Brand Anna is a rage: Youth wear him on T-shirts

NEW DELHI: When Anna Hazare started his crusade against corruption, he probably didn’t realize that he would trigger a fashion trend. Suddenly, young India is talking about this diminutive man whom they want to emulate, if not in spirit then at least in attire.

Anna’s Gandhian outfit has become so popular in the city that markets have seen a surge in demand for Gandhi caps, T-shirts, wristbands — all embossed with Anna’s image or name. These have become some sort of uniform for those joining Anna’s war on graft.
Market watchers say Anna merchandize has probably become as popular as that of Che Guevara — an all-time bestseller anywhere in the world.

“Earlier, people wore ‘Che’ T-shirts; but now they have a leader who has stood up for them, a leader they believe in. So, it’s not at all surprising that Anna has inspired a fashion trend. Anna is synonymous with the fight against corruption, and by wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I love Anna’, you are automatically becoming a part of that fight,” said Himanshu Shukla, an Anna supporter, who works in the telecom sector.

Kashyap Dalal, CEO, Inkfruit (an online T-shirt store) said the trend has resulted from mass awareness Anna has created among the youth about problems affecting the country. His company had introduced an Anna special range of T-shirts , which was sold out.

“We started getting demands for reprinting it: something that we didn’t expect. We’ve followed this up with two more T-shirt collections with corruption as theme, and this range is one of our best performing collections,” said Dalal.

Inkfruit has a T-shirt with the slogan, ‘Beiman logon ki pehli pasand bhrasht-aachaar. Lalach ki dukaan mein uplabdh, voh bhi muft’. Another one has the message, ‘India against corruption: we are strong’. These are priced at 250.

“Following huge demands, we have started selling customized Anna T-shirts. These have different anti-corruption slogans such as ‘Mera neta baiman hai Anna hum tere saath hai’, or, ‘Anna tu aandhi hai’,” said Shailender Rana of Impulse Marketing, East of Kailash.

He added that the demand for Anna T-shirts in particular has almost tripled over the last two months. On an average, he gets almost 30 orders daily for Tshirts priced 200 and above. Rana has also started selling coasters, laptop covers and postcards on Anna and his movement, though he admitted the sales of these have been comparatively modest.

According to shopkeepers, the sale of Gandhi caps has increased exponentially, with some shopkeepers claiming that they are selling over a hundred Gandhi caps daily.

“Gandhi ‘topis’or Anna ‘topis’, as they are now called, are selling like hot cakes. They are cheap and wearing them is the easiest way to visually let everyone know that you support Anna,” said Salim Ali, a Daryaganj-based street-vendor, who has been selling these caps at different protest sites.