Slogans of the “Second Freedom Struggle”, references to the political class as “kale angrez”, Anna Hazare as Gandhian and even Gandhi, the wearing of the Gandhi topi, the projection of the fast-unto-death as a Gandhian method, have all evoked linkages with the struggle for Indian Independence. Many enthusiastic TV reporters, swayed by the sight of swelling crowds, added their bit by calling it the biggest movement since Independence. Was this...

WHILE maintaining her support for a Lokpal institution, Aruna Roy, a prominent civil rights activist and a member of the National Advisory Council, took a critical position in respect of the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by the activists of the India Against Corruption campaign. A recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2000, she heads the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (a trade union of workers and peasants)...

Anna Hazare's fast puts Jan Lokpal on the nation's agenda, but doubts remain whether it will help root out corruption. A FUTURE historian who browses the archives of Indian newspapers and news websites from April 5 to 10 will be confused over how to characterise the groundswell of public support across the country for the “fast unto death” undertaken at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi, by a social activist not...

Expectations of changes resulting from a movement bereft of a clear political and ideological thrust would be far-fetched. FROM the vacuum left by mainstream politics to the confusions of ideology and practice emerging out of half-baked socio-political engagement – the political trajectory of Anna Hazare's “anti-corruption” satyagraha movement demanding early introduction of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament can well be summed up thus. The wide support that the movement received from...

The huge support for what Anna Hazare espoused came against the background of widespread corruption and government inaction. THE Anna Hazare mania that gripped large sections of society for five days from April 5, resulting in the government capitulating to his demand for including civil society activists in the committee for the drafting of an anti-corruption law, has baffled many people. The groundswell of support for his cause took the...