The recent airing of the Indian television program ‘Satyameva Jayate’ has garnered a lot of public and media attention – a successful Bolywood star taking up current and burning social issues and presenting them in an upfront but sensitive manner deserving accolades from many quarters.
The discerning observers would notice the periodic occurrence of such phenomenal upsurge in genuine public participation and interest with regard to, say, a religious (such as programmes of Ramdev) or a cultural programme (a TV serial like Ramayana or Mahabharata), political event (watershed elections like in 1977 after emergency, Obama’s election as US president in 2008 or the May 2011 election in West Bengal) or popular movements (Egypt’s popular uprising against the dictatorial regime, Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption agitation both happening last year ).
There were probably many deficiencies of the Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, which has all but petered out recently partly, at least, due to its own contradictions. There were a lot of criticisms from the political class, hard boiled journalists and newspaper editors against the impossibility and even danger (to Indian democracy) associated with the utopian dream of the movement daring to suggest that the men in the street can take more than a passing interest in the formulation and effective passage of a key legislation affecting their daily life.
It was no mean achievement that despite all this and more gripes about the arrogance and the self-righteousness of the leaders the spirit of the movement struck a sympathetic chord with a large number of people without any regimented or forcible mobilization by political parties. People’s participation was by and large spontaneous and quite unprecedented, like of which we probably have not seen in recent times. The clearest indication of the mass participation is the almost nervous (though mainly devious) government effort last year (April-August) in engaging with the team Anna and negotiating their demands contrasted with the studious and calculated way that the same government cold-shouldered the movement and those spearheading it this August. Comparing the evangelical electronic media deluge last year (almost as if they were witnessing and making the viewing public aware of a live piece of history in the making) with the cool, hard-headed and analytical detachment displayed this time around in dissecting the movement’s current flaws, past and in-built weaknesses and raising fundamental questions about the viability of such a movement, one perceives the hard-nosed instinct of the media-moghuls about what would whet the public’s news-appetite. And this provided a good measure of the emotional involvement of the people at large.
While it is another matter that in some of these cases, especially those involving politics and political upheavals, people are eventually assailed by doubts and there are occasions of feeling shortchanged, the spontaneous enthusiasm and the freshness of hope is remarkable for this liberating spirit that shines through the presumed hopelessness and the helplessness of the common people.
The key follow up questions are : (a) what is it that truly galvanizes a people, and secondly (b) why is it generally so difficult to do justice to the expectation of the people ?
