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Saturday, August 27, 2011www.deccanherald.com
Indias pied piper
When was the last time yousaw a 20-year-old wave theTricolour
and shoutBharatMata Ki Jai, wearing a de-termined look and a
Gandhi
topion her head? Not in a period film, butin real life? Isnt the
answer last week? Andwasnt it possibly the first time in about60
years? And doesnt it bring a lump inthe throat to see so many young
peoplewith their bright shining eyes, earnestfaces and acid-washed
jeans wearingkhadikurtas and standing under umbrellas infalling
rain in Delhis Ramlila Maidan, inMumbais Azad Maidan, in
BangaloresFreedom Park: shouting slogans about themotherland that
we thought they had for-gotten a longtime back.
From Main bhi corrupt (I am alsocorrupt) to Main bhi Anna(I am
alsoAnna), India seems to have changed hatsin the last fortnight.
There might be prosand cons to the Anna Hazare movementand
intellectual murmurs of discontentbut it does look like this
74-year-old manhas made a younger generation step outof Barista
coffee bars, chuck their design-er caps, headphones and Ray Bans
forGandhi topis and national flags. The sur-
job, buy tickets in black for a super hit filmabout a corrupt
and fearless cop weseem to have once again become Mahat-ma Gandhis
country of people who wantto participate in the change they want
tobring about.
The social media has played a very im-portant part in getting a
country of a billionplus together, particularly young college
kids the Facebook/Twitter generation who were born long after
Gandhi diedand are getting a feel of what strugglesand causes are
all about. Indias so calledsecond fight for freedom freedom
fromcorruption is starting with elementarylessons. Naturally, there
is a nursery rhymefor beginners. Twinkle twinkle little star;Anna
is our rock star!Thats how it goes.
Living
hand on the heart and say we never paid abribe to get a driving
license; or got a pass-
port in an emergency by dishing outa few extra thousand bills;
or usedan office car for a private trip or anofficial phone for a
personal call;or paid money in black besides
white for a flat or a piece of land?Very few, if any. Not only
havewe done all this, we have alsoemployed underage children
for housework/looking afterthe baby/the shop; paid bareminimum
wages to menialemployees who need the jobso desperately that
theywont protest. We have
bribed traffic police, got train
reservations on a discreet ex-tra payment, managed postingby
greasing palms. Corruptionhas become a way of life for usso
completely that anyone who
cannot or will not indulge in it islabeled a fool. Its true that
the Jan
Lokpal Bill cannot change this onits own, or overnight. But
Kisan Babu-
rao Hazare, now of course Anna (el-der brother) to the whole
world, hastaught young India to think about is-
sues other than a degree in a foreignuniversity, a job with an
MNC or a nightat the pub. He has taught them about
the country that they belong to; aboutsatyagraha and Gandhian
means ofprotest (something most of us had for-
gotten) and the passion of supportinga social cause. He has got
them singing
Vande Mataram again when we werenteven sure they knew the words.
He hasthem waving the Tricolour and shoutingslogans that must make
the tears well upin their grand or great grandparents eyeswho saw
this kind of passion only duringthe Freedom Movement.
From a nation that has celebrated cor-ruption in all these years
of independence we boast about the black money wehave, give each
other tips of which palmsto grease and with how much for a
certain
UNLIKELY BONDING How dida 74-year-old get Indias Facebookand
Twitter generation to step outof Barista coffee bars, chuck
theirdesigner caps, headphones andRay Bans for Gandhi
topisandnational flags? Rachna Bisht-Rawattries to answer
prise element of the Anna Haz-are drive to bring on a strongJan
Lokpal Bill has been the par-ticipation of youth the Face-book and
Twitter generation.The campaign seems to have tak-en the country
back to pre-Inde-pendence India and introducedyoung India to a
leader they canrespect and a cause they need tofight for.
Young theatre actors in Hyder-abad, school teachers in
Muzza-farnagar, Air Force employees inHyderabad, office assistants
inJammu who dont know each otherbut know the common pain theywant
to rid their country of are comingtogether in spirit inspired by an
old manwho seems to have unleashed a madness.Candlelight vigils,
dharnas, demonstra-tions, shaved heads, sand sculptures witha dozen
Annas rising up on sandy oceanbeaches are colouring our TV
screens.School girls with fat pigtails and blue uni-forms waving
paper flags, college boyswith the Tricolours painted on barebrown
chests, young smiling volunteersdishing out alu ki sabziand rice
from
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Yes, I have thought of India and corrup-tion but no more so than
many othercountries I have travelled in Indonesia,Malaysia, China,
Italy etc. The Anna cam-paign has not changed the way I look
atIndians. I look upon Indians favourablyand always have done but I
am excited forIndia that this campaign has gained asmuch momentum
as it has. I like to thinkthat those that are powerless in the
faceof corruption, officialdom and big busi-ness have a voice and
that that voice ap-pears to be getting louder.
CHARLES MABBETT,Communications Adviserand former journalist, New
Zealand
India takes the cake in be-ing a corrupt nation.Everybody is
smotheredin corruption. I am rathersceptical about the
AnnaCampaign. You make aneffigy and blow life into it,
endow supreme powers to it, but can youreally guarantee that
your Frankensteinwill not go astray and deviate from thecause?
Guess we will have to wait andwatch.AMIT RAUTELA,Business Manager,
TechTree IT Systems
Corruption, like greed, is inherent in hu-
man beings. It often stems because of anunequal society, where
the rich benefitmore from the corrupt structures and thepoor face
the heat of it. While it is easy topoint out government officials,
bureau-crats and politicians as the corrupt lot,how many of us have
not bribed to makethings quicker for us? In societies whererich
businessmen and the elite are seenas role models, there will always
be theitch to reach the top,whatever the means maybe. The Anna
campaign
has not changed the waypeople look at corruption.Rather, it has
been veryeasy to brush aside thebigger questions plaguingIndia
ranging from rampant poverty,hunger, malnutrition and poor
healthcare. Yes, there are deep-rooted prob-lems surrounding
corruption. More thanquestioning corruption, we need to ques-tion
injustices. We need to question ex-ploitative policies which allow
a narrowsection of society to benefit at the cost ofthe majority.
When we question injus-tices and find solutions for them, we
willfind solutions for corruption also.NISHANK,Secretariat
Coordinator,Alliance for Sustainable and HolisticAgriculture
(ASHA)
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Thus speaketh the young...
Anna ki Rasoiat Ramlila Maidan or paint-ing national flags on
willing cheeks; theseare the newly recruited soldiers of oldman
Anna. They are the ones standingvigil in the sun and rain; in
sultry Augustevenings and dark fasting nights, not justin metros
like Delhi and Mumbai but alsoplaces like Karad and Kotdwar, Moga
andManali.
We are a corrupt country. We are acorrupt people. How many of us
can put a
