This, No Middle-Class, Weekend Revolution

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Across the country, in rally after rally, a significant chunk of protesters were daily wage earners. Nowhere was their voice heard more than at the Ramlila Ground, the Ground Zero of Hazare's struggle, where the Gandhian fasted for 12 days.

Take the case of Prajapati Samle, 42, a marginal farmer who arrived from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, on August 22. "If we don't come forward, we'll lose it forever. So, it's now or never," said Samle. He said an auto driver, who dropped him off at the Ramlila Ground from the New Delhi railway station, had declined to take the travel fare of Rs 30, saying that he was dropping passengers for free to the Ground since morning, and that was his contribution to the cause. 

Clearly, a quite wide spectrum of people are involved in this unique movement. Even though, in the beginning, it was dominated by middle class professionals - techies, doctors and engineers - the last few weeks have seen the less privileged, who also had been at the receiving end while dealing with corrupt government officials, coming out to support Hazare in large numbers.

Among them was Ritu, a first year BA student of DVA College in Dehradun. Her father, a small shopkeeper had got her enrolled in the college after much efforts. "All political parties must know that, we, the youth, cannot tolerate corruption in this country anymore," she said.

In Dehradun, artists and theatre personalities also came in support of Anna and demonstrated outside the residences of state ministers, singing folk songs and beating drums. "It doesn't matter if Parliament is silent, we the people are speaking and the policymakers better open their ears and hear us," said Roshan Dhasama, a stage artist, who was demonstrating outside the residence of Uttarakhand revenue minister Divakar Bhatt, at the city's Yamuna Colony on Thursday. 

It is for the reason Hazare's movement resonated with India's poor people and the middle class: Corruption affects both.

It is also a fact that it affects the poor and the lower middle class more.

A substantial chunk of the government money meant to help the country's poor to emerge out of their penury never reaches them. More than two decades ago, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi remarked: "Hardly 15 paise from a rupee reaches the poor." By all means, today even that amount looks quite generous.

One of the schemes hit hard by corruption, as several public hearings and social audits conducted across the country revealed, is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the much-touted flagship program introduced by the United Progressive Alliance government during its first term. The program makes it mandatory for the government to provide a minimum of 100 days' employment to the rural poor assuring them the minimum daily wages.