Activists are planning another protest in Delhi on Wednesday to invite arrest. Tens of thousands of people, many wearing Hazare masks or T-shirts and white caps saying, “I am Anna,” also gathered in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Ahmedabad.
“The question before the nation is this: Does this government believe in democracy?” said activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan. “They are disrespecting the core value of democracy, which is the right of the people to protest on any issue anywhere.
“This government does not look like a democratic government; it is looking a lot like the government of the British Raj.”
Hazare’s tactics were a direct throwback to those employed successfully by Mahatma Gandhi when India was fighting for independence from Britain — fasting to induce panic among the authorities and courting arrest through peaceful protest.
Delhi police had insisted Hazare restrict his fast to three days and limit the number of protesters to 5,000 — conditions the veteran activist rejected.
They committed Hazare to seven days judicial custody for refusing to sign an undertaking that he would not continue his protest if he was freed. Coincidentally, he was taken to Tihar Jail, which houses a former government minister and other senior officials and businessmen accused in recent corruption scandals.
“Protests are perfectly permissible and welcome, but they must be undertaken under certain reasonable conditions,” Home Minister P. Chidambaram told a news conference. “Nowhere in the world is a protest allowed without any conditions.”
Chidambaram said Hazare’s arrest was “not a pleasant task. ... It is a painful duty.”
Hazare ended a four-day hunger strike in April after the government included him in a committee to draw up legislation to establish an independent ombudsman with powers to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials.
But the two sides soon fell out: The government’s draft legislation, introduced in Parliament earlier this month, was denounced by Hazare as a “cruel joke” because it excludes the prime minister, the judiciary and most of the bureaucracy from the ombudsman’s remit.
The government accuses Hazare of resorting to blackmail and undermining the authority of Parliament to debate legislation by threatening a hunger strike.
It says he is intent on creating a “Frankenstein’s monster,” a huge, unaccountable anti-corruption agency with vast powers outside the checks and balances of constitutional democracy. Although some social activists and legal experts share that reservation, polls show the vast majority of Indians support Hazare’s campaign.
The government violently disbanded another hunger strike against corruption in central Delhi by popular yoga guru Baba Ramdev in June, beating and tear-gassing his supporters. At the time, that crackdown was seen as a public relations flop for the government. There is a risk Tuesday’s police action could backfire even more seriously.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh weighed in on the debate in his annual Independence Day speech on Monday, saying his government was committed to the “strictest possible” action against corrupt officials but had no “magic wand” to end graft.
He argued that only Parliament should decide the shape of legislation, while opponents should engage in debate but not “resort to hunger-strikes and fasts unto death.”
Both houses of Parliament adjourned in chaos on Tuesday, with neither government nor opposition lawmakers allowed to speak over the din of jeers and catcalls protesting the arrests.
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