Anna Hazare's campaign may lead to a new Lokpal Bill, but it has legitimised middle-class vigilantism and other kinds of civil society mobilisation. NOW that Anna Hazare has declared victory, it is time to take stock of one of the most powerful recent mobilisations of people in India, focussed on influencing policy or lawmaking processes. The victory, however, is largely symbolic. The original demand of the movement, carefully built around Hazare's...

-The Hindustan Times   Parliamentarians on Thursday expressed discomfort over supporters of Anna Hazare holding demonstrations outside the houses of ministers and MPs. MPs cutting across party lines slammed the phenomenon, arguing that it impinged upon their freedom to carry out their duties. Raising the issue during Zero Hour in Lok Sabha, Congress member MI Shanavas said Hazare's call to his supporters to conduct gheraos and protest outside the houses of ministers...

The BJP today rooted for Anna Hazare’s version of the Lokpal bill, two days after it distanced itself from the draft, the somersault coming in a letter the party’s president wrote to the fasting activist. “We have always been and are for a strong Lokpal,” Nitin Gadkari said in his letter. “For that to happen, (the) BJP accepts your Jan Lokpal bill to be the basis for a strong and effective...

-PTI   Ahead of the debate on Jan Lokpal Bill in Lok Sabha on Friday, Anna Hazare team tonight reached out to BJP which said a solution to the impasse could be found in consonance with the Constitution if the government has a "constructive" attitude. Hazare's associates Arvind Kejriwal, Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi met senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari for over...

The largely urban, middle-class agitation led by “Team Anna” Hazare for the acceptance of a particular version of the Lokpal bill in order to end corruption in India, has raised several questions regarding the scope, legitimacy, credibility and sustainability of such protests. It has also led to some rather hasty comparisons with powerful movements in the past — including, quite unbelievably, India’s freedom struggle, arguably the biggest mass movement in...