare’s “second independence struggle”, looked even larger because of the small crowd pressing into the centre. Less than a tenth of the numbers expected actually showed up. What a change from a few months back, when Team Anna seemed to be the unstoppable force that collided with the immovable government. All this summer, Team Anna spoke to roaring crowds, and claimed to speak for them. They pitted this mass of people, united for a single cause, against the cloistered Parliament. Even in places where they didn’t have the numbers, strategically placed television cameras inflated their strength, made a bunch look like an army.
And these images were crucial for Team Anna, they used these to convey their legitimacy among the people, and their right to speak truth to the remote, “treacherous” elected representatives. They went to the constituencies of many of the UPA’s leaders, conducted their own surveys and referenda in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies and claimed, for instance, that 96 per cent of the people would not vote for their MPs again if the Jan Lokpal Bill was not passed. Their implicit threat, with the “jail bharo campaign”, was to embarrass the government and disable normal life as their agitators massed into prison. If Team Anna had not hinged their entire campaign on the power of their numbers, perhaps the showing in the MMRDA maidan would not have been such a statement on their reduced clout.
Crowds matter — and it is their will, filtered through representative institutions, that is manifest in legislation. But Team Anna, perhaps intoxicated by the sheer numbers they drew to their events, seemed to think that crowds were all that mattered, and that made their version of the bill the only right one. They had little patience for deliberation, the idea that some crowds might disagree with other crowds, or that brute majority was not the only consideration in enacting a law.
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