Category: Activism

Blood on our dance floor

Remember how Rajiv Goswami, the student who lit himself in protest of Mandal report, had moved India across the nation? There was no social media. We weren’t living in an informed age like this. But still it moved the country. A young man burning himself was more than enough to move our senses back then even if some people didn’t know what Mandal meant.

Rohit Vemula was a passionate young man too. He didn’t kill himself on the road, but silently in a hostel room. His last words were that of a man who has seen it through, that he went about writing ‘do not trouble my friends or enemies on this’.

It is unlikely that Vemula will move India like Goswami did. Because beyond the protests and our keyboard activism, many of us who stand at the top of the caste ladder, still are not sure of the larger topic – caste and the reservation – though Vemulas of our time validates it.

We are all Dathathreyas. We are all manu vaadis in that regard. And no Facebook/blog posts can take that guilt back, including this one.

The Koodankulam Fiasco

I had posted this as a comment to one of my Facebook posts on Koodankulam issue. A friend had posted this comment to my post on Koodankulam where one man got killed in the clash with the police.

The well respected ex president Dr Kalam says its safe. A lot of scientists say its safe. Still some miscreants sponsor such stupid acts, hiring illiterates and the poor along with protein fed GOONDAS. Net result – these deaths !

And I had a chance to watch a news debate in Reporter channel and here is what I wrote in response to my friend. My appeal to you too would be to educate me with your counter arguments against the valid concerns raised by Dr. C R Neelakandan.

I don’t think it is as easy as that. I had followed a debate on Reporter channel and the points raised by Dr. C R Neelakandan, an environmentalist who has worked in  Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, seemed valid. Following is what he said. I don’t see any valid arguments that stand valid to these concerns. Let me know if you come across any (valid counter arguments instead of the so called “development” war cries).

===============================

Only 2.5% of the total energy needed is being produced by the atomic reactors in India (even after investing so much and given huge subsidies for 50 years) which is far more expensive than the energy from windmills.

After Three  Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima there are no countries that trust atomic energy as a viable soltution. Many countries have backed out of atomic energy. 54 atomic reactors were closed down in Japan in the last 1.5 years. After 1978, no nuclear reactors were granted permission in America. Germany has decided to close down all its atomic reactors in their country by 2020.

Koodankulam has many similarities to Fukushima. It’s in the seashore. Last time the Tsunami had struck this place. It is also a crowded place with Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) districts are nearby. Another issue is environmental because the wastes of the nuclear plant are dumped to the sea. This could affect the daily lives of the fishermen folk who live here.

According to the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, in case of a tragedy, the maximum amount of money that the responsible country has to pay is Rs. 1500 crore. Note that it is in RUPEES. What you must note here is that only the first phase of the tragedy in Fukushima had cost them 1500 crore DOLLARS. (The central government had decided on Rs. 500 crores and it is only after the Left parties got involved that they raised the amount at least to Rs. 1500 crores).

Koodankulam relies totally on the imported fuel for it’s function. Agreed that we need to import petroleum, but the difference from that one here is that in case if there is a policy change from the country that gives us the fuel, the fuel would stop. We have the example of Tarapur in front of us. We started with that reactor when America gave us the fuel. And when they stopped the export, our function was also stopped.

If you go to Tamil Nadu, you can see 6000 MW is being produced from the wind. If you just increase it by 2000 MW, you can avoid this fiasco. That will be something produced by the windmills made in India, which can be repaired in India, and it doesn’t result in such atrosious after effects even if it fails. So when we have this alternative here, why should we go after such expensive, risky solution? The radiation if it spreads outside would last until 50000 years.

We have been saying from 1980s that we would produce energy using Thorium. I was working at Bhabha atomic research center then. Even after 32 years we are held behind. Which means this is not going to happen. That is why we are importing the fuel. So what is the issue here? Some lobbies in this market cannot sell this in America, France, Japan or Germany. So they sell it here. In India and China. Philippines has a history of shutting down a reactor that has worked only for a day. Some people ask why would they strike against a plant that has been completed the work. There was a plant in America that was shut down after the plant was made functional and the fuel was loaded. Not only that, in America and France, the government is still wondering what to do with the waste of the closed down reactors and they are freezing it.

We have the example of Bhopal in case if something happens. We know that our country gave only Rs. 40000 to the deceased families after 20 years of tragedy. The responsible people are still living scot-free in America.

You know what? No insurance company grants insurance to this. Nuclear reactors don’t get insurance. Nobody gives loans to these. If Fukushima could cause radiation on the other side of Pacific, you can imagine how Koodankulam would effect the coastal areas of Kerala. Chennai is 700 KM away from Koodankulam, but Thiruvananthapuram is just 70 KMs away.

===============================

(Photo courtesy: Antony Kebiston Fernando

Satyamev Jayate – too early for critique

Okay, let me put things in it’s place before I start on the topic of the show Satyamev Jayate.

I am not an Aamir Khan fan boy. In fact, I think he has been overrated as an actor with the tag lines such as “Mr. Perfectionist” and all that. Of all his movies I have seen, only one film truly touched my heart and that is “Taare Zameen Par”. Aamir may be a good entertainer but I think Shah Rukh Khan does a great job at that. His so-called ‘serious’ movies are only quirky and populist in nature. Take Rang De Basanti and Mangal Pandey for example. He feeds on the populist notions of patriotism and nationalism and thus has carefully placed himself as an ‘icon’ from the entertainment industry, which is his own PR success I would say and nothing else. But none of these would stop me from praising his latest venture, Satyamev Jayate. Do not take me wrong. I do see the melodrama. I do see the ‘super HD quality 3G video calling service of Airtel. I do see the orcestrated effort of the show. But I do not mind. Really.

Satyamev Jayate has brought a bit of reality in to the flood of reality shows in Indian television and no one can deny this fact. But of course, no such effort is beyond any criticism, so I read this piece by Madhavankutty Pillai in Open Magazine and another one in The Hindu by Farah Naqvi with great interest and wanted to put in my thoughts on the critique.

But before doing that, let me say that I am quite amused by the attitude of some of the journalists and activists who have been up in arms, not literally but mildly, against the show and Aamir Khan. It seems that they cannot digest the fact that some of them have been doing the work for many years that Aamir is doing now but have never got the attention that the show is getting now. Which makes me wonder whether their interest is in the ‘ownership’ of the issue or the focus on the issue. Some celebrity-colleagues of Aamir have even stooped down to a stage where they got personal about his divorce, his younger brother’s custody case etc (which can be countered of course, but not in this post).

Aamir Khan did not claim that he brought some new issues to attention. In fact, in a recent IBN-Live interview, he has clearly mentioned that he is not doing anything new that some journalists and activists have not done in the past. Like mr. Pillai wrote in his article, “the material [of the show] is being tailored meticulously for the Indian middle class audience that Aamir Khan clearly understands.” But mr. Pillai puts it as a thumbs-down, I see it the perfect way to run this show.

Mr. Pillai (or ms. Naqvi) doesn’t seem to understand that the Indian middle-class is not yet ready for the hard truth. Hitting hard at them, as Pillai observes rightly, would make them turn away from TV. So Aamir does the right thing by giving one dose at a time. India has never seen a TV show like this before, so it cannot be all hard-hitting at it’s first instance. The reach has never been so large. With the advantage of television (this show proves that television is still the most powerful medium in India, even in the era of social media explosion) and the face value of a popular Bollywood star, the issues that the Indian middle-class ignored for long have been brought to the forefront. And remember, with all this limitation of the target audience, he still tried to break some social myths (though while floating on the safe waters – like poverty, urban-rural difference etc) in the show. I think that is a good thing. Melodrama? Tears? Oh, yes. But how else do you reach out to the Saas-Bahu audience?

Pillai’s complaint about not touching the topic of Homosexuality while discussing Harish Iyer’s story is also misplaced. Bringing in homosexuality in that episode and in particular with connection to Harish’s story could end up in the populist notion about homosexuality that it is a result of sexual abuse in the childhood or such mental trauma and can thus be ‘cured’ by a psychologist. But Pillai puts in rightly that the show could have featured fathers molesting their own children. Though Pillai thinks it was because Aamir did not want to alienate his audience, I don’t think how ‘hard-hitting’ it would be than a story of a young boy bleeding his anus from the rape by a relative. That in itself is a big blow to the ‘great Indian family and culture’. There are contrasting views among the critiques as well. Ms. Naqvi says Aamir “missed the point that reproductive decisions are rarely made by women” where as Mr. Pillai says that Aamir did not highlight that “in many cases mothers are a willing party to it“.

