Tens of thousands of Indians in cities across the country have taken to the streets in recent days in a sudden and unexpected national outpouring of anger over the blight of official graft on their daily lives.
The protests have been inspired by 74-year-old Anna Hazare, a veteran activist whose populist campaign to strengthen a new anti-corruption law has shaken India's coalition government.
It has been particularly damaging for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who has been criticised for misjudging the national mood after a succession of multi-million-dollar scandals that have implicated top government officials.
Hazare was arrested on Tuesday morning as he prepared to begin a "fast unto death" in a New Delhi public park to push for amendments to the anti-graft bill recently introduced in parliament.
In the face of mounting protests, police ordered his release, but Hazare refused to leave Delhi's Tihar jail until the authorities lifted restrictions limiting his planned fast to three days.
After lengthy negotiations a compromise was reached in the early hours of Thursday morning, allowing Hazare to fast with his supporters for 15 days at Ramlila Maidan, an open venue in Delhi used for political rallies and festivals.
"The police offered seven days, he wanted it for one month, so in the course of the negotiations we agreed on 15 days," said Aswathi Muralidharan, a spokeswoman for Hazare's India Against Corruption campaign.
Hazare, who has refused to eat since his arrest, had hoped to take his hunger strike public on Thursday afternoon, but problems with preparing the venue postponed his departure from jail by a day.
"He will stay in jail overnight and leave tomorrow (Friday)," Muralidharan said.
Ramlila Maidan has a capacity of around 25,000 people.
In scenes not witnessed in the capital for decades, around 25,000 people marched through the heart of the city on Wednesday in a spontaneous display of anger at the endemic levels of official corruption in India.
Schoolchildren, office workers, retired government officers, army men and even a group of eunuchs were among those who rallied at the India Gate monument.
That and similar demonstrations in other cities piled pressure on Singh's government which was clearly blindsided by the scale of the protests.
In an address to parliament on Wednesday, Singh had condemned Hazare's hunger-strike plans as a "totally misconceived" attempt to subvert parliament and blackmail legislators into amending the new anti-corruption bill.
"The question is who drafts the law and who makes the law," Singh said, adding that legislation was the "sole prerogative" of lawmakers.
But the argument was largely lost in the public backlash against the culture of bribery in India which requires backhanders to secure everything from business permits to birth certificates and school admissions.
"Every person who is here is a victim of corruption," said retired government official Srinivas Krishnan who was among the marchers on Wednesday.
Retired senior police officer and close Hazare associate, Kiran Bedi, said the elderly activist no longer intended his protest to be a fast to the death.
"He will fast as long as he can sustain it, he will fast as long as there is no threat to his life," Bedi said, adding that a team of doctors would closely monitor his health.
Hazare's espousal of fasting as a form of protest, coupled with his trademark white cotton cap and spectacles, have led to comparisons with his own professed hero, independence icon Mahatma Gandhi.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011