Dedications

The recent euphoria of the Anna Hazare revolution was nothing short of a ‘block buster movie’ that creates waves and then fizzles. There is no doubt that what he has done will take decades for someone to emulate. Like during our Independence struggle, we had illustrious and illume nary leaders like Mahatma Gandhi to Swami Vivekananda to Subhash Chandra Bose, and the list was impressive. So too after independence we did have good people like a Khairnar in Maharashtra, or a Medha Patkar, or a Kiran Bedi. None could last, as the system ensured they were silenced if not killed. Killed were honest civil servants who raised their voice against corrupt government practices and this did not get media attention and it could not be hyped for long in the media. Some commissions got set up to protect ‘whistle blowers’, which succeeded in silencing the whistle. ‘Na rahengi bas na bajegi basuri’.

So no one dares to fight. Everyone gets into the rut of making a living, instead of living to make the society better for the next generation. Families need to be fed, children need to be educated, and materialistic desires keep the common man cloistered in his environment of rat race, which is more a rut race. A Mukesh Ambani can have the world’s most expensive house, but the poorest infrastructure to drive to it, the most polluted environment around it, and maybe a ghetto in the neighborhood. How much can your money buy? Beyond that there is a world that cannot be changed with money and power. Yes with either you can accumulate more wealth, ensure a corruption machinery of a coterie of politicians, bureaucrats, civil servants, media, to keep feeding insatiable greed, which pays way to the scams we have been faced with. The greed levels have seeped so deep, that it can even have siblings fight each other. So when you cannot share with your own sibling what are you going to share with society?

With Anna Hazare there is the political machinery across party lines that are toiling hard to make sure his good does not last. Corruption can never be finished, but people who crusade towards it are. The support of candle light meetings and fasting ain’t going to achieve much. It’s is like a Ramadan for Muslims or Lent for Christians or Shravan period for the Hindus, where is this period we light candles or incense sticks and fast or abstain. Despite that even God cannot help us; to the state we have brought our society too. We create the mess and pray to God to do the janitors job..

We may not be able to achieve the heroic levels or have even an iota of courage like Anna Hazare, but can we start somewhere. Start with the smallest or the easiest thing that we can do. It could be as simple as not buying a movie ticket in black. Yes you may have to pay black money to buy a house, as that could be a necessity, and one cannot escape it and try to be patriotic, and be without a roof. Let us think of small areas, where we can make a difference. We may not or cannot or don’t want to be the next Hazare. Atleast can we try to think small and act on small things that can bring about a change, or we going to wait for the next Anna Hazare to come by then it may be too late.

Even if that happens are we then just going to wear a Tee and cap that reads “I am Anna Hazare”, or we going to be one now?