Special: For whom Anna Hazare is the answer

“Madam, please get out — unless you want to get arrested! Press NOT allowed!” There wasn’t anything remotely threatening in the constable’s tone when she caught me in a bus full of enthusiastic men, drenched to the bone, waving the tricolour and screaming out slogans in support of a small man from a village in Maharashtra.

Many had skipped breakfast as a mark of solidarity with 74-year-old Anna Hazare from Ralegan Siddhi, in the hope that their hunger would fuel a change that would make India a better place.

Ranging from 17 to 80, they came in all shapes and sizes — post-grads from Nagpur, doctors from Patna and IAS aspirants from everywhere — with one slogan that they seemed to enjoy the most “Manmohan jiska tau hai, woh sarkar bikau hai!” (Manmohan is the uncle of a government for sale).

Each one of them had their own stories for making the trip on a rain-soaked morning to be part of a day when they felt they could change the world. For the bespectacled 28-year-old software engineer from Delhi, Rajesh Singh, it was his struggle to get a passport that finally made him join Team Anna.

“The regional passport officials and the postman wanted a bribe to deliver the passport and I was forced to give them one. I decided that I couldn’t carry on doing this for the rest of my life. That day, I knew I had to do something. Anna showed me the way,” said Rajesh Singh.

And there were many like Rajesh, each one of them who had fought the system and lost. To them Anna was the answer, or at least an essential part of the answer.

  Sitting next to Rajesh was IAS-aspirant, Anand Singh, 25, and angry that the Delhi Police refused to file an FIR when he lost his mobile phone three months ago. Both Rajesh and Anand would easily fit into the demographic of the “aam aadmi” that the Congress has been desperate to court for the last two general elections.

This was the chance for Rajesh, Anand and thousands of their ilk who had gathered on Tuesday to remind the ruling UPA that the “aam aadmi” had “aam problems” which mattered.

But they also had a bone to pick with everyone, from Kapil Sibal to Kalmadi, from Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. From Dikshit’s refusal to resign after the CAG report on the Commonwealth Games to Sibal’s “no loss in 2G spectrum allocation” defence.

Many of the protestors were keen to rope in the cops, asking them to participate in the sloganeering. When one cop asked them to behave, quick came the retort “Kyon? Aap Toh Sarkari Seva Mein Ho, Bharat Aap Ki Bhi Ki Mata Hai —  (Why, you are a government servant and India is your motherland too!). That was enough to forge quick friendships as the cop shook hands with the protestor.

The bunch I was with was picked up by the police after they fought their way towards JP Park, the venue that had been offered and then quickly withdrawn by a nervous government. As the bus snaked its way on Delhi roads towards Chhatrasal Stadium that had been hastily converted into a makeshift jail, the anger against the system refused to ebb.

The bus was also full of symbols that would have done a Congress rally proud. The Nehru topi that proclaimed that they were “Anna”, the Indian tricolour, the khadi kurtas soaked in sweat and aggressive sloganeering that would have easily fooled anyone into believing that this was a local Congress gathering.