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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The Anna factor

The Anna factor

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published Published on Dec 29, 2011   modified Modified on Dec 29, 2011

-The Times of India

Representative politics is not just about elections. It's also about visions and issues that mould political consciousness: A lesson that has been powerfully driven home by Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption movement. No doubt, the nationwide popular groundswell, witnessed over the last few months, has changed the rules of contemporary engagement between the political classes and the civil society.

The crucial Lokpal debate, beginning inParliament on Tuesday, even as Anna launched into his three-day fast in Mumbai, was an upshot of months of hectic negotiations between the formal political class and informal civil society groups, including Team Anna.

It used to be customary once to make an unequivocal distinction between civil and political society. But this distinction, predicated upon equating politics solely with elections, has become untenable. The Anna movement has succeeded in expanding democracy's public sphere outside the grid of established political parties.

The engagement of forces inside and outside Parliament has generated a political churning, moving the debate outside the strict confines of both legalism and populism. It's worthwhile to remember that non-party mass movements, even in the past, had impacted mainstream politics and policymaking. The JP movement had jolted the political establishment in the 1970s with its slogan of 'partyless democracy'.

The truth is that the political class and civil society need to work together for people's greater good. Neither side can afford to delegitimise the other. It's Parliament's mandate to legislate. But, civil society too, though falling outside the formal political and institutional systems, has a right to conduct movements and impact the legislative process. Political parties can't ignore the power of social movements, especially in the present information age dominated by social media and 24x7 TV channels.

Team Anna may not be able to mobilise crowds of the same size as organised political parties. But then the political class may well keep in mind the large numbers of people watching the fasting Gandhian crusader on their television screens, and using social media to mobilise opinion. That autonomous spheres of civil society have now come into their own is no longer a matter of debate.

Team Anna too can't delegitimise the political class. Anna should desist from launching into one fast after another. Especially, when the government is discussing the Lokpal Bill, and Parliament is debating its nitty-gritty. A Bill of such complexity has to be thoroughly debated. Team Anna should not keep mounting pressure to push through a draconian legislation that can defeat the very objective of the anti-corruption movement.

The Times of India, 28 December, 2011, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-28/edit-page/30562010_1_team-anna-civil-society-lokpal-bill


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