Anna Hazare, the man of the moment in India today. A jolly old man with infectious smile, calm demeanor, 75 years, wears white and a Gandhi Topi. His crusade against corruption has caught the Indian imagination. What do I make of it? Well read on…

Indians are fed up of corruption, a traffic police never catches us because he wants us to respect the law. He shrewdly waits for us to make an error and then pounces on us to make us pay, not towards the govt. coffers, but towards his. For most Indians, everyday is a struggle. Be it at work, in traffic, be it in banks, govt. offices. We want to get things done and then move on to the next todo. Corruption preys on this.

Anna Hazare, through his movement, has got all of us together, not because we want his version of Lokpal, but because he has decided to take on corruption. Corruption frustrates us, and we will lap up anything that provides us relief. When we hear of ministers being responsible for corruption that runs into lakhs of crores, while a common man struggles to make a decent living in the face of high inflation, rising costs… it makes us mad. And in supporting Anna, we are hoping that his movement might usher in atleast a few changes.

Another thing working for Anna, I think, might be how he is likened to Gandhi. For most of us, we have read about Gandhi, seen a few movies, few clips. His ways of protesting against injustice through non-violent Satyagraha, is almost mythical to us who were born and brought up in turbulent/violent times, seen human brutality under the garb of righteousness. Nowhere, had we witnessed for ourselves this form of protest. And when you see a old man, who has a proven record for doing change, walking this path, trying to do something right, it wows us. It’s this unreal aspect of doing something exactly opposite to violent protests to prove a point, that restores within us the hope that finally the good guy can win, that inspires us to follow the person.

He has made us to start to believe that maybe, just maybe we can collectively bring in change…