Anna Hazare, the daring 74 year old social activist's anti-corruption crusade is gathering momentum and is now one of the biggest uprisings in decades for the ruling Congress party. If the situation is not contained does the country risk sparking India's 'Arab Spring' ?Hazare has become a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi, inspiring millions of people who are fed up with rampant corruption, red tape, inadequate services and no safe resort or respite against politicians, law and order, unruly gangsters who are in cahoots with the law and politicians both, all of which is watched and reviled by an aggresive private media freed by technology's open gates of information sharing. Strangely, all this exists despite India showing near-double digit economic growth over almost a decade.
Hazare's arrest was the last straw. People of every creed, class and economic status raised a united voice, one of solidarity. In recent years a growing, more prosperous middle class is finding ways to exert more influence.
India's huge rural population, sidelined but subsidised are also running out of patience, gathering up their frustrations to brave the curse of endemic graft.
Indian Spring or not, Indians will prevail and bring about a sea change in much of the nation, more so in Indian politics.
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