I am not saying that the critique from all sides are uncalled for. Moreover, there is no perfect show beyond criticism. But it is a bit early to raise such critique against this show considering that it is only the first season (and I hope there will be more seasons to come). For now, I am looking at the positives. And I like the fact that unlike the so-called demi gods of Hindi cinema who have ventured out on the small screen, Aamir gives more space and face to the issue at hand in every episode. Of course there is melodrama, some truths not completely revealed etc, but that can wait for Reality TV version 2.

As for Aamir Khan’s approach to the show, I am waiting to see if he will ever cover the topics such as homosexuality, caste, religion, atheism, abortion (as ms. Naqvi mentioned) etc in the future episodes. And how he would present them to the middle-class Indians. Now, that will be a real test for him.

(Image courtesy: India Today)

Live to fight, please!

I couldn’t watch the photos of a 27 year old Tibetan, Jampa Yeshi, burning himself to death without horror. But even though Yeshi’s intent by setting himself ablaze was to bring attention to the Tibetan protest against China, my first reaction was, why? The reports say that over 30 Tibetans have set themselves ablaze in the last year, and what good did it bring?

The international community has so much ‘sympathy’ towards the Tibetan cause, and occassionally blames China but they wouldn’t move a finger against the Chinese. India, being the ‘kind’ hosts that we are, also wouldn’t do a thing against the neighbor because despite being the projected ‘super-power-in-20XX’ we don’t want to get into trouble with the powerful Chinese. Plus we have Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh to look after. So nobody, except the Tibetans themselves, are interested in the cause. Perhaps except some individuals and some human rights organizations. If Tibet had oil, perhaps ‘some’ would have shown interest but that is not the case.

So what good does the ‘attention bringing suicide’ do to help the Tibetan cause? Why let the youth of a country kill themselves when it is clear that it is not helping the cause? If you want to fight for a cause, you should live to fight for it. Not die to protest, because your voice would fade away in a few days. I can’t believe that the protestors had prevented police from taking young Yeshi to the hospital. And the Tibetan leader saying that the boy ‘took an appreciative step’! If this so called Tibetan leader Dorjee really thinks it is helping the cause, he should set himself on fire to set an example. Or ask his family members to do so. Would he dare do that? Is this the message that people like him and Dalai Lama are sending to the world? Do they think they can change the Chinese oppression in Tibet by letting or encouraging their youth to burn to death themselves? is this what the Buddhist preaching is all about? Please, let them young people live. And fight.

(Photo courtesy: MSN India)

The benchmarks of administration

Couldn’t have said it better, Nandita Das.

“It was during Hitler’s time that Germany’s best roads were constructed. These roads, even today, are considered to be the best connecting European cities. Germany got the best hospitals during Hitler’s time. He was a music lover, a vegetarian and non-alcoholic. But nobody, not even Germans, remember him for this,” Das said while talking to media persons.

Das was trying to counter the argument that the riots apart, Modi has been a good administrator who has brought considerable economic growth and development to the state. [Times of India – Actress Nandita Das draws parallels between Modi & Hitler]

Photo courtesy: Wikipedia

Story of barefoot knowledge

Just as Harini mentioned in her blog post, I too am wondering why Sanjit “Bunker” Roy isn’t a household name in this country. Why does it take a foreigner to tell us about the innovators and social entrepreneurs like Bunker Roy? Why is it that only someone like Steve Jobs with his hi-tech gadgets can inspire Indians? Why does it take a Time 100 list or a TED Talk to tell us the story that could change the whole of rural India or the lives of the poor in the whole world?

I haven’t seen such a path-breaking, innovative and unconventional approach that has the potential of changing the lives of a large chunk of world’s population. More power to Bunker Roy!

Jan Lok Pal – the interim FAQ

There has been some heated discussions in the social media about Anna Hazare and Jan Lok Pal bill. Even though I have written a couple of posts about why I do not join hands with Anna Hazare and the knee jerk activism of middle-class, I think a summary post will be good so that I can save sometime typing the same thing again and again, rather direct people with questions here. So here are my views.

Why are you anti-Anna?

