Paper short abstract:

Why are new social movements in India increasingly adopting legislative (think of ends in terms of favourable laws) and adjudicatory (think of ends in terms of favourable court judgments) strategies? Does this alter the basic social cleavages that the movement is based on? I answer this question by analyzing Anna Hazare’s 2011 hunger strike demanding a strong anti-corruption law, and what this says about India’s new middle-classes.

Paper long abstract:

Why are new social movements in India increasingly adopting legislative (think of ends in terms of favourable laws) and adjudicatory (think of ends in terms of favourable court judgments) strategies? Does this alter the basic social cleavages that the movement is based on? Do these strategies 'succeed', and how do these strategies reshape the character and norms of the movements themselves?

I will answer this by comparing case studies of different social movements in India and the legislative/adjudicatory strategies adopted by them. Specifically, I analyze social activist Anna Hazare's hunger strike demanding a strong anti-corruption law, and what this says about India's new middle-classes.

I argue that the movement consisted of four intellectual strands with a common social base: India's middle class. These strands are: the anti-state leanings of India's new post-liberalization 'private' middle-classes, a Gandhian urge to connect political reform with social emancipation, and activist lawyers. While the activist lawyers are responsible for the legislative nuances of the movement, the movement itself is mainly powered by a fundamental demographic change in India: newly middle-class citizens who have little to do with the state, whose upward mobility are in the private spaces of India Inc.