India bows to Hazare’s demands, activist to end fast

A self-styled Gandhian activist whose campaign against corruption sparked some of India’s biggest anti-government protests in decades will end a 13-day hunger strike on Sunday after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh caved in to his demands.
The 74-year-old Anna Hazare has tapped a groundswell of public anger against endemic corruption, uniting the country’s bulging middle-class against a hapless political class and underlining voter anger at Singh and the ruling Congress party. India’s parliament on Saturday backed landmark anti-corruption legislation, meeting Hazare’s key demands. Tens of thousands of mostly urban and wired voters across India will claim victory in an unprecedented movement that may usher in a new force in Indian politics and hit the ruling Congress party hard in crucial state elections next year.
“I feel this is the country’s victory… Tomorrow at 10am I want to publicly break my fast,” Hazare told over tens of thousands of cheering supporters on Saturday evening at a protest site in New Delhi that has become the epicentre of a nationwide crusade. “Only half of the battle has been won, there is still some of it left,” a weak-looking Hazare told the crowd.
Hazare and his team of social activist aides led a rousing rendition of the Indian national anthem as supporters waved national flags and celebrated almost a fortnight of protest.
The veteran activist, whose health had seriously deteriorated as his weight fell, made the announcement after a specially-convened session of parliament ended with lawmakers backing a resolution by Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to push for a law to create an independent ombudsman with wide-ranging power to investigate lawmakers, the judiciary and bureaucrats.
Undermined by graft scandals and seen as out-of-touch with voters battling high inflation, Congress’ failure to deal with Hazare’s campaign before it became a national issue spells danger for the ruling party in state polls next year ahead of the 2014 general election.
While protests in India are not uncommon, the sight of many well-off young professionals using Twitter and Facebook taking to the streets of Asia’ third-largest economy suggest an awakening of a previously politically-ambivalent middle-class.
Mukherjee on Saturday said parliament agreed to demands from Hazare to bring civil servants under the proposed agency’s authority alongside parliament and the judiciary, ensure similar agencies at a state level and create a citizen’s charter.
“We are at a crossroads, let us try to find a solution within the constitutional framework without violating the supremacy of Parliament,” Mukherjee told the lower house.
Support for Mukherjee’s resolution came after a gruelling day of fractious debate in both chambers that highlighted just how much Hazare’s campaign and the public support for it had rocked India’s political establishment.