New Delhi, April 5: Tricolours fluttered atop SUVs also bearing BJP, Rahtriya Lok Dal and yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman Nyas’ stickers and flags near Jantar Mantar, in the capital, where social activist Kisan Baburao “Anna” Hazare began a fast-unto-death at for a Jan Lokpal Bill.
Hazare said that this bill- drafted by Karnataka Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde, activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan social worker Arvind Kejriwal- is more transparent and stringent than the government’s Lokpal Bill which, would give to give more teeth to the ombudsman to curb corruption.
Addressing a crowd of around 500- mostly salaried class and small trader audience- 73-year-old Padmashree winner Hazare said that he had is undertaking this fast because the government denied his demand that the drafting committee for the bill have an equal number of government and civil society representatives.
“The government proposed a four-member ministerial committee. I said if ministers could stop corruption, then why is it increasing for 61 years since we became a republic.”
Hazare added that before he attended Ramdev’s anti-corruption rally in Delhi on February 27, he had written to Sonia Gandhi about the bill. “She didn’t even reply. You can’t reply to a man who has given his whole life for the country,” said the 1965-war veteran.
The audience, mesmerized by his simple manner and apparent asceticism, started raising slogans of “Shame! Shame!”
“The NAC kept calling me, but I didn’t go. They want to just use me as a photo opportunity to take the wind out the sails of our movement. I will only go when the de facto PM Sonia Gandhi takes a decision,” he added.
He said that he expected the government to relent in three to four days.
Hazare shared the dais with Magsaysay award winners Kiran Bedi, Sandeep Pandey and Kejriwal, along with activist preacher Swami Agnivesh and Prashant Bhushan. He was also visited by the JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav and the BJP’s Prakash Javadekar, who expressed solidarity with his causebut asked him to call off the fast.
The backdrop of the stage has a large image of Bharat Mata. The compere Kumar Vishwas said that in history books Alexander, Akbar and Babur were on one side a poets like Kabir on the other. Hazare was like the latter. People like the former will be forced to leave the country. Flags and banners of Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation also fluttered at the tent, and their activists chanted nationalists slogans.
Bhushan termed the government’s Lokpal Bill as “useless.”
“The Lokpal,” he said, “should have the power to recover ill-gotten wealth from the guilty.” He explained that they weren’t insisting that the government accept their draft in its entirety. “We are also agreeable to the NAC choosing common people and government representatives to frame the bill.”
While Hazare and Bhushan insisted their objective wasn’t to fell the government, Agnivesh appealed to the crowd to “throw out these corrupt rulers.” He said that simultaneous fasts are on in 500 towns and cities. “If Anna dies don’t think you will win Manmohan Singh. Ten thousand more Annas are here from Dhanbad, Hyderabad, Indore and other places,” he thundered.
Many youth and school students in the crowd said that they had got to know of the meeting from Facebook. Various organizations supporting the fast, like India Against Corruption, have launched a vigorous online publicity campaign.
Defence veterans too had gathered wearing their regimental side caps. Recent scams were the last straw that has brought them out on the street said retired Colonel R. P. Chaturvedi. “As responsible citizens we can’t burn buses. We will protest by peacefully agitating with Gandhians like Hazare,” he said.
Vimla, a slum dweller associated with city based NGO Centre for Advocacy and Research, who attended the demonstration, “This may lead to at least a small change. We trust this movement because we area part of it. We slum dwellers suffer the most due to corruption. Anna will see to it the bug fish are caught, the smaller ones will then follow.”
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