You said that the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies conducted a survey asking people what they felt about street protest. What did you find? One of the first national representative surveys was the National Election Study held in 1971. This is when a protest culture was beginning to take shape in the country. There was the Naxalite movement and also a time when the Congress was dislodged for the...
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Hazare is no Gandhi by Salil Tripathi
Until about a year ago, the number of Indians who knew the name of Kisan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare, ran into a few thousand -- small change in a country of a billion people. The former army driver was known for his peculiar experiments of social reform in a village in Maharashtra, in western India. He had received national awards for his social work. By the end of...
More »One man against a corrupt state system by Brijesh Pandey
WHEN ITANAGAR businessman and chairman of the Sango Lamte Foundation Payi Gyadi embarked on his crusade against dishonesty, he did not bargain for this. Four FIRs, one attempt to frame him by planting weapons in his car, and countless ‘offers’ to reach a ‘compromise or die’. His crime: exposing that the current Arunachal Pradesh Health Minister Atum Welly’s son and daughter had got government jobs based on fake certificates. It all...
More »South Asian human rights forum condemns Hazare arrest
-IANS South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) has condemned the arrest of social activist Anna Hazare and others before they launched their agitation for an effective Lokpal bill as "ultra vires" of the Indian constitution. SAHR chairperson Hina Jilani of Pakistan said in a statement that in a democracy all citizens have a right to protest peacefully and the government must uphold the citizens' fundamental right of speech and expression. "This act of...
More »Arrest complicates corruption debate by Soutik Biswas
Has India's battle against corruption become a contest between the tyranny of virtue and the tyranny of the state, as some analysts put it? The police have arrested anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare for pledging to go ahead with a hunger strike against a proposed new anti-corruption law. After nine meetings with the government, Mr Hazare and his supporters cobbled together their version of the Lokpal (Citizen's Ombudsman) bill. He insists that this...
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