Team Anna

The Indian National Congress had been fighting for the independence of India from colonial British rule. Periyar assumed that independent India would bring Tamils, under the dominance of Brahmins.  For these reasons Periyar called for 15 August 1947, the day of Indian independence, to be a day of mourning. Annadurai opposed this move and the schism between his supporters and Periyar widened.

Annadurai saw the gaining of independence as an overall achievement of India rather than solely that of Aryan North. Moreover Periyar's decision on giving up participating in democratic elections was also opposed by Annadurai, in reaction to which he walked out of a party meeting in 1948. 

Periyar considered that candidates in elections must compromise their ideologies. Moreover, it was Periyar's idea that social reformation can be better achieved outside politics, through education and canvassing the masses, rather than governments.

Annadurai launched his own party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. DMK's presence was initially restricted to urban centres and its surrounding areas. But by appealing to the urban lower, lower middle and working classes, students, Dalits and lower castes, Annadurai was able to accelerate its growth and spread. He fought for the social justice of the lower castes and thus rapidly gained popular support.

The provincial conference of the DMK was held at Tiruchirappali in May 1956. Annadurai stepped down from the General Secretaryship of the party, and Nedunchezian was elected to that position. It was at the Tiruchirappalli conference that the party decided to contest free India’s second general elections which were to be held in 1957. The DMK secured 15 Assembly seats and two parliamentary seats. Anna was elected from his home constituency, Kanchipuram for the first time to the Madras Legislative Assembly.

In that election, the DMK won 15 seats and Annadurai became the leader of the opposition in the state. After 5 years, in 1962, the DMK emerged as the major political party in the state outside the Congress, winning 50 seats in the Assembly. Although Annadurai himself lost the elections, he was nominated as a Member of Parliament to the upper house Rajya Sabha.

In 1967, the Congress lost nine states to opposition parties. But it was only in Madras state that a single non-Congress party majority was achieved. The electoral victory of 1967 is also reputed to an electoral fusion among the non-Congress parties to avoid a split in the Opposition votes. 

Rajagopalachari, a former senior leader of the Congress party, had by then left the Congress and launched the right-wing Swatantra Party. He played a vital role in bringing about the electoral fusion amongst the opposition parties to align against the Congress. At that time, Annadurai cabinet ministers  were the youngest in the country.

Since 1967, till today, it's Team Anna has been ruling the state, Tamilnadu.

Now, Anna Hazare is like E.V.Ramasamy Periyar.

Arvind Kejriwal is like Tamilnadu Annadurai.

Indian techies in Silicon Valley turn angel investors for Arvind Kejriwal

SAN FRANCISCO: They may be a world away, but that hasn't prevented Indian techies in the Silicon Valley from pitching in with their efforts for the new kid in politics, Aam Aadmi Party.
Sold on the promise of honest politics by its founder Arvind Kejriwal, hundreds of Indians in the Valley are contributing to the party's growth with what they are best at—building technology systems and platforms.

"People in the Valley jumped at the opportunity as they have seen how the western world has changed, and that change is possible (in India) because of technology," said Pran Kurup, a Valley based AAP volunteer and CEO of elearning firm Vitalect. Most of them joined AAP after its debut in the Delhi assembly elections.

Some members have quit jobs. In the assembly elections, it had stunned even veteran pollsters by winning a sizable chunk of the seats and Kejriwal, a former taxman, became the chief minister of Delhi.

While this is not the first time that political parties have cultivated a support base abroad, AAP has managed to attract huge interest within a short time. Older political parties, such as the BJP, enjoy a much larger support but it is concentrated mostly among those who moved to the US much earlier.

The AAP volunteers have so far built back-end software systems and organized virtual meetups. Some have even quit their well-paying jobs and returned to campaign full-time for the party.

"When AAP announced the first set of candidates for Lok Sabha elections last month, the Silicon Valley team was in charge of technology, which involved updating the party website with photographs, descriptions and adding all this into a central database," said Kurup, who develops digital content for the party.

From a handful of engineers last July, the AAP volunteer group in San Francisco now has over 200 members. Its core technology team in the US has a team of 10. The party, whose symbol is the broom, depends on free, open-source software due to its shoestring budget.

In contrast, the BJP and Congress are said to have spent hundreds of crores to outsource their technology and digital marketing work. Mohanraj Thirumalai a systems manager at the University of Alabama in Birmingham is part of the Valley-based team that is currently developing a policy feedback forum for the AAP website.

The forum, which will soon be rolled out nationally, will let internet users cast their vote on different policy matters, after which the top views and suggestions will be reviewed by the leadership.
"The good thing is that the party does not differentiate between NRIs and Indians. There's constant communication between the Delhi team and tech developers in the Valley," said Thirumalai, who was part of a team that built the social media trend analysis system for AAP during the assembly polls.
His team later developed a system that keeps track of donations from abroad. "The only problem is that due to budget constraints we are unable to use external applications and everything has to be built internally." A few have also jumped into the rough and tumble of electioneering.

Maya Vishwakarma, organiser of the AAP San Francisco Bay Area volunteer network, is the party's candidate for Hoshangabad in MadhyaPradesh.

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Together, Overseas Indians and Resident Indians could turn Indian Politics upside down. Overseas Indians offer high-tech support. Resident Indians work in the field. It is full of volunteers.

Volunteers strength cannot be underestimated. Gandhi had tested and proved it.

Party workers do work for their promotion. Paid workers work for their salary.

These volunteers are like natural human energy. This energy is like the energy in Sun; in the universe.

In all other nations, Internet was not used properly. In Indian Politics, it is being used in the right way.

It will be a huge upset for both BJP and Congress.