SOCIAL activist Anna Hazare won a bitter fight against Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to hold a two-week public fast from today, stepping up the pressure on the government to show a restive nation it can tackle rampant corruption.
Hazare, a 74-year-old Gandhian-style campaigner, was arrested on Tuesday (August 16), hours ahead of a planned fast until death for tougher laws against graft, sparking nationwide protests and putting the government on the backfoot as he stayed in jail.
“None of us is looking at this as a victory,” Kiran Bedi, a former police officer and widely respected figure for her anti-graft drive, told Times Now television after helping negotiate permission for Hazare’s public fast in the capital.
“We are not playing games. We are doing this to move the country forward,” Bedi, who had herself also been briefly arrested.
The government, facing spontaneous protests by tens of thousands of people across Indian cities and villages, was forced to release Hazare, but he refused to leave the Tihar jail until he won the right to lead an anti-corruption protest.
Crowds outside the jail erupted in joy at news of the deal, reached early on Thursday (August 18) shouting his name “Anna” and “we are with you”, singing, playing guitar and waving the Indian flag. He is expected to go to the protest ground at 3 pm.
A medical team is on standby to monitor Hazare’s health, and a sharp deterioration could further worsen the crisis for the government.
A beleaguered Dr Singh and his government had appeared at a loss over how to end the standoff and failing to grasp the mounting anger from India’s growing urban middle class.
Demonstrations are part of daily life in the towns and cities of India, a country of 1.2 billion people made up of a myriad of castes, religions and classes. But spontaneous and widespread protests are rare and the scale of this week`s outpouring of public fury has taken the government by surprise.
Hazare became the unlikely thorn in the side of the Congress party -led coalition when he went on hunger strike in April. He called off that fast after the government promised to introduce a bill creating an anti-corruption ombudsman.
The so-called Lokpal legislation was presented in early August, but activists slammed the draft version as toothless because the prime minister and judges were exempt from probes.
Corruption plagues all walks of life but over the past year an increasing number of company executives, opposition politicians, judges and ministers have been brought down. Still, Transparency International rates India in 87th place on the most corrupt countries according to a 2010 survey.
