From the ANNA Movement to the Rising AAP !!
From चलता है attitude to अब नहीं चलता है kind of change !!
With the recent political happenings in Delhi and a strong debut by AAP, I cannot resist myself from writing this post. People can have their own opinions & views about this. Mine is based on the experiences & observations which I had ever since we ( me & Rahul Kumar Pandey ) participated in the Anna Movement in Aug'2011. Its more about the events, the changes it has brought in us and the way things are shaping up. The recent performance of AAP instills that confidence & a strong belief in us which seemed very difficult at a time. :)
- Anna Movement - Aug 2011
It was a usual morning and we were preparing ourselves for the office. We were more involved in the TV News Channel watching the updates on The Movement. Being in NCR at that time, like many other people, we also decided to go for it & made it there for 4 days ( out of the total 11 days ). The entire experience is very aptly described by these 2 posts written by Rahul :
The kind of experience & feeling of this movement is unmatched. It had a lot in store for us. - Impact of Anna Movement on us
There are lot many incidents in the past 2 years to be mentioned. I am writing few of them.- Train Travels : Recently I was traveling from Allahabad to Varanasi,
a 3 hour journey. I took a general class ticket and & sat in the
Sleeper Class coach as the general coach was packed. The T.T.E.
came, I showed him the ticket & he asked for money. I said, take the
difference amount & give me the receipt as well. His voice got
louder & he said it will amount to 'Difference + Penalty' ( Rs.
250). Since I knew the rules, I told him that it will amount only to
'Difference' only as there are seats available in the coach & I have
seen them in the chart. He was dumbstruck for few seconds and finally
agreed to give the proper receipt by charging Rs. 100. Later, he
politely asked me 'क्या करते हो बेटा ?'. I told him that I run a
company. :)
- Complaints : I usually prefer to travel by trains. So I keep on encountering many things which are very much required to be brought into the consideration of the higher Railway Authorities. On one such occasion, standing on a platform, I saw 3-4 young boys filling empty bottles with the tap-water & taping it with sellotapes. I went and talked to them. Then I thought of bringing to this to the notice of the authority & registering a complaint in the Complaint Book. The authorities came after 2 hours, we had a good discussion & they somehow did not write my complaint. I eventually had to leave but later I registered the complaint online at http://indianrailways.gov.in/ . To my utter surprise, it went like a Fire in their Ass and the Sub-Inspector made around 8-10 phone calls to me regarding it. So next time, if you come across any such situation, do log your complaints online. They have to take it seriously.
- Train Travels : Recently I was traveling from Allahabad to Varanasi,
a 3 hour journey. I took a general class ticket and & sat in the
Sleeper Class coach as the general coach was packed. The T.T.E.
came, I showed him the ticket & he asked for money. I said, take the
difference amount & give me the receipt as well. His voice got
louder & he said it will amount to 'Difference + Penalty' ( Rs.
250). Since I knew the rules, I told him that it will amount only to
'Difference' only as there are seats available in the coach & I have
seen them in the chart. He was dumbstruck for few seconds and finally
agreed to give the proper receipt by charging Rs. 100. Later, he
politely asked me 'क्या करते हो बेटा ?'. I told him that I run a
company. :)
- Social Media & the role it is playing
Obviously, the ground work done by Team Anna & Team AAP was pretty extensive but the role played by Social Media is also instrumental. At least for us, who are not in NCR, we always remain connected & informed about the activities.With the penetration of Social Media (facebook/twitter ) & its usage in an appropriate way shows how useful & impacting it is. Some of them in this case :- India Against Corruption had a strong presence on facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/Indiacor?ref=ts&fref=ts)
- AAP, Arvind Kejariwal & other Leaders having a strong presence on facebook & twitter ensures that we are aware of all the activities.
- Platforms performing Social Media campaigns do have a good impact. ( https://www.thunderclap.it/, https://www.voterite.com/ are the ones which were used )
- A strong facebook group of AAP with more than 40k people. ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/AamAadmiParty/ )
- In the past 2 days, approximately 4 out of every 5 posts on my facebook wall were related to AAP in someway or the other.
- Increased awareness towards Politics
The way in which we have started participating, discussing & involving ourselves in such activities is a clear indication that awareness and concern has increased amongst us, related to Politics. A healthy sign for a Democracy. :)- A lot many of us glued to the TV Channels and Internet from the morning till evening, on 8th Dec, speaks a lot. It also shows that when required, we can equally be concerned about politics as much as we do about Cricket.
- A friend of mine( Arpan ) called from Chennai and told that he was pretty happy & excited about the AAP's performance. He further told that people sitting in Chennai were also eagerly watching the Election results.
- A college senior ( Deepak Singh ), who is doing is Ph.D. from UK, is an active volunteer in AAP and has been giving his best for the Delhi Elections. On the day of Election results, they were awake from 2:00 AM to watch the live broadcasting. Here is the pic. :)
Similarly, there are lot many points, experiences & observations which could be mentioned here. These were just few of them. :) But the recent results ( AAP getting 28 out of 70 seats ) is a clear indication that boss "अब "चलता है" has been replaced by "जो सही है सो सही, और जो गलत है सो गलत " !!
From the ANNA Movement to the Rising AAP !!
From चलता है attitude to अब नहीं चलता है kind of change !!
