How techies rallied for Anna Hazare
By Nina Mukherji

Bangalore based employees of tech giant Wipro organised a rally to show their support for Anna Hazare and his fight against corruption. Techies from Infosys and Hewlett Packard also joined hands with them in support of this noble cause. Techgoss caught up with Sridhar Chinnadurai from Wipro to know more about the protest and how they relate to this campaign against corruption.

Techgoss (TG): What is your technology background and what do you do at Wipro?
Sridhar Chinnadurai (SC): I have done my BE in Civil Engineering and Masters in Environmental Engineering, In Wipro I am somewhere between a Senior Software Engineer and a Tech Lead.

TG: What made you want to support the Anna Hazare cause?
SC: Very simple. If a 72 year old man can risk his life for me and my generation, then the least that I can do is gather support for him.

TG: Anything specific you would like to see added to the Bill?
SC: To be honest, I don’t have the expertise to suggest an amendment to the bill. All I know is the basic features of the bill as recommended by Anna Hazare. I trust Anna Hazare not because he is an expert or experienced but because he is selfless. If intentions are good then the results that follow will also be good.

TG: How did you go about organizing the rally, posters, and email campaign? Did you use Facebook/Twitter as well?
SC: Electronic media played a vital role in circulating the information and creating awareness, but when it comes down to brass tacks someone needs to roll up their sleeves and get cracking. We were distributing pamphlets, holding posters with slogans and standing in front of our gates, in the canteens, walking around the campus, spreading the message verbally to a lot of people.

TG: How many demonstrators turned up and what was the route taken by the procession?
SC: Not so sure about the exact numbers but around 250 to 350 members turned up at Thursdays Rally. Fridays Rally witnessed much larger numbers with around 2000 to 3000 people being there. Wiproite’s started from the Wipro gate and Infosys employees from their gate. Employees of HP and some other companies also joined us midway. We merged before Hosur main road at the phase 2 entrance of Electronic City and then marched through the till the phase 1 entrance and then returned via HP. People were carrying the national flag, posters with anti-corruption texts and shouting slogans. The procession took about an hour and a half.

TG: Do you know of any other such protests by software persons in other parts of Bangalore?
SC: Protests were going on in Freedom Park. We had requested all in Fridays rally to be present there on Saturday morning at 10:30 AM. As far as other parts, I am not sure.

TG: Any other point you would like to mention.
SC: Thanks to Karthick Ganesan and Shanmugam, who were part of initiating this rally. There are many more issues that need to be fixed in our nation. Though a few compromises have been made in Anna’s original demand for Jan Lokpal we are happy that most of the demands have been met. When young India is looking for their leaders and heroes in theatres and the cricket fields, we are happy to say that we have got Anna Hazare to guide and lead us.

Wake up India.  Root out corruption