On 22 Aug 2011, self and family participated in India Against Corruption Rally on Chennai's famous Marina Beach. What began as a moderate crowd of 100-150 people, slowly sweeled into thousands. When the candle march started at about 7 pm, there were more than 10000 people.
The feature of the rally is similar to the protest started by Anna Hazare and India Against Corruption Group. Organiser were not from any political party, crowd gathering was spontaneous and voluntarily... so there was a bit of disorganised way it gathered. However, I could see more and more middle and upper middle class people, ladies, children and senior citizens. They abided by the requests from volunteers (many of them rose to the occassion), responded to the slogans in the sea of Tricolors.
Many in the crowd brought the posters and placards, denouncing the corruption. As it was not a professional political rally, there was shortage of professional slogan shouters. So few like yours truly, rose to the occasion and people happily responded. Army training on 'word of command' and 'gala phadna' in parade ground was really useful here.
I could not see the conviction on the faces that this act would end the deep rooted corruption in India. However, I could visualise the satisfaction that everyone was contributing their bit for better India. And that could be one of the reason almost all families brought their small children with them. Although, the Sunday evening crowd wandering on enormous Marina beach was much larger than those in the rally, sense of purpose of fighting 'sencond war independence' was palpable on the faces.
As evening grew and candles were lighted, the beaming satisfaction only grown in magnitude.
Long Live India and Indian Democracy!
