A second wave?

As I write this on Thursday afternoon, the Anna Hazare movement appears to be gaining ground.

What is increasingly coming through is that though the drafting of the Jan Lokpal Bill appears to be the trigger, this groundswell of public support for Hazare addresses a larger public sentiment: its sense of anger and betrayal against its elected leaders.

At this point it’s hard to tell where this will lead. If a consensus is reached between Hazare and the government, will the movement die down or will its champions, sensing a government on the back foot, gather strength to become “the revolution” that the media and online social networking sites are hinting at?

Is this the inflection point or just another week in Indian politics?

News anchors across the board are breathless in their coverage of the growing crowds in designated areas across the country.

From their quickened delivery and the palpable animation in their faces, it looks like they too have caught some of the excitement in the air, and online the number of tweets and posts only seems to be growing.

I watch as members of civil society, students, doctors, lawyers, housewives, executives, businessmen, NRIs are catching the fire.

Gandhi and his fasts unto death seem to be the inspiration of this movement, but those who caution against Hazare say that governments shouldn’t and cannot concede to blackmail of this nature, and that Gandhi did not exist in a functioning democracy. “I cannot support a popular movement that seeks to topple a democratically elected government,” one pundit said to me. Is it his cynicism or survival instinct that spoke?

Be that as it may, what we are witnessing has the potential to grow exponentially. Over the past week we have seen a coalescing between some of the most potent forces that have brought down far more powerful regimes: the forces of youth, the media and a leader of unimpeachable morality.

What must be going through the mind of Sonia Gandhi, who has been known to be personally committed to empowering the disfranchised? What is holding back Dr Manmohan Singh, whose personal incorruptibility Hazare has acknowledged, from responding when he hears a young student appeal to him directly, urging him to “come sit with us and declare your support for our cause”?

Since yesterday, I sense a change in the government’s response to the movement. Last night I watched a huffy UPA spokesperson displaying pique when he faced a rambunctious crowd on TV; today, a contrite Kapil Sibal spoke a more placatory language.

Are the powers that be in Delhi getting a bit nervous? Have the recent people’s movements across West Asia and North Africa demonstrated that such things can happen — even in ancient, complacent civilisations, even in double-digit economies, even after middle-class prosperity, or a World Cup win?

As I scour public platforms to understand what’s happening, I find there is a surprising absence of social commentary or analysis on this grassroots outcry against corruption. Or is the time for stuffy armchair discussion over as young, urgent voices struggle to be heard?

Those of us who grew up as Midnight’s Children and were the offspring of parents who sacrificed their lives to build a new nation will be asking ourselves if history will regard us as the in-between, self-serving, self-gratifying “me” generation — the sandwich generation of consumers and compromisers — as we watch our children now rise up to a larger ideal and what could be the second wave of nation-building.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer