Anger, solidarity and calls to action: Social media for Anna

The detention of Anna Hazare this morning has galvanised an already vocal online community who have rushed to his support.

The Facebook group of the Mumbai chapter of the “India against corruption” movement to which Anna belongs, has urged people to change their profile pictures to plain black squares as a means of protesting the government decision to take Anna Hazare into preventive custody before he left for Rajghat to begin his fast.

A wall post on the page read, “A HUMBLE REQUEST: Democracy can’t be murdered so brutally. Please change your profile pic to ‘Black’ at least for a day to oppose the arrest of team ‘Anna’. Co-operation expected !!!.”

On Twitter meanwhile, 8 of the 10 items on the ’top trends’ list for India were all directly related to the fast. #isupportannahazare is the most highly ranked of the lot, but the topics “Delhi Police”, “Kiran Bedi”, “Sushma Swaraj” and “JP Park” are also on that list

On Youtube meanwhile the video message posted by Anna Hazare to be viewed in case he got arrested, has been duplicated numerous times, with around 8 - 10 channels all showing the message. The comments on the videos are as outraged as those on Twitter and Facbook. One user had said, “Today Indian Democracy has been thrown into the gutter by the protectors of the corrupt looters on my Nation.

Anna Hazare, we are behind you !!! God Bless you!”

Most of these tweets and Facebook updates read as either expressions of anger against the Delhi police and government or support for Team Anna.

A user named @atulkasbekar tweeted, “U may not agree wt Anna’s ideology or his methods. That’s fine. BUT U CANNOT TAKE AWAY HIS RIGHT TO PEACEFUL PROTEST! #isupportAnnaHazare”

While @LON3WOLF said, “On 15th Aug, we got our independence and on 16th Aug the Indian Government took it away x-( #isupportannahazare”

But besides expressing solidarity/anger many people have also begun to use the social media networks as calls to action on the ground as well.

A Facebook user, Abdul Akthar has drafted a letter to the Supreme Court of India and provided an email address, urging fans of the page to copy the message and send it to the court from their own email id’s. The message is basically a request for Suo Moto action in the public interest for the freedom to peacefully protest.

Meanwhile on Twitter, various groups and individuals are using popular hashtags like #isupportannahazare or #annahazare to organise on the ground protests against his detention.

One user under the name @damayantig had said, Folks seen carrying Indian Flag is being arrested by police. #isupportannahazare Call: 7303150500, 80972 97905 in MUMBAI to protest. The same user had also said, “AURANGABAD MAHARASHTRA #isupportannahazare pls Come to Kranti Chowk in large number rs to protest Anna’s arrest, send sms to friends to join” She later tweeted that “More than1000 people present,more than 100 people fasting at Balgandharva PUNE”

In Delhi, a twitter user named ‘Rishi’ had tweeted out his number, asking people to join his movement to court arrest at the Chhatrasal stadium. Speaking to Firstpost, Rishi Kesh who identified himself as an administrataor at the Faculty of Law in the Delhi university, said that he was the head of a movement comprising both students and faculty members in support of Anna.

“Around a 1000 people from campuses across DU have already been arrested, but many many more are still going”, he said.

And taking a leaf from Kiran Bedi’s book, where she continued using her Blackberry to tweet even as she was taken into preventive custody, users are tweeting from inside the stadium too let others know what is happening.

@asamulya, who is inside, tweeted “Chatrasal stadium full with 5000 inside! #isupportannahazare” while @hitesh_jain90 said, “Chhatrasal Stadium house full. #isupportannahazare #annahazare Parliament Democracy in Emergency”