Hazare's hunger strike

Thousands of citizens gathered at New Delhi's Ramlila grounds on Monday, while the Indian government and Anna Hazare seemed open for talks. According to local media, the government has nominated mediators for the crisis, but former police officer and member of Hazare’s team, Kiran Bedi, says there has not been any request for a meeting by the government. "Our demand that they pass the bill by the end of the month remains unchanged. It’s what people want." she adds.

'Give and take'

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been forced into a political strait jacket by Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign. The activist, who did not make his fast public until last Friday, has lost five kilos since beginning it on Monday, August 15. With every passing minute, Hazare’s deteriorating health threatens to destabilize Singh and his government. Hazare's team members have said he is not on a fast-unto-death and he is drinking water.

Speaking at a management institute in Kolkata, Singh said there was a "lot of scope for give and take," although he is defensive when it comes to the anti-corruption, or the Lokpal Bill, proposed by his government. Singh added that "all right thinking persons" agreed on the need to tackle India’s endemic culture of corruption. However, he pointed out, "the complexity of the task is not adequately appreciated." According to Singh, the creation of the lokpal, which means ombudsman in Hindi, will help, but "not solve the problem." Singh has stressed that his government is ready for debate, but that there was "no single solution" to eradicating corruption.

Hazare rakes in the criticism

Hazare, a well-known Gandhian, has called his anti-corruption movement "India's second independence struggle." In spite of wide-spread support, some of his fellow social activists and contemporaries have been open in criticizing his version of the bill.

Booker Prize-winning author, Arundhati Roy, has taken Hazare to task and said that a comparison of Hazare with Mahatma Gandhi is completely unjustified. In an article titled, "I'd rather not be Anna," published in India's prominent newspaper, the Hindu, Roy referred to Hazare's version of the bill as "a draconian anti-corruption law, in which a panel of carefully chosen individuals will administer a giant bureaucracy, with thousands of employees…it will function as an independent administration, meant to counter the bloated, unaccountable, corrupt one we already have. Two oligarchies, instead of just one."

Roy has criticized the idea of India's "second independence struggle," saying that people who have supported the campaign have done so only to watch the "spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself."

A mass movement

However, Hazare's campaign seems to have found resonance among thousands of Indian citizens who have also decided to protest the systemic corruption ailing the country's administration. A series of scandals have recently rocked the country, including bribery in the Commonwealth Games last year and the telecom scandal which led to losses of up to 39 billion US dollars to the country’s exchequer.

Nearly 50,000 people gathered in New Delhi on Sunday, August 21, to support Hazare's cause. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the left parties have also organized upcoming protests. After announcing his hunger strike last week, Hazare and nearly 1,300 of his supporters were arrested and briefly taken to jail.

Hazare has demanded that the government should present a tougher anti-corruption bill in parliament. The present government draft has included most government positions in the ambit of the lokpal, but has left out the prime minister's post and the judiciary. Hazare and his supporters have asked for these to be included in the purview of the bill.

Author: Manasi Gopalakrishnan (Reuters, AFP, dpa)
Editor: Sarah Berning