The IAC popular protest movement began in a year when there were also major protests about corruption in countries such as Russia (sometimes called the Snow Revolution) and the US (Occupy Wall Street). Alison Brysk, an American political science professor, notes that the Arab Spring protests that began in late 2010 were "initially sparked by corruption - not regime change". Brysk believes that "Regardless of limited policy outcomes, each of these citizenship movements succeeded in communicating a political critique of social problems that had been seen previously as a consequence of tradition, abusive individuals, self-correcting markets, or bad luck. They were all movements that relied heavily on symbolism.

The campaign gained strength through social media, with Facebook and Twitter becoming its prime tools for circulating messages and building a network of supporters. Their proposal was for the creation of a Lokpal (ombudsman) who would have powers to arrest and charge government officials accused of corruption.[3][4][5] They approached Ramdev, a populist yogi with millions of supporters among the middle-classes of small-town India, to be the figurehead for this campaign. His connections to the right-wing Sangh Parivar threatened to damage the credibility of what was nominally an apolitical movement.

He was soon replaced by Anna Hazare, a veteran social reformer with a history of undertaking fasts in support of his causes. Hazare, too, brought a large support base with him, described by Meera Nanda as being largely "from urban middle-classes and idealistic youth". The urban sophistication of Hazare, compared to Ramdev's rusticity, attracted high-profile support for the campaign from Bollywood stars, the internet-savvy, and mainstream English-language news media. He, too, struggled to disassociate himself from Hindutva symbolism: hence, support from non-Hindus was less forthcoming.