Hyderabad, December 24: The Jan Lokpal bill and Anna Hazare fever might have subsided in the last few months. But the Gandhian’s call for a ‘Jail Bharo Andolan’ from December 30 to January 1 has evoked unexpected response from the citizens who have shown the way to their counterparts in the rest of the State.
Anna Hazare proposes to fast from December 27 to 29 and the Jail Bharo andolan will start from the next day. Even as police and powers-that-be in Delhi are weighing their options on how to tackle this latest salvo from Anna, people seem to be going full throttle, registering themselves to take part in the agitation.
Some by sending smses or making calls but most by accessing http://www.jailchalo.com/default.aspx.
Across the country, over 27,000 have registered themselves (add a couple of thousand more by the time you read this) by Friday evening and every half-an-hour has a cool 50-100 registrations more.
Vivek Anand, who is part of the Hyderabad chapter of the India Against Corruption, is one of the Hyderabadis planning a trip to Mumbai to be with Anna when he launches his fast.
“The movement in Hyderabad isn’t as active as we’d like it to be. That is perhaps due to the Telangana issue that is happening at the moment. This though doesn’t go to say that we aren’t interested. At the candle light vigil we had a few days ago, about 500 people turned up in rain. That shows they’re serious about what’s happening. Most of the enthusiastic lot are either college students or corporate employees,” he told City Express.
The entrepreneur who’s been a part of the movement for quite a while, also pointed out that as far as Hyderabad is concerned, the access to anti-corruption andolan has been through Facebook, which is in itself limiting. “FB has been a great tool to keep people in the loop. But ideally we’d need media houses to bring awareness. The media, however, isn’t as enthusiastic as it used to be, because, quite frankly, the Lokpal isn’t news anymore,” he said.
The response from the citizens, particularly the middle-class, could however be heartening to him. Precious Kalia, a software engineer, is an ardent supporter of the Lokpal Bill.
“If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve just started my new job and leave being an issue, I would’ve been there at Azad Maidan on 27th. The movement has gained the momentum it needs and now is the right time. Even if that means we have to forego certain democratic and constitutional principles,” he said.
But wouldn’t achieving that on such grounds hurt the main objective, primarily, by setting a trend? “That is quite possible. But this is something that the country is now educated about and believes in. We need to break the immunity that the politicians are trying to create for themselves,” he opined.
Tarun Kovvali, a final year student at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, offers a different take.
“The success of the movement lies in testing the process against the outcome. At the moment, the outcome hasn’t indicated the process to be effective. But more importantly, we don’t need to wait for a Jan Lokpal bill to set things right. Our Constitution is well equipped to handle it. Right now, the best thing to do would be to go after each of the scams one by one. The average Indian psyche needs to see a politician picked up.”
Actor Kamal Kamaraju, who has been actively voicing his support for Anna Hazare and the bill, was quite disappointed with the proceedings in Parliament. “It’s saddening to see our politicians mock the movement. This is our time to fight back and we have to rise to the occasion,” he said.
Either ways, effective or not, Hyderabadis seem pretty supportive of the andolan if one goes by the number of registrations. Hyderabad and Secunderabad clocked 1028 registrations out of 1491 from across the State by evening. This, from just 555 by 3 p.m!
Courtesy: Experess