From Anna who? to Hazare, the crusader

Over two decades ago, in Mumbai I read a small article about an Anna Hazare in the newspapers. He was doing something to develop a village called Ralegaon Siddhi. I could make out from the black-and-white photograph that he wore a Gandhi cap. I promptly forgot about him.

Years later, in Ahmedabad, the news editor of the newspaper I was working for asked us to ‘watch out' for reports about Anna Hazare, who was on a fast “for something”. “You were in Mumbai. Do you have any info about him?” he asked me. All I remembered was the picture of a man with a Gandhi cap.

To supplement the two-para agency copy, we began a frantic search for more info but got nothing. With no Internet to help us, all we could manage was a 300-word report.

Fast forward to April 2011.

‘Anna Hazare's meet with PM fails. To begin fast.' This tweet on Twitter by a news magazine was followed by several more about how and where he would undertake the fast. The next day, it was raining Anna Hazare on Twitter, which captured his every move far faster than any news agency. The only serious competition was the Facebook. Put up to it by a friend, I too ‘liked' a Facebook page called ‘India Against Corruption', and got a flood of information. India Against Corruption had been closely involved with Hazare's fast too. Now, I was getting the info right from the horse's mouth.

There was a deluge on Twitter and Facebook from Day 1 of the fast, with 90 per cent tweets and Facebook posts in favour of Hazare. One Facebook request that urged people to skip lunch for a day got overwhelming support, and I promptly joined in. A copy of the ‘People's Lokpal Bill' came to me on the Facebook. I did not have to search for it. Both Facebook and Twitter globalised the event. Pictures were uploaded through mobiles from across the globe onto Facebook and Twitter showing protests and marches supporting Hazare.

There were a few on Facebook who were least bothered about what Hazare was doing, yet did their bit by sharing interesting video clips and photographs about the event. Well, all they had to do was to click the ‘Share' button, and the video or photo instantly found a place on their friends' ‘walls'. Those running the ‘India Against Corruption' page replied to queries, and urged their Facebook friends to give a ‘missed call' to a Mumbai number to announce their ‘support'. Several Facebook pages on Anna Hazare — most of them created by individuals with no direct connection to Hazare or the movement — kept up the momentum.

What Twitter and Facebook, along with picture video sharing sites, achieved was to bring the movement to the desktops, tablet PCs and mobiles, with pleas for support dropping in every second.

I could not believe that only a couple of decades ago, I was starved of information about the same man. And I was in the media!