Rahul Gandhi, widely seen as India’s prime minister-in-waiting, warned Friday that a fasting activist’s popular anti-corruption campaign posed a threat to India’s democratic “life force”. Breaking his silence on a high-stakes standoff between activist Anna Hazare and the government, Congress party leader Gandhi praised Hazare’s campaign, but challenged efforts to force his version of a new anti-graft law on parliament. “Individuals have brought our country great gains. They have galvanised people in the cause for freedom… however we must not weaken the democratic process,” Gandhi said.
“A process divorced from the machinery of an elected government, that seeks to undo checks and balances created to protect the supremacy of parliament, sets a dangerous precedent for our democracy.” It was Gandhi’s first public statement on an issue that has snowballed into a full-blown crisis for the government, with huge protests across India in support of Hazare’s campaign.
The 74-year-old Hazare has said he will fast until parliament adopts and passes his version of a new anti-corruption bill that would create the post of a national ombudsman to monitor senior politicians and bureaucrats.
The giant groundswell of public support for Hazare shook the government which was already on the defensive over a series of multi-billion-dollar scandals that have implicated top officials.
In his speech, Gandhi, 41, argued that allowing any campaign — no matter how popular its target — to dictate legislation to parliament would set the country on a slippery path. “Tomorrow the target may be something less universally heralded. It may attack the plurality of our society and democracy,” he said. “India’s biggest achievement is our democratic system. It is the life force of our nation,” he added. The timing and tone of Gandhi’s intervention was significant. In recent days, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who sat beside Gandhi as he spoke, has sought to reach out to Hazare with a series of conciliatory gestures aimed at bringing the hunger strike to an end.
