Revolution is on the move. The wind that had initiated some where in Middle East ,had at least, made its presence felt in the state which claims to be the biggest democracy. And those who have their senses active enough could have smelt the fragrance of the so called “Jasmine revolution” in the cacophonous ambience of stoic belief that “Elected people cannot be dethroned”.
The 72 year old crusader turned social activist with his ilk showed the way carrying a self-fuelled lamp that had light enough to enlighten a few, who had the will but not the way, carving out a path in a corruption-obsessed country. The fact that a 10-member committee has been formed to investigate the Lokpal Bill and the resignation of the all-powerful Sharad Powar from the GOM out of desperation implicate that the din of demonstration has not fallen into deaf ears and that the 98-hour hunger strike has done more than just shuddering the doors of the highest powers.
The number that kept increasing at Jantar Mantar on every passing day and the country-wide support that Mr.Hazare received was heartening and it also went to show that Indians never lacked enthusiasm on a country’s call but somehow the vigour goes dormant due to self-made obstacles.
The practice of leaving by the corrupt-system without daring or bothering to change it could arguably be the one that would top the list of obstacles. The problem is an entrenched problem, as deep to the level that ‘giving bribe to escape out ,save time or get things done without much of a fuss’ is astonishingly unbridled and as arbitrary as kicking the ball to a net. Very few mind giving a meagre 20 rupees to a college-peon in order to avoid a long queue, a gentle placing of a 100-rupee note in a traffic policeman’s pocket bails out a guilty biker from being lawfully charged and the same story goes from a root-level government to the highest powers, what changes is the magnitude of the bribe with every step ahead, however the ease of getting things done prevails. The system that makes people do such acts with utmost casualness makes them intransient to the fact that in a way they are watering a tree which is deeply-rooted , which had its seeds sown probably at the wake of the civilization, and which is growing as steadily as ever.
The second obstacle could be the hype that we give to muscle and money. And beneath the layer of undeserving hype that we render to those who build their stature more by the obsequious environment that we make them to live in rather than the muscle and money that they possess, lies a sense of social-inferiority that we people put ourselves into. People with hierarchical power and rich fathers will always take the undue advantage and keep taking the world along with them in their wrongdoings provided the self-adulterated system that we live in.
We live in a country which is a victim of political wars where fingers pointed at the corruption of Maharashtra by one political party(BJP) is cross-fingured for the similar situation in Karnataka by the other(Cngress),Congress’s involvement in “cash –for-vote” scandal as claimed by BJP is counter-attacked by Arun Jaitley’s two-faced verbosity on Hindu nationalism. None of these political parties are however concerned that these issues represent the darkness of our politics and have to be lawfully resolved . In such grim circumstances where we are in a strand hole and a way-out is seemingly missing, a certain Anna Hazare popping out from a population of people who love to be in the background and cheer,in a quest of doing something that is perhaps next to impossible and that is-driving out corruption from India, has to be saluted. Our present which thrives on such a astounding past where he had leaders like Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi, Rajguru and the list that we are proud to have, it is disappointing that the present India has a million followers but not a thousand leaders. May be the above obstacles pointed out could be the reasons. Besides, there are not many who could say as Mr.Hazare said-“I don’t fear death and I have no one to mourn over my deadbody”. Probably , the genes of such monumental freedom fighters of the past have been received by only a few great leaders of the present. Mr.Anna Hazare is one among them.