Because the man has a dubious character. He had praised Narendra Modi for his ‘development’ work in Gujarat which is refuted by other Gandhians like Himanshu Kumar. In Anna’s words, the only thing that Modi has to do to become a 100% perfect chief minister is to accept the Lokpal system. Later he white-washed his own words though; by saying “I am equally opposed to any form of communal disharmony“. Remember, Hazare was talking about a chief minister who still refuses to take the blame for his alleged support to a massacre.

Anna Hazare has also openly supported the MNS chief Raj Thackeray. And you know who Mr. Thackeray is and what his politics are. Cunning old man did not forget to add his Gandhian thought that ‘but damaging public and national property was not right‘. Everything else in the MNS regionalist game seems to be good for Hazare.

Hazare’s ways are autocratic than being democratic. It is evident from the way he has modeled the fight against corruption. He pushed his own bill without coming to a consensus between the civil society members themselves. This kind of attitude that ‘only-my-draft-is-right‘ is fascist. I cannot trust a man like him to take up the leadership or to represent the civil society. Supporting a man like him can only invite grave dangers to democracy.

But Anna Hazare is a widely trusted man who has built a model village called Ralegan Siddhi.

You should first read about how this so-called model village was built. I don’t see anything to model after a village where their moral was built on flogging and fear. I mean, even Adolf Hitler wanted to create a ‘puritan’ society based on fear and physical punishment and he had his ways to do it. Or even Narendra Modi had a lesson to teach people and now he is talking about development (no wonder why Anna supports Modi). Indira Gandhi had her ways to make citizens ‘responsible’ through Emergency. Ralegan Siddhi is a village where Anna ‘had the practical experience of need of force while implementing family planning measures’ and where there has been no grama panchayat elections in the last 24 years and no election to co-operative societies. That is not a model village, in my opinion.

Whatever his persona is, it was because of him that the government was forced to consider Jan Lokpal Bill. And you have to give him credits for that.

I will not. Because if he deserve any credit, it is for driving the movement in the wrong direction. Anna is an icon that was purposefully created by his team and the media. How many of us even knew about his existence in the last year? But then the media came and created a saint out of Anna. He seems to enjoy such publicity too. Then his own team started the beatification process. It grew up to a level where his own team members have said “ultimately, the power is with Anna, so whatever Anna says has to be accepted“. From then on it became a fascist, autocratic movement that can threaten the very basis of democracy.

But he had massive support of the people!

Have you ever thought about this sudden outrage of people, after all these years? Is it because the thought that ‘enough-is-enough‘ was sprouted one fine day? I don’t think so. Every generation is looking for some kind of revolution to take part. They want to witness something incredible in their life time and there could not be a better time than this season of revolutions world wide, especially in the middle-eastern countries. The youth, the middle-class and the national media were all missing this sort of fun and that is how Hazare, the mass icon, was born. You say ‘Anna is India, India is Anna‘. Anna alone is not India or India is not just Anna. India is you. And me. Us. Not Anna’s sole property.

By the way, a journalist friend from Delhi told me that Ramlila Maidan might have had just about 20,000 people at maximum and different media houses have added the numbers they liked, even to lakhs. And this 20,000 out of 1.21 billion people is called ‘massive support’?

But don’t you agree that the movement has made a change in the attitude of government towards the bill?

Yes, but it had the wrong nature and direction. And remember that it is only a small hurdle that is just passed and the time to rejoice is far away. I think this movement could have been driven in the right direction and still could make the change but the aggression of Hazare, his team, media, and the middle-class crusaders made it impossible.

You call it knee-jerk activism of the middle-class.

Yes, because I haven’t seen such enthusiasm of this so-called urban, semi-urban middle-class ‘activists’ changing their profile pic to Gandhi caps, defending Anna Hazare, or asking for their rights on any other issues of greater importance. They kept a criminal silence on several national and local issues and now they speak up.

People would speak up only about issues that they are directly affected by. Isn’t it justified?

No, it is not. Selective response is not a justifiable response at all. That is called hypocrisy. And the silence on the issues that people in your own or other parts of the country are facing, is criminal. To me, corruption doesn’t have a greater importance than north-eastern crisis or dalit/tribal issues or people being displaced in the name of development. The fact that Binayak Sen or Irom Sharmila doesn’t inspire you alone is proof of how you choose your icons or rather how you play into the hands of media and a group of people.

Are you pro-Government?

