Anna Hazare begins latest hunger strike despite dwindling support for campaign
An Indian activist has begun his fifth hunger strike in 16 months to push for anti-corruption legislation, but failed to draw the huge crowds that marked the start of his campaign.
A year ago, tens of thousands of middle-class Indians crowded into a New Delhi fairground – enduring both pouring rain and sweltering heat. They were there to pledge support for Anna Hazare as he went without food and water for 12 days to press the government to create a wide-ranging anti-corruption watchdog.
On Sunday afternoon, the frail 75-year-old managed to attract only a few thousand people. Three of his supporters have been fasting at the site since last Wednesday.
The activists are trying to force the government to take up an anti-corruption bill when parliament resumes on 8 August. Hazare and his backers are also demanding an investigation into corruption allegations against 14 cabinet ministers.
Hazare, a former army truck driver and social activist from western India, touched a nerve in a country where nearly everyone has paid bribes when he began battling for a powerful ombudsman, newspaper columnist and political commentator Inder Malhotra said. "But he didn't know how to mobilise that momentum and the protest lost its edge," Malhotra added.
Hazare began with a five-day fast in April last year, which ended when the government invited members of his group to help draft anti-corruption legislation. In August, he fasted for 12 days to press parliament to pass a proposal to create a powerful watchdog that would police everyone from the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to the lowest village bureaucrat.
Government-proposed legislation to create a corruption ombudsman – which Hazare has called weak and ineffective – passed the lower house of parliament last year but has stalled in the upper house.
Hazare tapped into public anger over a series of corruption scandals, including $4bn (£2.7bn) that disappeared during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and a mobile phone-spectrum licensing scandal that is estimated to have cost the government up to $36bn in lost revenue.
There was round-the-clock television coverage of his campaign last year, but the media coverage has become muted. Several factors played a part in Hazare's movement losing its sheen, according to Malhotra.
Charges of impropriety and corruption tainted some members of his group, often referred to "Team Anna".
Hazare also began to appear with the leaders of the Hindu nationalist opposition party while severely criticising the governing Congress party. The move dented his image as an impartial activist above partisan politics.
The movement lost much of its steam last December when Hazare planned an enormous rally in Mumbai and a hunger strike. Supporters pledged to fill jails by courting arrest. The demonstration flopped and the fast was called off.
Hazare's repeated use of hunger strikes as a form of political protest has worn thin. "You can't use the same weapon so many times," Malhotra said.