Yesterday, In Delhi thousands of
young men and women started from India Gate and tried to reach out to multiple
authorities including first citizen of their country, biggest Panchayat of the
nation (albeit deserted), office of the person who is responsible for their security
and office of person who hold highest office that citizens control through the ballot,
to protest against the one of most horrific crime humanity can witness. It is
not that a single crime has energized these many people to come out of their
comfortable homes on a chilly morning and face Cold Water Canons, Lathis and
what not. It is a series (stretching across multiple years) of crimes like this
which have forced them to believe enough is enough, and it is not for this
country to tolerate more. They have to come out and reinforce the fundamentals
of the nation that are preserved in the form of a document known as
constitution. It is ironical that all these authorities who seem to have forgotten
their duties and responsibilities draw their power from that document only.
Although the people on the street
says that it is about the gangrape, I am somehow convinced that it is not just
about the gangrape, neither it is just about security of women, it is due to deep
rooted anger and angst that we all have in ourself against the failure by the
Govt. to listen to people and act emphatically over past few years. We all saw
this anger last year in the form for protests against corruption and we are
again seeing this. Last year, leadership of the protests was defined and
demands were structured, yet Govt. was able to buy time and bury the demand for
a strong anti corruption law. People have grown wiser and restless as they have
seen what political class can do to genuine demands. This anger has been fueled by the apathy and gross disconnect of the Govt. from its people. This
round of protest may die soon but the deep rooted disgust is not going to do
so. This anger is a kind of warning to political class (yes whole of it,
although specially to ruling party) that you better be aware and show some
respect to aspiration of people otherwise we still remember most famous poem
from a poet aptly considered as national Poet(“Singhasan Khali karo ke janata aati hai)”.
