Amit muses over the rally and candle light vigil held at the Gateway, the unexpected support from Mumbaikars, and ..the future of this nascent protest movement:

Well. I will call the spade a spade. It was a huge turnout. For a change, a lot of people agreed on doing something together. But it was, end of the day, jingoism. Extreme aggressive patriotism. But it was directionless. Who is going to channel this energy? For long will this last? And a lot of frustrated angry thoughts crossed my mind –

1. Who’s rooting? – In the last 7 days, I haven’t seen a single taxi driver/ auto rickshaw driver being interviewed about how they feel, and whether they are also party to such strong display of anger. Maybe, they need to keep their kitchens active. They don’t have the liberty to be online and plan a revolution. They need to keep earning their meager daily incomes.

2. Who battle is it anyway? Is it, then, true that this is a battle that the elites are fighting against the polity? Is it true that we are hearing so much uproar because it’s the people who are close to the mouthpiece who are making the most noise? Because South Bombay was hit? Because Ratan lost 500 crores in those 60 hours? Because Shobhaa De was having dinner closeby? And a film director escaped by a whisker? Or a journalist died? Would the uproar be similar if 200 poor people had died in a bomb blast?

3. Why now? Ideasmith’s tweet read –I bet there were no candlelight vigils for those who died in the #mumbai train blasts last year. I agree. And I wonder if we will have the same number of candle light vigils if a bomb blast happens in Assam or Sikkim. Or Bihar.