Yes, I am pro-Government but not pro-current-Government. I am also pro-Democracy. But I am not pro-Congress if your question was in that direction. You can do a search in my blog to see how much I have talked about the regional and national politics of Congress. You can start with searching the tag “congress party” in this blog.

Okay. So do you support the government draft of the bill?

No. Everybody knows that the government draft is crass. At the same time, I think there should not be a bad practice in place as a model for future agitations and protests. And in a democracy, consensus should be worked on first. Now there are four drafts in place (Jan Lok Pal, NCPRI’s draft, Loksatta’s draft and Bahujan Lok Pal) and the parliament should consider all four and act accordingly.

Well, that’s all I have to say about Jan Lok Pal for now.

Aftermath of the Baba-giri

Back to square one. That’s what happened at the end of the fasting drama of Baba Ramdev. Everything remains the same except that we got to see Ramdev in a churidhar, Ramdev’s alleged ties with communal elements, a high-profile fasting stage and finally Ramdev quitting the biggest political entertainment show on mere promises. The man who claimed that yoga could cure the incurable diseases have finally given up to the doctors who have advised him “to abstain from yoga for two-three days and take rest“. Hmm..

Sonia Gandhi and Congress party must be laughing at all this. Had someone more credible and popular were on the forefront of these fights, they would have been in trouble handling the situation. But for their luck, the mass movements in the new India are always led by wrong people like Hazare or Ramdev who have questionable personality and stand on various issues. So the UPA government, the most corrupt government that we have seen in the recent history of India, could thrash the movement and go on to justify it. And the folks like Ramdev passed the ball to the UPA court that even the police mishandling of the Ramlila ground situation has been pushed down the memory lane.

But Ramdev did not say “at times like this, you do pranayam” as he did once. Instead, the yoga guru said he would form up an army of 11000 soldiers who would be trained in arms. Something that we can now call ‘the Baba-giri’. With the Congress on the revenge and has ordered many inquiries into the Yadav-turned-Dev Ramkrishna’s empire, we might see more entertaining news in the coming days about the yoga guru.

On another news, a Sadhu who also was on a fast-unto-death finally died in the same hospital as Baba Ramdev was admitted. There were no cabinet ministers to see him and discuss his demands and no long lines of sadhus or common man who were in support. His cause, a genuine one, was against the illegal mining to save Ganga river. On other such news, Irom Sharmila is still fasting, even after 10 years and is still being force-fed. Not many, including much of the middle-class crusaders, are bothered about it. And the middle-class arm-chair activists have now begun justifying their silence on these issues over several forums in the Internet. They say that middle-class cannot relate with the issues of Binayak Sen or Irom Sharmila, hence the silence. Reminds me of the poem/quote by the anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Ramdev Lila

The sad state of India is that even the agitations in the name of common-man are hijacked by people with vested interests. So the right movements are lead by the wrong people. Wrong people who support other wrong people and the wrong causes. People who are more interested in fame and publicity. People who have an eye on being in the line of power. That is what happened with Jan Lokpal Bill and now the fight against black money.

I have written earlier about Anna Hazare and his show. Now it’s the turn of Baba Ramdev, the yoga master. Like Jan Lok Pal Bill, I so very badly want to see some action done on the black money put in the foreign countries but like the JLP bill, this movement is also lead by the wrong man, or a man who has authoritative, suspicious and intolerant views on core issues. Ramdev asked for death penalty to the corrupt people and that’s going over the top. He wants sex education in schools need to be replaced by yoga education. He wants 100% swadeshi movement. He says homosexuals are sick people and English education should be replaced by Hindi.

I see utter non-sense, intolerance and ignorance in his views. This fellow clearly doesn’t understand how economy or global trade or free-market works (I don’t believe in a full-fledged free-market but a government controlled free-market). He is also pushing us to the back of the time and is being insensitive to the non-Hindi speaking regions when he pushes Hindi instead of English. The contribution of English to the youth and marginalized in this country is more than what this guy knows.

And who chose him to represent the 121 crore Indians as he claims himself? As far as I know he represents only his followers from across different parts of India and nobody else. He doesn’t have the right to speak authoritatively for the common man without the consent of the common man through a democratic process. The same so-called torch bearers of democracy need to learn a thing or two when they or their followers makes demi-gods out of them. Shanthi Bhushan said, “Ultimately the power is with Anna, so whatever Anna says has to be accepted” and as an NYT article claims, Baba Ramdev seems to have said, “I am very powerful“. Seems that the motto now is not power to “the” people but power to “some” people. The yoga guru seems to have said, “what the people need is honest, brave and responsible leadership” and what better example than himself to show the bravery of trying to escape the police in a churidhar!

