Tremors In My Heart

Few seconds of tremors in the capital on Wednesday night made me think how emotional independence was no less important than being financially self-reliant.

I was alone at my rented flat in Delhi, all set to decide which shirt to wear to office the next morning. As I stood before the steel almirah, it started making a shattering sound.

Before I could judge the situation, I heard an electric spark followed by a total blackout in the colony. I groped for a torch and went out in the balcony. People had come out and were discussing the fear they had just witnessed for less than 10 seconds.

I called up my mom but disconnected the phone, thinking it was too late as she might have fallen asleep. A friend called asking if I was fine after the quake.

Staying alone for almost four years now, I thought I was all too brave. But panic struck after I hung up the call. I felt a strange disconnect with the world, none to call and look for strength. Yes, I felt weak. Tears rolling on my cheek, my voice almost choked. I felt I was still dependent on others, betraying my own belief that economic independence freed one from social bondage.

I had been an emotional child, an impulsive teenager till my college days, but became more and more confident as I started working in 2005. I commuted alone in trains and buses from Ghaziabad to Delhi for work, waited for autos at 10 in the night. Facing and killing my fears, I never gave discount to myself on the basis of being a woman.

Lengthy commuting time and odd shifts at work brought me to Delhi in 2007. It wasn’t easy convincing my mother, though.

This was the second time I panicked, last being “intimidated” by a street dog at 11.30 pm some three years ago (at my building’s stairs).

Coincidentally, that was also a second floor apartment with an attached balcony.

Last night’s fear was not of being buried under the debris or harassed by someone at night but the feeling of being alone (without any friends around).

This almost questioned my strength as a woman living in the city alone. Why was I scared? Why couldn’t I lock the door and go downstairs like most other people? Was I waiting for an external help? Who could have saved me from the horror? No one but my inner self could have helped me. But in my fit of emotions, I almost tried to escape the situation and look for support outside.

Had I stood there and told myself that I have to take care of my own, I would have been proud of myself. Instead, I took refuge by speaking at home and became normal (on the surface level), not sure if my brother read the pain in my choked voice.

Friends, not even family, can be with you 24x7. And if we choose a life that demands solitude and introspection, we have to be fearless in all situations.

The tremors taught me a “great lesson” only if I could make it a pillar to carve a story of strength for every woman wanting to be independent. After all, I was not the only one alone in the city.

Why Is Anna Such A Hit?

The newspapers are filled with life and time of a 74-year old man, who loves to talk and doesn’t quite like it if a politician calls him “old”.Well, there has been a deluge of editorials and views off-late on the “second struggle for freedom” as the man in focus, Anna Hazare, calls it. And believing in the same ideal of “democracy” that this man has stood for, I have dared to write this article.

Brilliantly using the Indian Media and cashing in on the current anti-Congress (political) sentiments a social activist launched a fast unto death on April 5, 2011. (Did I say just 2 days after Team India won the ICC World Cup and TV news channels were looking for their next big kill? Oh, come on, that was something I read in another Editorial.)

Irrespective of whether he made any ideological sense or not, the Media jumped into the Anna bandwagon. The whole Anna phenomenon, also being tagged as “August Kranti” by some of my fellow media persons, created a sense of erroneous belief that he was the biggest crusader against corruption.

Suddenly, the entire focus shifted from other important issues like rising prices and escalating crime against woman in the capital to humungous scams India witnessed in the first 2 years of UPA II.

People were so moved by the appeals made by Anna that they even forgot about the lakhs of rupees struck in the “land acquisition controversy” in Greater Noida.

The April 5-9 campaign was a success. Government agreed to form a 10-member joint committee to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill. Almost everyone from the urban middle-class learned the term “civil society.” Not even bothering to know if there was any difference at all between society and civil society. Five (only male) representatives including an eminent father-son duo of lawyers, a Justice (Retd), a former IRS officer and a social activist formed a group named as “Team Anna”.

They held a series of meetings with “Team Manmohan” which included our Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, a veteran Congress leader and a taint-free Cabinet ranked minister.

After several deliberations on an anti-graft bill or the Jan Lokpal Bill, the two sides exchanged their drafts of the same. The discussions were not kept to themselves rather Media was called after almost every meeting to accuse and abuse the ruling political class.

