-Agence France-Presse He may dress, talk and fast like his hero Mahatma Gandhi, but critics say anti-graft activist Anna Hazare has only managed to co-opt the style, not the substance, of India's independence icon. The figure of Gandhi looms large - and literally - over Hazare's anti-corruption campaign, with a giant photograph of the apostle of non-violence providing the backdrop to the 74-year-old's public hunger strike. Hazare's speeches are peppered with Gandhian references...

Anna Hazare is not Mohandas Gandhi or Jayaprakash Narayan. No one wants to seriously hear his diagnosis of the ills of the Indian political system or his vision of a future India and, so, it is pointless to find fault with either. He is not even a Gandhian satyagrahi looking for self-purification or waiting to listen to his inner voice. He has used his fasts to unashamedly pressure a corrupt,...

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...

Anna Hazare's so-called "second freedom struggle" raises questions, one, about how long the protests can be sustained, and, two, on the merits of the protesters' demands and methods. But before that, Team Anna should be given credit for reviving long-somnolent mass politics in this country, something beyond the Opposition that has been reduced to activism on the idiot box. It shows how much anti-government political space had been abandoned by the...

-The Hindu   Strongly condemning the arrest of social activist Anna Hazare in New Delhi on Tuesday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal said the Centre's action smacked of “dictatorial tendencies,” trying as it did to throttle the people's right to speak out against any issue. Demanding a “strong Jan Lokpal Bill” that would have the office of Prime Minister within its ambit, the party also insisted on instituting a...