The meeting on May 30, 2011 on Jan Lokpal Bill between the government and the members of the Civil Society was quite disastrous in the words of the Civil Society members. 

“It started with Anna demanding more frequent meetings as the progress had been quite slow till now. Anna also said that the government had been postponing discussions on even simple issues so far. At this rate, the meetings would continue indefinitely. Broadly, the government disagreed on almost everything.”

So far the government strategy has been as follows:

1. Keep the cards close to the chest, delay the talks, agree on trivia, stall any real progress and hope by then the heat of anticorruption movement cools off. Then show your real cards.
   
2. Use the political strategy of negotiations. Make all absurd and unreasonable demands. Wear down the opponents. Slowly give in on a few points under the cover of being responsive to the country. Gain major concessions from desperate Civil Society members. Eventually maintain the status of the executive, legislative and judicial members as those beyond any effective legal accountability to the nation.

Why Are They Doing It?
 
The current situations in terms of the expected events in the immediate future are volatile at best. Baba Ramdev starts his Satyagraha on June 4 against corruption and illegal money stashed abroad. 

1. Does the government truly believe it is right in demanding that the Prime Minister, higher judiciary, MPs (during the course of parliamentary actions) are beyond any meaningful accountability to the people and the nation?
   
2. Does the government believe that the outpour of public support the Civil Society received during early April was a one time event? Does it believe that the Indian public is too indifferent to sustain the kind of commitment required to see the Jan Lokpal Bill through?
   
3. Is government deliberately pushing the Civil Society to start phase two of their Satyagraha in the same time frame as Baba Ramdev movement?
   
4. Is this an attempt to keep these two camps from joining and helping each other? Would the country’s focus be so heavily directed toward Ramdev that nobody will pay attention to the outcry of the Civil Society?
   
5. Is the government so arrogant and self centered as to ignore any outcry from the nation as eventually inconsequential?
   
6. Has the government decided that going along the demands of the Civil Society and Ramdev would eventually spell its demise anyway and therefore why not fight it out?
   
7. If point 6 above is plausible, is the government ready to use force to quash the Satyagraha movements? In this scenario is it ready to face the situation similar to what happened in Egypt and continues to play out in other middle-east countries?

It is very hard to predict political maneuvers since they are seldom based on rational and benevolent thought process. People enter the political career with one of the following motives:

1. To serve the country.
2. To serve the self and in the process end up serving the country.
3. To serve the self without regards to serving the country.
4. To serve the self at the expense of the country.  

The UPA government has finally started showing its true color. 
 
It does not take a genius to figure out where our “leaders” fit in the above spectrum. One has to also wonder what would NDA and other opposition parties do now? Would they actively support the Civil Society any further as in the past?
 
As I have said earlier, we are at crossroads here and fast approaching a point of no return. The Civil Society will have to choose its course of action very carefully. Their assets are limited in terms of national intellectual and emotional support. They have to utilize these assets very judiciously. One thing is for sure – They cannot compromise on the basic objectives of the Jan Lokpal Bill. They have no choice but to prepare themselves for the next Satyagraha. They have to coordinate it well with the Ramdev movement organizers.