Why Anna succeeds?
Is it a million dollar question or should I say a question to unravel the millions of dollars? Why did it take 74 years for a man to achieve what he couldn’t earlier? Or is it that we have had enough of the crooked politicians and we needed a rallying point?
The incidents over the last few days have been more than just usual.
Over the years, there has been a sea change in the society... how things are perceived and how interactions have changed within the constituents and the stakeholders. Even some 6-7 years back, when I had just started to work in Sales, it was felt that the only you can achieve your sales targets is by abusing people, by hurling the choicest of abuses to your subordinates, by bullying him to work on Sundays and holidays. Standing today, some of the finest sales managers who have stood the test of time are the individuals who have given ample and due respect to their team members... I can rattle of names and site examples.
People are not ready to be bullied any more by whosoever it may be.
Be it the advent of the internet, the emergence of the electronic media, our world has become smaller... it is more compact. News and intelligence are no more the prerogative or opportunity of the select few. News, opinions, views travel faster than in the 3G Age than ever before. And it holds true for human beings as well. It’s not just the technology that has evolved, our generations have as well.
Change is the order of the day... couple of years back not many would have imagined that the communists will be thrown out of power from the state of West Bengal but they have been. It is not something different from what I see at the workplace. As human beings, as we expect is a little respect for our perceived values. Why I say perceived is because, values are relative to the upbringing of one’s own. A common man expects that little much only. Unfortunately, respect we may command but very little of that do we part away with... we take people for granted even in our day in day out relationships.
With the opening up of the economy, the opportunities have been more... the learning have been more... as much as a boss (the individual in power) may have believed “I care two hoots about you... if you go, I will get someone else”, the subordinate may have also thought “You think you’ll continue to kick me... I’ll kick you out in the first opportunity that I get”... and they moved on. The Super Sales Managers became Zero, the Communists wondered when the lightening strike did them in and the UPA Government is wondering where the majority has gone!
India needed a “Few Good Men”.
From childhood I had read Kiran Bedi is a good lady... she is what one can aspire to be. As much as Manish Tiwari (the Congress Spokesperson) would like us to believe that Anna Hazare is immersed in corruption, this young man of 74 doesn’t look like a corrupt man... he doesn’t talk like one. Fortunately, for the common man, they have seen too faces of corruption over the last 1 year and unfortunately, for the Sonis and Sibbals, the simple Gandhian just doesn’t resemble the Rajas and Kalmadis.
Arvind Kejriwal is a Ramon Magsaysay Award Winner and an alumnus from IIT Kharagpur. That’s what my parents aspired me to be...an IITian that I couldn’t be. This man left a TATA Steel job to work with Missionaries of Charity and Ramkrishna Mission... went on to become an IRS and left his role of a Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Office to form “Parivartan”. Would I not believe him when he talks? Remove the name... I would be a proud father, if that was the CV of my son.
India found their “Few Good Men”.
In school I was taught “Actions speak louder than words”... I am sure they taught the same across all the schools. How much our Honourable Prime Minister would want us to believe about his intentions and actions, all which spoke were his inactions, his acts of silence. I believed what my teacher taught me... I believed when my father told me “speaking the truth is right... Ram is right and Ravaan is wrong”. I may have not practiced it often, I have lied on occasions but then I have never abused my subordinates either. I give respect to the person across me. I have been selfish but in me I know “Ram is right and Ravaan is wrong”.
I may not be the Ram... but then even Ram needed the Hanumans.
