-The Economic Times   The single most significant achievement of the government's midnight crackdown on Baba Ramdev and his fellow protesters at Delhi's Ramlila Grounds has been to dent its own credibility. Its critics are entirely right to ask why, if the fasting Baba is a charlatan as the government now claims he is, more ministers were sent to receive him at the Delhi airport than has been assigned to greet...

Expectations of changes resulting from a movement bereft of a clear political and ideological thrust would be far-fetched. FROM the vacuum left by mainstream politics to the confusions of ideology and practice emerging out of half-baked socio-political engagement – the political trajectory of Anna Hazare's “anti-corruption” satyagraha movement demanding early introduction of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament can well be summed up thus. The wide support that the movement received from...

For all his damage-control efforts, Anna Hazare's praise for Narendra Modi has emerged as a touchstone, however unwittingly, for determining the political character of the Jan Lokpal movement. Adverse reactions from his own supporters indicate that civil society is not satisfied with Hazare's clarification that he had patted Modi only in the context of rural development and that, as a Gandhian, he was opposed to communal disharmony. Hazare is under pressure to...

Hokum must have its kingdom. The judicial report on the culpability for the crime perpetrated on December 6, 1992, was first leaked and then laid on the floor of Parliament. The predictable sequel was an uproarious parliamentary debate. Countrymen are however not any more enlightened than they already were. That horrid outrage was committed over 17 years ago, in broad daylight, with the world’s media looking on. Thousands watched the proceedings...