Hazare to fast till anti-graft bill is passed

India's anti-graft activist Anna Hazare threw a challenge to the government Friday saying he would continue his fast till parliament passed a tough anti-graft ombudsman or lokpal bill. "If the bill does not come in this session I will fast till my last breath," Hazare, 74, said to cheers from a 15,000-strong crowd at Delhi's Ramlila grounds where he began a public hunger strike.
"I have given my heart and I will give my life to this country," he added to resounding cheers. The current session of parliament is scheduled to end on September 8. A non-violent revolution had begun in India - not just against graft but demanding total change, Hazare said hours after he left Tihar jail. The Gandhi follower began his hunger strike in police custody Tuesday.
Hazare's anti-graft campaign has drawn tens of thousands of urban middle class Indians out to protest in towns and cities across the country and has placed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress Party-led coalition government on the backfoot. "This is the beginning of a second freedom struggle," Hazare told his supporters. "All the people of this country, my brothers, my sisters, young men and women, school students - the torch they have lit - never let this torch go out." Hazare said the country's youth had awakened and the revolution that had started would go on, irrespective of whether he was there or not.
India would be an example to the world on how to bring about a non-violent revolution, Hazare added. The anti-graft activist was arrested Tuesday as he prepared to stage a public hunger strike to campaign for stronger legislation for a national anti-graft ombudsman, or lokpal.
He was given permission to leave Tihar Jail hours after his arrest but refused to move until the police allowed him to hold his protest without any conditions. The police authorised the protest in the Ramlila park after a massive show of support for the anti-graft activist across the country.
A two-kilometre-long stream of slogan-shouting people followed Hazare's open truck as it wound its way from Tihar to Mahatma Gandhi's mausoleum at Rajghat, where he paid a brief tribute before moving on to the Ramlila grounds. Hazare draws inspiration for his non-violent civil disobedience campaigns from Gandhi's struggle against British rule.
Hazare's India Against Corruption campaign organisers said similar protests were being carried out at 5000 places across the country. Throughout the day, television channels showed protests and rallies in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and other cities. Many of the activists supporters also fasted through the day.
Hazare has said the bill presented to parliament, to empower a national anti-corruption ombudsman, has been watered down. He is campaigning for a stronger bill, along the lines of a draft prepared by his group which they call the jan lokpal bill, or the citizens' bill.
At a press briefing at Ramlila grounds, organisers of Hazare's campaign said the government should introduce the jan lokpal bill in parliament or at least a new or amended version that included its main principles. Replying to the government's stand that the campaigners were subverting parliament, Hazare said, "We told them (government) to take it to parliament, they did not. Now we have come to the people's parliament ... for 40 years they have failed to pass a lokpal bill."
In a surprise development, India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Varun Gandhi said he would introduce Hazare's draft in parliament as a private members' bill. Gandhi, a nephew of Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress Party which leads India's coalition government, said he was acting on his own but had discussed it with his party.
The main difference between the government's bill and Hazare's proposal is that the latter wants the ombudsman to have powers of investigation and prosecution over every branch of government, including judges and the prime minister. The government's response to Hazare's campaign has been confused.
BJP leader and former home minister Lal Krishna Advani said Singh's government had underestimated people's anger over corruption and the support for Hazare. Hazare's anti-graft campaign comes against the backdrop of a slew of corruption scandals implicating Singh's government, including a multibillion-dollar telecommunications licensing scandal.