Students, techies, doctors, homemakers: Voices against graft have unifying spirit

NEW DELHI: It is too early to call Jantar Mantar India’s Tehrir Square; but the thousands who thronged the city centre braving the April sun were different from participants in most other rallies in Delhi.

They have come voluntarily, without political goons breathing down their necks or promising free meals and Delhi Darshan; in fact, politicians like Omprakash Chautala and Uma Bharti were heckled and forced to leave.
Another reason why they stood apart was that unlike the usual political rallies, where a cause is thrust upon them, here, all of them had come with causes of their own, in addition to showing support for the septuagenarian’s push for the Jan Lokpal Bill.

University students came to lodge their protest against corruption in their institution, villagers rallied against not getting ration cards, and hospital staff came to highlight how the hospital that had got land at subsidized rates now refused to give treatment to the poor. It of course helped that the voice, which is the loudest of all, is without any apparent political affiliation , and the only slogans to be heard were “Vande Mataram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai” — a far cry from the personality-centric sloganeering that has become the norm for political rallies of late.

Bhaskar, Nayeem, Vishu, and Debjeet are all engineering students of a prominent university. They bunked classes to cheer “for the country” . But they have a personal agenda, too. “We want to protest against the fact that ours is by far the most corrupt university ever. One needs to pay for everything from admission to attendance. Some 20 of us have come and we are here for five hours now,” Debjeet said.

Bhaskar Sharma, a software engineer , talked about how without some “overheads” , getting work done in any government office is next to impossible. “I am here because I want this to change. I have only Saturdays to get my things done in government offices, which is a half-day . People are so reluctant to work that they keep turning me back on some pretext or the other. I know if I pay Rs 500, everything will be smooth.”

For Geeta Devi, who came from a Haryana village, the difference between getting her ration card and not getting it is a few hundred rupees , which she can ill afford to pay. “I have come here to protest against that,” she said.
Ramnath Giri works for a hospital in Madhubani. “Our hospital got land worth crores for a pittance and now routinely turns away poor patients even as we look on. I am here to protest against this,” he said.