I don’t think the problem is with Anna Hazare (who as he himself said is not keen on a formal position) but of elevating civil society leaders that we ‘apparently have all accepted’. Kejriwal, perhaps but Lata Mangeshkar, no? I agree with you on the Lokpal Bill, and look forward to reading your legislative brief on the same.

In the cow slaughter case, the central government said it was a state subject. Finally, the Shankaracharya was successful and got a number of states to enact stricter laws, diluted the Hanif Qureshi judgment and set up a national committee on cattle development or some such. Kerala and West Bengal, both ruled by the Communists, held out against Vinobha Bhave, and politely suggested that they could make peace with his death. I believe he withdrew his fast. Bhave incidentally won both the Magsasay award and the Bharat Ratna

3. Not surrendering one’s liberty at the altar of a benevolent do-gooder is certainly wise as a matter of course. And creating the lokpal as an institution which will be almost a supra-constitutional authority is unwise. The lokpal too must be within the checks and balances framework, its ambition must also be made to counteract with ambition of another without compromising its independence. It is a question of appropriate design which can be hopefully worked out as a compromise deal- given the polar nature of the drafts, it seems quite plausible.

Finally, I love the example that the reason for a hunger strike in the 60s and the 70s was for cow slaughter. But did anything come out of it? That may be interesting to see if we can draw any comparisons.

I am unsure as to why you believe that only academics or aspiring academics have chosen to take a more critical stance than most on Facebook. Perhaps there is a sampling error as a result of who one is friends with

There is a great deal of justifiable fury at the system, and it is always inspiring to see people mobilize and participate in public debate. Kudos to that.

I am little struck by your description of the ‘contrarian views’. These views (and these sentiments are expressed by a broad ideological sweep including right wing bloggers like Acorn, liberals like PBM and left leaning Hindi journalists like Dilip Mandal). These views you suggest belong to an ivory tower, because they are in “in stark contrast with the wider views heard in the mainstream media” and this is evidence of ” a thinly disguised hubris of knowing better than the ordinary Indian who supports Anna Hazare’s protest”.

Given events of the last year, are we really suggesting that ‘mainstream media’ provides an authentic and unmediated representation of reality and the ‘real Indians’. Therefore to disagree with ‘mainstream media’ is to disagree with the ‘mainstream’. If that were the case, we would still be asking Nira Radia who?

Most of us can only speak for ourselves. Therefore, I am little suspicious of claims of knowing what the ‘ordinary Indian’ wants, and of declaring certain figures as representatives of ‘civil society’. It is one thing to draft someone for their expertise in a field, like members of NAC or the Planning Commission or retired judges are, but quite another to invest them with some form of representativeness. To turn to the grammar of anarchy speech once again, Amedkar reminds us “The second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy, namely, not “to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with power which enable him to subvert their institutions”. There is nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered life-long services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O’Connel, no man can be grateful at the cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty. This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country”

There are of course larger questions about the use of fast as a political weapon, the popularity of a certain fast as opposed to others, and the people/goals the protest seeks to promote. Anti-corruption is a wide platform that seems to have attracted even Lalit Modi and Pappu Yadav.

Perhaps it serves to turn to history. In some ways Ambedkar’s suspicion is extraordinary. Why would a member of a persecuted minority uphold elected majoritarian democracy? Because it was precisely such a method wrapped up in a moral imperative that was used by Gandhi to force him and dalits to give up their demand for separate electorates. It is hard to defend minority rights by constitutional means, but it is harder when faced with an unconstitutional “moral imperative”. It is perhaps not surprising that two of the prominent legislation by hunger strike demands in independent India have been to enforce a ban on cow slaughter ( Shankaracharya in the 60s and Vinobha Bhave in the 70s).