When there is Hope....

In my last blog, I had written and I reiterate that most successful revolutions are bourgeoisie led either petite or grand. But at the same time, I had shown great pessimism about the Indian middleclass really shelving their mall lolling weekend plan, eschewing the evening drink with friends to participate in a movement with a missionary zeal.

But over the past few days, what I see happening had proven my gravely wrong, yet I am happy. My shaken faith in the Indian middle class, my misplaced perception of their priorities, my lack of understanding of their longing and desire to live in a country that moves away from chaos to at least a semblance of orderliness and conceive a system that works were all addressed in one go, when I saw the sea of humanity on the streets sloganeering in support of a seventy four year old self effacing person taking on the powers that be, for the cause of change.

I am also very happy that the revolution is led by a Marathi mother tongued Hindi speaking simpleton and the English educated/speaking socialites who in 64 years of independence are so wont to hypocritically championing and hijacking seemingly social issues, are conspicuously absent from the scene. So I see no Suhel Seths on TV or in the arena where the action is. No Arundhati Roy’s expressing the extremely contrarian views, or Shobha De’s waxing eloquent. These Indian by birth, western by aspiration people are little bit left out of the movement.

Another fringe benefit of Annas movement is the dumping of the motor mouth Manish Tiwari the congress spokesperson. I found him most sophomoric and shamelessly blatant. His tribe now growing, believes, by their verbal adroitness, they can deny and dismiss even the most obvious. They play on the fact that public memory is short-lived. This tribe is of spokespersons. Then there are some self appointed spokespersons like Dig Vijay Singh. They also have been temporarily extinguished. You don’t hear him. Kapil Sibal, another, koi farak nahin padta type politician has egg on his face. I love the sheepish smirk that he has on his face these days. These tacticians or even strategists failed their political masters; they failed to catch the pulse of the people; they kept faltering and falling in pits dug by their ownselves.