For more than 60 years they have been invisible.  AfterIndia declared her “tryst with destiny,” they disappeared into their homes and got busy with India’s developing story. You would see them in private photos and fenced spaces but barely ever on the democratic canvas. While they labored over raising decent families, the political evolution of the country was left to a strange breed of Indians. These either rose to become leaders through labour union conflicts and college youth politics or came to inherit dynastic crowns.

**

 Whatever their mode of entry, this power hungry brand of Indians collectively sullied the word “leadership.” From a fight for freedom,  politics came to mean the fight to usurp power and money for self and the next seven generations to come. Bloated with a sense of self-importance, our MPs and MLAs  dismissed, ridiculed, and even mocked the middle classes. The political growth of the country thus came to read as the story of educated India’s marginalization. By declaring politics dirty, the ruling class effectively put it out of reach of the regular Indian citizen.
**
This bulk of polite people grew increasingly disconnected with the drivers steering their destinies. Escaping to foreign lands was the most they did to deal with the mess their country was becoming. One profession they tabooed their children from considering was politics. While India stuck their head into the sand, the leaders grew fatter with misappropriation. All that may have changed on the  night of December 16 when a young, paramedical intern was beaten and raped in a private bus, only to breathe her last 13  days later.
**
The inhuman brutality of that attack ending in the brazen throwing out of her mutilated body onto a busy road made India sit up. This was too close home. Cries of “it could be me” rang across the subcontinent as we began to pulse with rage and fright, dusting off years of apathy and resignation to step out, in twos and threes, in groups and clusters.
**
 I too was at Jantar Mantar. There were grim faces, not a few teary eyes. I stood around, breathing the air of pained incredulity. The only two faces I recognized were those of Brinda Karat and Sitaram Yechury, both senior CPM leaders. Some NSD personalities and TV channel bosses rang familiar. But it was the faceless crowd that I felt most at home with. It felt strangely like family. At long last we were thinking community.
**
My countrymen, who are ordinarily gluttons for TV cameras, celebrating even if it is their elbow caught on the screen, were pushing the gadgets away.  I stood by, watching with pride as some young Indians took the mike to speak with quiet but impassioned dignity. There was no shade of awkwardness. They communicated with confident clarity, without scrambling for glory. I did not see any posturing for the cameras, and for once the gadgets were inconsequential.
 **
This was a gathering different from the usual raucous, grimy and unthinking mob. I was caught off guard to receive a couple of apologetic “sorrys” in the crowd over an accidental brush or two! People shifted and made space so you had a better view. When a voice rang out, requesting people to sit down, they promptly obeyed. I saw  the elderly delivering motivating speeches to young groups. The crowd kept the odd misbehaviour in check. There were people pouring thoughts and emotions on paper lining the road. 20- year-olds spelt inconvenient truths into public address systems and people applauded affirmatively. I heard anger born of frustration and fear.

**

 There was a public catharsis unfolding  at Jantar Mantar that day.  These ordinary citizens are the rightful owners of India’s airwaves, I thought to myself and they must reclaim the Indian story. Let them come out in greater numbers, I prayed. Dear God, for far too long, they have sanctioned the moth eating of their country with their silence.
**
Pledge, pledge, and pledge.. I screamed in my head. Pledge to raise  sons and daughters equally. Pledge to protest gender crimes. Pledge to speak, write, and communicate anguish at injustice. Pledge to reach out and connect. Pledge to demand a safe, equitable and clean India. Pledge not to let this assertion die.
 **
I came away with the memory of a sign a protester carried, “I have not felt this hopeful in a long, long time.”
 **
The author is a Resource Center-in-charge at the Junior Wing of Air Force Bal Bharati School. A teacher with a background and training in media, she has worked in advertising, public relations, documentary film making and feature journalism. Her interest lies in the role of motivation, an all-round exposure and multiculturalism in education. A regular contributor to the ‘Teacher Plus” magazine and a blogger with a keen interest in the evolving social dynamics and their influence on young people, she maintains a blog at http://confessionsofanambitiousmother.blogspot.in/

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