Anna Hazare has enjoyed remarkable success with his anti-corruption campaign. On Saturday he succeeded in forcing concessions from lawmakers reviewing an upcoming bill after Hazare under-took a 12-day fast. This success has stimulated both admiration and concern in India as he is viewed by some as the saviour and by others as the subverter of Indian Democracy; today we examine these two conflicting views of the man:

The Subverter
Ana Hazare has led the victory of mobocracy over democracy after using a political maneuver akin to a 5 year old holding their breath until they get what they want.

While he appears to have garnered a lot of support from the populous, especially the exasperated middle-classes, his actions jeopardise rather than strengthen democracy. He has created a template for political action that circumnavigate the proper channels of a representative democracy, which, while admittedly being tedious and painstakingly slow, are the only avenues through which representative democracy can work.

Any smart political campaigners in the future shall try to emulate his example; ignore the proper political process and instead create a spectacle which cannot be reasoned with and the only way it can be stopped is to acquiesce to its demands. The frequent use of such tactics in India’s politics would greatly weaken their democracy, making a mockery of the authority granted to their elected representatives.

The Saviour
Anna Hazare has led the victory of the people against their corrupt politicians. The level of bribery and corruption in India has reached endemic levels that can no longer be ignored or endured. The concessions that he got from the government are necessary for the new anti-corruption legislation to have any impact on the current level of corruption. Such measures would never have been agreed to by the legislator under the normal political rules as they are the products of a broken system and have a vested interest in it not changing.

Anna Hazare was forced into this desperate life-threatening action by the inadequacies of the Indian political system - to charge him with subverting  a system that is already rotten is ludicrous.

We shall be discussing the future of Indian Democracy on September 27th at our debate “Democracy is India’s Achilles’ heel” http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/india