The movement started to change colour from an anti-corruption campaign to an anti-Congress one. As if all the previous non-Congress governments had been corruption free.

There were accusations and counter-accusations among politicians and the new-found representatives of the civil society. Some of the Congress men went to the extent of calling Anna an agent of Hindu nationalist organisation RSS (as a backlash of Centre’s show down on emerging “saffron terror” in the country). There were reports of free meals at Anna’s 12-day battleground, Ramlila Maidan, being funded by one of the affiliates of the right-winged Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Sangh and its associates, however, denied any direct links to the campaign.

It was after the government referred their version of the bill, bypassing Team Anna’s draft of the Jan Lokpal Bill, in the Parliament that the campaign turned more aggressive and in many ways one-dimensional.

Why Anna Is Not Gandhi

The whole Anna movement spoke of either standing with them or being pro-corrupt. This in itself is “undemocratic”. There is always a space for debates and disagreements in a democratic set up. But this seemed to disappear in the second campaign. Anna declared: “You pass my bill, or I shall go on fast-unto-death”.

The theatrics and the symbolism used by Team Anna during the entire campaign made the comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi an anomaly. Gandhi led India’s biggest freedom movement by spreading awareness among the common man.

Here, the situation was completely different. Public emotions played a great role. Most of the people joining the campaign either didn’t know what the Jan Lokpal Bill was or didn’t bother to quantify the implications of implementing all the conditions proposed by Team Anna.

Only a select few could see the castle of “unrealistic” expectations this movement built. A single piece of paper (The Jan Lokpal Bill) promising billions of people including the corrupt ones to rid the country of up to 70% corruption. Amazing, isn’t it?

Ignorance can mobilise crowds, even as the Media can make anything look “larger than life”. Thousands of people pledged support to Annaji without getting into the feasibility aspect of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

The campaign now changed from anti-Congress to anti-Parliament with Anna telling the crowd about how the Jan Sansad was above the real Sansad i.e. The Parliament. People were moved, some celebs and some wannabe activists shared dais with the star campaigner.

People used the stage to vent anger against the ruling Congress. Forgetting that corruption was as much rooted in state politics, as it was in the politics of the Centre.

Policies are made at the Centre but (not) implemented at state levels. Anna never spoke about the corruption in BJP-ruled Karnataka during his entire campaign. (Some of us had not been able to forget his praise for BJP poster boy and Gujarat CM Narendra Modi).

Neither did he spoke on how the present provisions under the law could be strengthened to curb corruption.

How his bill would stop the local policewala to take bribe from hawkers and street vendors. How it would stop shopkeepers at Railway stations and other public places from overcharging consumers. How it would contain the root cause of corruption i.e. malice and sheer poverty? 

Several questions were left unanswered. The entire attention diverted to long speeches, melodrama and extensive live coverage. Some musical bands performing at the venue took care of the rest. Popular youth poet Dr Kumar Vishwas was the stage manager, sometimes citing his famous lines (Koi deewana kehta hai).

Anna’s fast-cum-campaign, criticised of being highly rightist, ended with two Dalit and Muslim girls (hand-picked from the crowd) serving him coconut water with honey. This was the perfect ending to a well choreographed show backed by large-scale SMS, social media campaigns to make sure they did not miss out on the “Youth”.

The August 16th fast-unto-death movement gathered maximum eyeballs on news channels even as the TRPs of TV soaps slumped.

Anna seemed to be the face of the campaign with others like Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi being the real voices behind. The exit of Swami Agnivesh and Justice (Rtrd) Hegde gave force to this belief.

Secondly, Anna’s announcement of a campaign for electoral reforms has left me pondering as to where would this hijacking technique end?  This self-proclaimed Gandhian chose to suggest people to reject an elected representative Govt than to encourage the urban non-voting middle class to vote for the right candidates.

Looking at the huge public support behind him, he should have encouraged people to come forward and join Politics. After all, this government or any government in the next General Elections needs people who want to work for the country, on or off the camera.

Also Read: Does Lack Of Political Will Or Ignorance Kill A Social Moment?