Those who are clearly benefiting from all this is still the Congress party. Fortunately for them, the leaders of the movements against corruption and black money are such hypocrites so it is easy for the Congress party and the UPA to drive things their way, though I am sure they must be regretting the way they handled Ramdev issue with the midnight eviction episode.

And the churidhar-clad Baba, who has full support from the Sangh Parivar elements, has now warned the government that “next time in Ramlila, it will be Ravanlila“. We can only wait and see the turn of events.

Hazare, the Hero

Anna Hazare

When I made the blog post about “The Anna Hazare Show” (courtesy: Open Magazine) yesterday, my focus was on the hypocrisy of the Indian middle-class for being selective in their so called activism and it is being celebrated as the rightful political activism. As the day passed, more stories kept popping up, some of them from the yester years, and they point fingers at the man himself – Anna Hazare.

What irked me from the beginning itself was the photo shown above from Anna Hazare’s fasting stage (courtesy: another blog). When I saw this photo, I felt that the so called Gandhian is reinstating the pseudo-nationalist concept of the nation as a religious symbol. The goddess with the India flag. The so called Bharath Matha that all the hardcore and softcore Hindutvavaadis have perpetuated right from the old days. The same symbol that sent M F Hussain in exile. But I didn’t write about it because his cause seemed more important at that moment. But then comes the following.

At first Anna Hazare was in praise for Narendra Modi. He said the Gujarat model “[…]should be emulated by all other chief ministers. I am saying this on the basis of the kind of works Bihar and Gujarat CMs have done in the field of rural development“. We have heard Modi being praised for “development” a lot but hear what another Gandhian, who is less famous than Anna Hazare and has spent 18 years working with tribes in the troubled Dandewara region of Chattisgarh, has to say. If Anna Hazare was garlanded by the media and several VIPs came out to support him, Himanshu Kumar was treated a bit differently for his work. When he took up the human rights cases against the police and the notorious Salwa Judum, his ashram was simply wiped away.

He spoke about how ‘Golden Gujarat’ is not so in tribal areas and in the villages of the state. He said that it is the Gujarat govt. that is now engaged in building dams in a river downstream and diverting the water to Narmada and industries around Miyagam Karjan and Ankleshwar. The fact that this will displace over 150 villages, does not bother the government.

Well, Hazare did not stop there. He went on to say this – “I have described these chief ministers as good only partially. I will call them 100 per cent good only when they also accept the Lokpal kind of system.” So the only thing that Narendra Modi is lacking to achieve the 100% good ranking by Anna Hazare is the acceptance of Lokpal system and nothing else? Later when his statement became controversy, the good Gandhian added what his non-Hindutva fans needed – “I am equally opposed to any form of communal disharmony“. What a good soul!

Manu Joseph, editor of Open magazine that published the infamous Nira Radia tapes, wrote something that the media bandwagon wouldn’t dare say. In his article aptly titled “The Anna Hazare Show“, Manu wrote this –

But what kind of man is he, really? Haima Deshpande, a senior political writer with Open, has met him several times. About 10 years ago, when he went on a fast to protest against corruption in the Maharashtra government, Deshpande covered the event. She was a bit surprised when he said that he wanted to end his fast because journalists from the English media were finding it hard to reach his village. He wanted to end it on a Sunday.

“Two reporters told him that since the Pune Cantonment elections were to be held on that Sunday there would be no space in the newspapers. So it was mutually agreed between the journalists and Anna that he would give up his fast on Monday at 1 pm.”

And that was what he did. Now, the media wants a revolution and there is a good chance that Hazare will not disappoint.

But that is not all. Hazare had sympathy for the MNS chief Raj Thackeray during his campaign against non-Marathis. But as usual, the media icon Hazare did not forget to mention that he did not support “everything that Raj Thackeray does”. But still not a straight forward “I-condemn-the-MNS-violence“, but merely that “If violent means are adopted by MNS, it will not be in interest of a united India.” If violent means are adopted – as if that is something he never heard of them doing.

That is Anna Hazare for you. The new Gandhi of the Indian middle-class. Well, you get what you ask for.