The anti-politician feeling generated by Anna Hazare's agitation, combined with Arvind Kejriwal's association with the Youth for Equality, the organisation that spearheaded the anti-reservation agitation in the AIIMS, has triggered a sense of unease among parliamentarians belonging to Dalit and backward communities. Dalit and OBC MPs on Wednesday lamented the "attack on the supremacy of Parliament and the Constitution". From BJP's Hukumdeo Narain Yadav to JD-U president Sharad Yadav and Lok...

The movement around Anna Hazare's fast highlights a worrying trend. No, it's not corruption. That we know. The worry is: Is Indian democracy in a state of decay? Democracy in this largest of all democratic nations seems to be working fine at first glance. We vote regularly and throw out parties in power when a majority wants change. We have a free press. We have an independent judiciary. But there's...

In the unseen and unheard margins of Team Anna’s Ramlila Surge, there’s a growing sense of disquiet —especially among minority and marginalised groups. Despite carefully choreographed images of Muslim children publicly breaking their Ramzaan fast with Anna Hazare, prominent Dalit, Muslim and Christian leaders are deeply suspicious of the faces on display and the voices emanating from the crowds. They argue that Anna’s ends — fighting corruption — is undoubtedly justified, they...

-The Hindustan Times   Dalits, backward castes and minorities  came together against Team Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill on Wednesday. They held a rally from India Gate that grid-locked peak hour traffic, proposing a Bahujan Lokpal Bill. “We will draft the Bahujan Lokpal Bill within two to three days and submit it to the Parliamentary standing committee,” Udit Raj, chairman of the All-India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, said. “We want our representative in the...

The substitution of one man for the people, and the reduction of the people's role merely to being supporters and cheerleaders for one man's actions, is antithetical to democracy. The Central government's flip-flops on Anna Hazare are obvious: it went from abusing him (through the Congress spokesperson) for sheltering corruption, to extolling him for his idealism; from arresting him, without any justification, and getting him remanded to judicial custody for a...