'Anna movement is not true representative of people'

Speaking on ‘Elected representatives v/s eminent representatives from the civil society’ on Sunday, he said the movement has been an aggregator of people but not knowledge. People are supporting the movement without much knowledge on deeper aspects of corruption or Jan Lokpal. Anna has no time for providing this knowledge.

“It is disturbing to hear ‘Team Anna’ calling themselves ‘we’. “They say – ‘We’ are better than the Parliament and ‘We’ know what is best for Indians. Who gave them the right to decide that? A few people cannot refer to themselves as collective entity that decides what is best for everyone.”

The talk compared the legitimacy of mass knowledge project, the UID Aadhaar, with that of a mass movement such as the one for Jan Lokpal. “Aadhaar is fundamentally flawed and has no legitimacy. With Hazare’s movement, the legitimacy rests solely on popularity and aggregation of people,” said Sudhir.

Speaking on importance of social media and internet, James Mayall, eminent political thinker, said while technology does play a key role in democratic decision-making, it, in itself, will not solve major issues. “Using e-democracy to increase public participation may work in small levels. On national and systematic levels, there will be people manipulating it. What India needs is not a new form of democracy but a structural change in the current system.”