CETRI
“Social movements are understood as organised collective efforts working towards achieving change. All social movements have an ideology to identify what is wrong with the present and what needs to be done in the future.” (Judge P., 2011)
One of the most recent social movements witnessed in India was the campaign on ’India against Corruption’, spearheaded by a group of social activists led by an octogenarian Gandhian – Anna Hazare. Anna Hazare, a follower of Gandhian principles, opted for fasting unto death and demanded the enactment of the long pending Jan Lokpal2 Bill (Anti-Corruption Law). The movement is considered to be a milestone in the constitutional history of India forcing the government to accept civil society’s demand to have a say in drafting the stringent anti-corruption law, the Lokpal Bill.
Interestingly, the movement also successfully galvanised mass support and enticed the media took up the topic so much so that today corruption is highlighted as a major social issue in India, after remaining invisible for decades after Independence. One remarkable trend that it has exhibited is the shift in the nature of the social movements in India from being predominantly rural to now including urban citizens. The major combatants of the Anna campaign are educated and urbane.
Hence, this movement as well as similar citizen’s protests, with the educated and conscious youth at their centre demanding accountability and governance reforms has enough potential to make democracy more inclusive and participatory.
The scope of the present study intends to include the following.
- To trace the nature of the contemporary social movements with specific focus on the anticorruption
movement in the larger gamut of the history of social movements in India.
- To analyse the points of convergence and divergence between the movements of the last century and the more recent ones of the 21st century.
- To investigate how these sporadic upheavals are being sensationalised and waved away by candid mass support.
- To analyse the specific spaces and relationships (mainly with the government) of these
movements and how they are legitimised in the changing socio-economic context of India.
