So in a snazzy Internet centre where am sitting and filing this, a young shop assistant asked his senior, “So what happened to that Anna Hazare thing?” The senior shook his head confusedly and gestured that he had things to do. That more or less sums up what has happened if not to the anti-corruption moment but to the idea that had captured the imagination of the entire country a few months back. The idea of not what is wrong but what can be righted. Hazare was, maybe still is a man to whom we owed the realisation that in a country tired of its own inertia, something could be changed and the powerful could be brought to their knees. He struck an undeniable chord and I felt protective of him in a country where the intelligentsia is mostly cynical and the voiceless too busy to survive to take ideological stands. He was by choice or accident, a catalyst and over the months, we saw heads rolling and the idea of  a Bill to stem corruption actually becoming a tangible possibility.

The Jan Lok Pal Bill however may never actually become a legislative reality because the political parties battling each other around it do not want it to be passed. They are united in corruption and they know in stalling the Bill and creating smoke screens, they will find the breathing space to run the country with no accountability.

Hazare himself has not helped this cause or his own image by politicising and polarising the public opinion against one party when all parties have played their part in belittling the idea of India Against Corruption, and have dismissed it as a passing fever after which the people will go back to life, work and apathy. If that happens, it will be a sad closure to what began with so much promise.
Accusations against Hazare personally and his team have served their purpose in undermining credibility. Sure, just because we live in a country where leaders who run our country have gotten away with genocides and mass corruption, Anna and his despotic comments against alcoholics must not be taken lightly. That righteousness is a form of corruption too and if he is, as the propaganda claims, a closet RSS and BJP supporter, we will have to look past him and learn to fight the seemingly lost battle against power mongering and corruption.

What an year this was though. The  people power that certain sections of our media were busy dissing in India,  caused an upsurge in the Arab countries and in America’s streets and around the world. People like you and me wanted to be no more taken for granted. But to be heard and to express their anger without resorting to what their masters have freely used throughout history. Weapons of violence.

We at Unboxed Writers from March onwards kept pace with events that affected all of us. The Tsunami in Japan.The excitement of India’s victory in the World Cup, the Royal wedding of Kate and William, obituaries of unsung heroes like Badal Sircar and Mani Kaul, the death of Osama Bin Laden, the end of Gaddafi, film reviews, stories about slain journalists and whistle-blowers, stories on Kashmir and the North-East. We remembered Ghatak, Phoolan Devi, the Babri Masjid demolition. Communalism. We wrote about art, music, food, travel. We learnt lessons of our own.

We learnt that nothing is constant. That you will find support. And negation. That there is little or no money in an enterprise that was created for the joy of writing and there will never be immediate returns but that the site will require, like a demanding but beautiful child, daily care and attention. And that nothing will stop or taint this journey because it is well-intentioned and sustained with passion.

Here is to a brand new year. And voices as yet unheard that you will discover here.

Thank you for reading us. For sharing us. For staying.