Wednesday August 24, 2011 02:42:27 PM,
Sudip Mazumdar,
IANS
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A unique revolution is unfolding
across India. No matter what is the immediate outcome of this
popular upsurge, triggered by the inspiring determination of a
74-year-old man's refusal to eat food till the first step towards
containing the hydra-headed monster of state-encouraged corruption
is taken, Anna Hazare's fast has already become an event of great
historic proportions.
Take a few recent developments in the so-called developed
democracies of the West. In the United Kingdom marauding mobs
robbed innocent people, burned down neighbourhood shops and houses
and attacked police with guns and petrol bombs. In otherwise
placid Norway, extreme hate-filled anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant
mindset led to the mass carnage of innocent students and bombing
of buildings in Oslo. In the preacher of democracy, the United
States, a prolonged recession, mounting unemployment and venal
partisan politics have led to hardening of anti-immigrant
prejudices, instead of a pan-American protest movement. A similar
narrow-minded response is on display across crisis-ridden Europe.
Now contrast that with India's sweeping mass movement. It is
peaceful, non-violent and all-inclusive, propagating a "middle
path" shunning the extremism of Maoists on the one hand and
rightwing bigotry on the other. We must remember that ordinary
Indians have been brutalised for far too long by tyrannical state
functionaries ranging from a ruthless policeman to a shameless
minister looting public money to a pitiless judge allowing the
innocent to rot in prison.
And yet, Indians have not swung either to the extreme left or to
the extreme right. They have steadfastly remained on the middle
path. In a dazzling display of noble human emotions, Indians are
helping each other in this mass uprising in a spirit of service
and fellow feeling. Look at that family of 40 from Ludhiana
distributing food and water at Ramlila grounds and the traders
from Shahdara who are running community kitchens to feed people
and the grandmother from Kurukshetra who cooks food and brings it
to Delhi and shares it with anyone sitting next to her at Ramlila
grounds. Such stories abound across the country.
There is, as if, a race to do as much as one can to help the
fellow human being braving the punishing heat and a callous
government apparatus. There was a blind teacher from Delhi
University who came with his blind wife so that they could let
their one-year-old son see and hear Anna Hazare. There was an
80-year-old ailing professor from Patna who was brought in a
wheelchair by his daughter-in-law so that he could be part of this
social churning before he dies. Groups of poor homemakers from the
suburb of Palwal came every day after finishing their household
chores along with babies in their arms. Taxi-drivers skipped their
work one evening and brought their taxis in a procession and many
gave free rides to fellow protesters. Diasporic Indians also took
to streets from Toronto to London and New York to feel emotionally
connected with the movement back home.
No other popular movement since independence has been able to
generate such nationwide enthusiasm in such a grand scale that is
totally peaceful and non-violent. Even the "total revolution" call
by Jayaprakash Narayan in the seventies evoked a response mainly
among the youth and stayed confined to northern and western India
and sometimes degenerated into violent outbursts.
Cynics and sceptics, unwittingly propping up the indefensible case
of an insensitive and insular ruling establishment, have variously
tried to run down the uprising by picking up a stray slogan here
or an out-of-context comment there or by plainly circulating lies
and misinformation. That is why they are as disconnected from the
ground reality and popular aspirations as the government and its
corrupt minions are.
We must celebrate the swelling popular participation in the
uprising that has forced the elected representatives to be
accountable in an unprecedented way. If the legislators were truly
representing the people, they would be milling among the peaceful
crowds, and not hide in fear in their well-guarded, fenced and
usurped prime real estate.
This churning will go toward strengthening democracy and making it
more meaningful and relevant. Democracy does not mean voting once
in five years and allowing the elected politician to lord over
people and to loot public money and resources, secured in
comfortable enclaves and protected by phony legalese.
It is the criminal masquerading as politician who has degraded
parliament and its procedures, not the long suffering Indian
people who are out on the street today demanding accountability
and transparency - two hallmarks of real democracy. And the
citadel of corruption is shaking. It is time to be proud of
India's vibrant and exemplary democratic revolution.
Sudip Mazumdar is
long-time foreign correspondent based in New Delhi and a keen
political observer. The views expressed are personal. He can be
contacted at sudipm@gmail.com
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Anna mocks Congress charge of RSS, BJP support.
But in Malegaon, BJP is using
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