An Indian yoga guru holding a hunger strike against corruption was hospitalised Friday after not eating for nearly a week in a protest that has put pressure on the government.
Swami Ramdev, whose popularity stems from his daily TV yoga shows, had continued fasting at his ashram near the holy city of Haridwar after baton-wielding police broke up his protest in New Delhi.
“He is unconscious. Doctors administered glucose to him in the ambulance,” his spokesman Lalit Mishra told AFP as Ramdev was admitted to hospital in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand state.
Mishra said that Ramdev has not eaten since Saturday but began drinking lemonade with honey on Tuesday on doctors’ orders.
“If his pulse rate and blood pressure continue to go down, it may put some pressure on his heart,” Yogesh Chandra Sharma, the chief medical officer of Haridwar, told reporters. “It is worrisome.”
The government, which has been hit by a series of corruption scandals, had tried to dissuade Ramdev from holding a hunger strike and then surprised many by sending police to break up his protest in Delhi before dawn on Sunday.
About 70 people were injured, two of them seriously, in the police action.
The bearded guru has since threatened to train an army of 11,000 followers for self-defence in case the police attack again.
In Dehradun, thousands of Ramdev’s supporters packed roads in front of the Himalayan Hospital, a private facility where he was being treated in intensive care.
Crowds chanted “Long live Baba Ramdev”, “We are with you Baba Ramdev” and “End Corruption.”
Another prominent Indian spiritual guru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, was at his bedside.
Corruption has become a major focus of public discontent in fast-developing India, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government accused over scandals including a telecoms scam that may have cost the treasury $39 billion.
Ramdev’s main demand is that Singh’s administration forcibly repatriate so-called “black money”, cash in foreign bank accounts suspected of being used for bribes or other illegal transactions.
He has also called for large-denomination currency notes to be withdrawn because they are used in illicit transactions.
Another hunger striker, veteran activist Anna Hazare, on Wednesday attracted thousands of people to a one-day demonstration in Delhi to protest against the police crackdown on Ramdev and demand action against corrupt officials.
Hazare, who has a large public following after years of campaigning against corruption, successfully forced the government in April to allow activists to help draft a new anti-graft law, after holding a 98-hour hunger strike.
