Indian Protesters Take to the Streets in Favor of Anna Hazare

By ⋅ August 17, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
Hazare's protest has touched a chord among Indians, cutting across age. He has presented an increasing challenge to the Indian government over corruption in Asia's third largest economy, where a series of recent high-profile scandals have tarnished the government's image. (Photo: BBC)

Hazare's protest has touched a chord among Indians, cutting across age. He has presented an increasing challenge to the Indian government over corruption in Asia's third largest economy, where a series of recent high-profile scandals have tarnished the government's image. (Photo: BBC)

BBC reporter in Calcutta, India, Rahul Tandon, spoke Wednesday with some of the people protesting in favor of Anna Hazare, a 74-year old anti-corruption activist.

Hazare is at the center of a political storm in India. He’s leading a nationwide campaign to toughen up India’s anti-corruption laws.

The Indian government says he is trying to hold parliament hostage, in doing so. Millions of Indians are in favor of his stance, and of his tactics, which are peaceful, modeled on the peaceful protest for Indian Independence mounted by Gandhi.

Hazare is on hunger strike in a prison in Delhi and is refusing to leave the prison until his demands are met.

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We’ll have more from the BBC’s Rahul Tandon Wednesday in the broadcast.

On The World

Alex Gallafent: Corruption and Personal Accountability in India
Sanjoy Majumder – Interview: Police in India Make Arrests to Halt Anna Hazare Hunger Strike

Discussion

One comment for “Indian Protesters Take to the Streets in Favor of Anna Hazare”

  • http://www.facebook.com/superultramodern Kedar Joshi

    The rise of the ‘India Against Corruption’ movement
    and the massive public support it has gained seem to have proved that India,
    as a democracy, has failed. And the root cause of this failure seems clearly to
    be the undemocratic mind of the Indian people, on the whole. A good democracy
    needs a good, honest, broad-minded and democratic mindset prevalent amongst its
    people, the way it appears to be prevalent in the Western nations. Now, if the
    ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ is passed and made a law, it will centralise power and will
    create a quasi-dictatorial state. Such state, overseen by good, honest and
    transparent people, may initially prove beneficial for the country and the
    people, but in all likelihood, it too will eventually be infected by the
    unhealthy, undemocratic, base Indian mindset, or commonly, ‘the cancer of
    corruption’. And alarmingly, this time, the state will be much less democratic
    and far more dictatorial in its very basic structure. The state will be even more
    tyrannical, and a third and incredibly demanding freedom struggle will become
    essential. To sum up, India’s struggle for
    independence can at best result in greater dependency and at worst in greater
    anarchy.