By IANS,
New Delhi : From calling it the fight for real independence to advocating a more cautious mood in the battle against corruption — there was an outpouring of postings on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook after Anna Hazare broke his 97-hour fast here Saturday morning.
“Anna Hazare is another Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. We support Anna Hazare,” posted Kartikeya Putturaya on a Facebook page on Hazare.
There were similar adulatory messages from other Facebook users.
“The fight for REAL INDEPENDENCE has been started!!!!!!!!!” said Delhi-based Sahil Bansal, while businessman Rakesh Gupta congratulated Hazare on the victory of Indian people and democracy against corruption.
On Twitter, ‘Jantar Mantar’, the venue of the anti-corruption crusade in central Delhi, was among the top five most widely quoted words by users in India.
Lucknow resident Puneet Pawaia echoed the views of several twitterati when he posted, “Congratulations to the people of India. The battle has been won but the war is far from over.”
There was an avalanche of tweets asking people to sign up for the online campaign in Hazare’s support. “Sign the petition for the #Lokpal bill!,” said Sudershan Pandhi.
Reflecting the youthful element of the campaign, Chhavi Negi wrote: “Cool to see the youth saying, “AnnaHazare jee, you are the rockstar…you are the dude!” 🙂 & they knw that it is just the beginning (sic).”
But, there was a lot of scepticism about the intentions of the government in accepting the demands of the social activists.
“Is it a real victory? Has not govt thrust themselves upon the nation in the form of co-committee. What opposition parties are for,” said Dev Das.
Similarly, Mani Suresh wrote: “Just hoping this isn’t another dirty game by the politicians to bring the momentum down.”
A popular political commentator on Twitter with the alias, ‘pragmatic_d’ was critical of the goals of the campaign as well as the sudden surge in support for it, noting that democracy had no quick-fix solution.
“Democracy is so messy, with elections & legislation. Yeah, at one point, the same guys in cocktail circuits wanted a Musharraf for India,” he said.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, a Twitter enthusiast, also cautioned that ‘victory’ could be illusionary.
“Now that victory has been declared time to ask who will the “people’s reps” be accountable to & how will accountability be enforced? (sic),” he asked.
Actress Neha Dhupia tweeted: “Just landed in Delhi and it already feels less corrupt…”, to which Abdullah quipped: “Someone tell me this is meant to be tongue in cheek”.