An Indian anti-graft activist whose hunger strike has galvanised millions to hold the biggest protests in decades appeared on Sunday ready to end a standoff with the government, saying he was open to dialogue.
Anna Hazare’s statement comes a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also said the government was open to discuss the 74-year-old self-styled activist’s demands after briefly detaining him earlier this week.
At least 50,000 people gathered on Sunday to support Hazare, who is demanding a tough anti-graft law. But Hazare’s insistence that the government introduces this bill on Tuesday and passes it by the end of this month has sparked criticism that his group was dictating policy to an elected parliament, putting pressure on him to compromise.
“We have not closed the door of dialogue. We have kept it open. Only through dialogue the issues can be resolved,” Hazare told supporters at an open ground in the capital on the sixth day of his fast. Protesters chanted “Anna, you keep fighting, we are with you,” and “Hail mother India”.
Hazare’s campaign has found resonance with millions of Indians, particularly the middle classes tired of endemic bribes and a series of corruption scandals that have touched top politicians and businessmen in Asia’s third largest economy. But critics of Hazare’s hunger strike, who include novelist and social activist Arundhati Roy, say he is setting a precedent by holding democratic institutions hostage.
“The danger is if we get rid of these institutions and say that discussions will happen outside parliament, then tomorrow there can be a mobilisation of any kind of extremist group,” renowned social activist Aruna Roy told CNN-IBN TV. Roy’s civil rights organisation, the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), said it would introduce its own anti-graft bill to parliament.
