Is Anna Hazare Bollywood's marketing weapon?

New Delhi: Bollywood stars, on an aggressive promotional spree, seem to have jumped on to the bandwagon of veteran social activist Anna Hazare who has a considerable following among the youths of India.

On Wednesday actor Shah Rukh Khan, who was recently in the national capital to promote his film Don 2, said he supported the anti-corruption movement launched by Hazare. This is not the first time that Hazare has attracted stars to his popular campaign.

Khan said every aspect of the cause should be looked at seriously. "I think we all support the cause. I think there should be no corruption in the country. I think this whole aspect is becoming so large and so big and there are so many aspects of it that we need to look at it seriously, quietly, step-backedly. We just can't keep saying we support anti-corruption," said Khan.

Actor Kabir Bedi and her star father Kabir Bedi were seen at the Ramlila Maidan protest ground in New Delhi during Hazare's fast to force the government into drafting a stronger Ombudsman bill.
Ramlila Maidan and Hazare drew a star campaigner in August this year when actor Aamir Khan arrived with '3 Idiots' filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani in a crisp white shirt and was welcomed on stage with a thundering applause.

Khan said, "I am here to meet Annaji and give him a hug for the initiative he has taken."
Bollywood till now has only given a passive support to the Jan Lokpal issue. From tweets to participating in pro-Anna rallies in Mumbai, the Anna movement was yet to rub shoulders with the 'heroes'.

"The Bill won't be passed in a day or two. It requires a lot of discussion and debate in Parliament," Aamir said at that time. His presence on the stage raised a lot of eyebrows ahead of the release of his actor nephew Imran Khan’s film 'Mere Brother Ki Dulhan' in September. Khan had also been promoting Delhi Belly, another Imran starrer that was released in July.

Thousands of protestors were in for a treat as Aamir gave a speech and even entertained the spectators by singing. Director Rajkumar Hirani also spoke at the stage and asserted the need for Anna Hazare, 74, to remain healthy.

Hazare's campaign has attracted a lot of high profile campaigners.
Bollywood stars seem to have realised that Hazare’s new-found popularity among the youths is an assured way to reach out to their target audience

Anna Hazare, Jan Lokpal bill top status updates in 2011

CHENNAI: Communications minister Kapil Sibal may think content on social networking sites is offensive, but a new study shows that the users are politically engaged people who air views and share news online.

According to a report released by Facebook, Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal bill were mentioned the most in status updates in 2011 in India. But Sibal might just dislodge Hazare if he persists with the demand to pre-screen internet content. On Twitter, #IdiotKapilSibal was the trending topic on Tuesday.

The Facebook study shows that social media users in the country prefer to share and discuss political events rather than entertainment reports. "Today's social platforms are allowing people to do something about the things they believe in. The criticism that this is just a modern version of armchair activism, or re-tweet activism, is unfair," said Narendra Nag, general manager, 2020 Social, an online community management firm.

Social networking sites were used as an organizing tool for protests during the Anna Hazare fast in April. Facebook, with over 38 million Indian users-over 3% of the population-is credited with playing a significant role in the 'India Against Corruption' movement. Likewise, Twitter, MySpace and Blackberry Messenger have been key to political movements globally.

"We had the right policy and correct philosophy (Jan Lokpal bill), and the huge number of social media users helped the movement," said Anna Hazare's former blogger and political analyst Raju Parulekar. In future, such channels will play a bigger role in democratic countries like ours, he said.

Shah Rukh Khan's film 'Ra.One' and song 'Chammak Chalo' were the second most-shared topics on status updates followed by Osama bin Laden, Jagjit Singh and Steve Jobs.

Globally, Osama bin Laden's death topped the status trend among a total of 800 million users as of September.

A separate study by Pew Research in June said that Facebook users are politically more active than other social media users. This year, social media has played a key role in international politics. The sites have been used to spread mass anti-government protests in Syria, Libya, and other North African countries.

The London riots in August were planned using social media tools, especially Blackberry Messenger. Later, police cracked down on planned riots with the help of Research In Motion, the makers of Blackberry. In the UK, status messages about the riots were the second most popular, after the Royal Wedding.

"Willingness to express opinions and network with large numbers of people will continue to fuel reform movements and people will thoroughly participate in such events," said Kiruba Shankar, tech expert and CEO of Business Blogging, a social media consultant.

On the move to control the content on the internet, Parulekar said, "I am absolutely against any kind of censorship in media or social media." He said these tools are important for democracy and democratic referendum.

Social media users and analysts suspect that the government does not want another Anna Hazare-type movement, which was powered by social media. "My suspicion is that they want to protect the government, fearing mass movements like the ones in Syria, Libya or other Middle East countries," Shankar said. "The internet is the world's largest democracy and it should not be meddled with."