(This is part one of a four-part 'April' series that revisited significant historical events or policies and how the lessons learned from them continue to be of relevance in present-day politics and society. Read part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here.)
India was gripped by a strange kind of schizophrenia eleven years ago in early April 2011. On 2 April, Indians were on top of the moon. A towering helicopter shot six by captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had enabled India to defeat Sri Lanka in the cricket World Cup final. 3 April was a Sunday and almost the entire country was busy celebrating the famous victory.
Barely had the firecrackers stopped the next day on 5 April that the Gandhian anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare dropped a bombshell. He announced a fast unto death beginning on 5 April 2011 till a new law empowering a Lok Pal was cleared by the UPA regime and passed by the Parliament.
The same set of middle-class urban Indians who had been cheering and clapping for Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, and Yuvraj Singh started doing the same for Anna Hazare and his band of starry-eyed activists who had declared war against corruption. There is little doubt in the mind of numerous analysts including the authors that the short-lived fast unto death by Anna Hazare sounded the death knell of the UPA regime.