Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) The anti-corruption campaign by Anna Hazare and his followers is a social churning whose effects would be destabilising for the country that is already in a “very fragile, destabilised state”, feels leading sociologist Andre Beteille.

But the Hazare movement is also beneficial in that it has made people speak out about corruption, he added.

“We can’t afford to further destabilise the country. I would not like to throw my weight behind a movement that is destabilising a state which is already in a very fragile - destabilised - state,” Andre Beteille said here Friday evening.

Quoting modern social analysts, Beteille said, “what passes for social movements in civil society are of amorphous nature. I don’t regard this social movement as the voice of the Indian civil society at all,” the sociologist, who has inspired generations of thinkers in the country, said.

He said “the civil societies contain certain institutions which lays down certain conditions for democracy”.

“The concept of a civil society can be problematic, it can be misused…” Beteille said in the context of the ongoing anti-corruption agaitation in the country.

Beteille, honoured with the Padma Bhushan, is known for his studies of the caste system in south India.

His book, “Caste, Class and Power” first published in 1965 is considered a classic in Indian sociology. Based on his doctoral thesis, the book illustrates the process by which modernity transformed a traditional village with a caste-based social structure to one based more on political parties or panchayats.

– Indo-Asian News Service
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