Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday slammed a fast-to-death by anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare, as thousands of protesters staged rallies across the country to support the hunger strike.
Protests swelled across India in support of the self-styled Gandhian anti-corruption campaigner who is fasting to the death in jail, as Singh’s struggling government was at a loss over how to end the standoff. Singh, 78, who is widely criticised as out of touch, dismissed the fast by Hazare as “totally misconceived”, sparking outrage as lawmakers cried “shame”. “It is a wake-up call for all of us unless we put our house in order. The people of this country are becoming restless,” said Arun Jaitley, a leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
The squat and slight 74-year-old Hazare fasted as thousands of his followers gathered outside the jail, the latest development in a crisis that saw him arrested on Tuesday and then refuse to leave jail after the government ordered his release. Spurred by messages on social networking sites, such as on Twitter and Facebook, at least 15,000 thronged to one protest site in central Delhi alone, a Reuters reporter said.
Hazare, who has struck a nerve with millions of Indians by demanding tougher laws against rampant corruption, had insisted he wants the right to return to a city park where he had originally planned to publicly fast, before he leaves jail. The arrest and sudden about-turn to release him appeared to confirm a widespread feeling Singh’s government is cornered, clumsy and too riddled with scandal to govern Asia’s third-largest economy effectively.
In Assam, thousands of farmers, students and lawyers marched. In the financial capital of Mumbai, thousands of people carrying the Indian flag and wearing Gandhi caps chanted “I am Anna”.
In the IT hub of Hyderabad, lawyers boycotted courts, students skipped class and hundreds took to the streets. Across Andhra Pradesh, a Congress party stronghold, thousands went on snap fasts, staged sit-ins, blocked roads and formed human chains.
