The people are not always right - though they usually are. Socrates was sentenced to death in a direct democracy by popular vote in a popular jury. He was the greatest man Athens ever produced and was unquestionably one of the noblest men of all time. The Treaty of Versailles was a link in the chain of events that led to the decline of the great civilisation of Europe. Yet...

Though Anna Hazare gets much of the credit for focusing the national spotlight on corruption, India was only too aware of the problem even before his agitation. According to a Pew Research poll in October 2010 (six months before Hazare emerged on the national scene), 98 per cent of Indians indicate corrupt political leaders as a “very big” or a “moderately big” problem. Hazare’s campaign did not attune Indians to...

-The Indian Express Anna Hazare has accused the Centre of “cheating the people” by trying to enact a weak Lokpal, to “save” corrupt politicians. Meanwhile, Prashant Bhushan contends that the CBI chief’s selection was bound to be problematic, given that it would be decided by two politicians (“the prime minister and someone who hopes to someday be prime minister”) and the Chief Justice of India (previous holders of that office having...

The government’s desperate race to redraft the Lokpal bill in time for passage this Parliament session has left political circles uneasy, with even some Opposition leaders conceding the dangers of lawmaking under such abnormal pressure. The Centre too is squirming at this “indecent haste”, prompted by its keenness to avoid another face-off with Team Anna. But it feels it has little choice in a political climate where “confrontationism” is giving the...

-The Indian Express   When it comes to Team Anna and the stage, the symbol has always signified as much as the substance. So Sunday’s gathering at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar featuring Anna Hazare flanked by politicians from the CPM and CPI to the BJP, Samajwadi Party, JD(U), TDP, BJD and the Akali Dal, was a significant one. While this may be a shrewd self-unmasking of Team Anna’s apolitical veneer, elevating the...