Anna Hazare succeeded because he tapped into a deeply felt anger against corruption and systemic gang-up. But the campaign must define itself ideologically or risk appropriation by right-wing usurpers. A future historian attempting to document the Anna Hazare fast at the Capital's Jantar Mantar will likely confront contrasting images: of multitudes enthused and galvanised by one elder citizen's crusading zeal, of Mr. Hazare's almost single-handed ability, within days, to bring the...

Gandhi resorted to some 30 fasts, of which one-third were directed at himself, for ‘atonement’ or self-purification, one-third were directed against the raj and one-third at India’s social mores. A more honest trinity cannot be imagined. The latter two kinds of fasts were meant to make an impact on the ‘other side’; they were part-fasts and part- hunger strikes, part anashan and part bhukh-hartal, though he derived from each a sense...

The BJP is still sizing up the fallout of Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption activism, undecided whether it would be able to reap political dividends, if any, from the urban, middle-class “upsurge” across the country. The leadership is expected to exchange notes and work out its strategy once the Assembly polls verdict is out. “The outcome will show whether the movement (that came in the midst of the state polls) had an impact...

Under attack from political parties over funding of Anna Hazare's campaign for the Lokpal Bill, India Against Corruption, the umbrella organisation that steered the crusade, has released details of expenditure and said all civil society members of the joint drafting committee will declare their assets and liabilities on Friday. Two days before the first meeting of the joint drafting committee, India Against Corruption issued a detailed press statement on the expense...

700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate There can hardly be a bigger taboo than sanitation when it comes to the government, bureaucracy or even the people...