MAHARASHTRA-Congress Search for Allies

allegiance during elections to parties from one end of the spectrum to the other, putting in jeopardy their credibility as mass organisations. But another more serious consequence of the growth of issue-based mass movements has been the even further polarisation of interests and concerns of . the mainstream political parties on the one hand and of the very poor and powerless on the other. This will ultimately affect the considerable gains, especially in terms of establishment of a process of articulation of social and economic rights and demands, that these movements have made and may well undo their most important contribution to the polity the demonstration, once again in our history, of the extraordinary effectiveness of mass mobilisation, POLITICS Amnesty Season IS India trying to impress Amnesty International? The cornucopia of 'amnesties' offered by both the administration and the judiciary to corrupt businessmen, perfidious politicians and notorious criminals, on the eve of the elections, should be an eye-opener to those both in India and abroad who still nurse illusions about the much-touted Gandhian principles of morality on which the Indian state is supposed to have been founded.