The Power of Rural India

Anti-corruption campaigns by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have awakened the collective conscience of the normally dormant urban elite, which has gone into frenzy on social networking sites. In a country where Internet penetration and computer literacy are abysmally low, such campaigns may never become a sustainable mass movement, as erudite Facebookers and Tweeters like us constitute an insignificant spec on the national fabric. India lives in her villages and unless the people in rural areas are galvanised, any campaign is bound to fizzle out. Mahatma Gandhi led one of the greatest movements in history at time when social networking sites or mobile phones were not in existence, and won freedom for the country. That was only because he understood the power of rural India.