India activist fasts to call for tougher graft law

[December 27, 2011]  NEW DELHI (AP) -- An Indian activist began a three-day hunger strike calling for Parliament to pass a tougher version of an anti-corruption bill than the one lawmakers started debating on Tuesday.

Anna Hazare began his fast in India's business capital, Mumbai, to protest what he calls a lack of teeth for an anti-corruption watchdog that the proposed bill would create.

Hazare has called the government's anti-graft legislation an attempt to fool the country.

His previous public protests have drawn tens of thousands of people in a country where corruption is rampant and top officials are regularly embroiled in scandals even as hundreds of millions of people remain bitterly poor.

But critics say his populist campaign attempts to vilify all politicians and hold elected officials hostage.

Hazare's main complaint with the anti-graft bill now before Parliament is that the proposed corruption ombudsman would not have authority over the country's top investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation. He says the ombudsman position would be too weak without that authority.

In New Delhi, India's Parliament began its debate as junior minister in the prime minister's office V. Narayanasamy moved the bill in the powerful lower house, saying the legislation maintained the "fine balance" between the powers of the legislature, the judiciary and the executive branch.

Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the main opposition, right wing Bharatiya Janata Party, however, said that as the country waited for a "strong and effective" anti-corruption watchdog, the government was offering a bill that was "so full of holes and flaws that it has disappointed all of us."

Swaraj's party has thrown its weight behind Hazare's protest.

At the Mumbai fairground where he is fasting, Hazare told supporters that the proposed bill was a "fraud perpetuated upon the the people by the government" and that they would teach lawmakers a lesson.

He said his supporters would travel across the country to campaign against all those political parties who did not support his version of the bill.

He has also asked his supporters to court arrest across the country after he ends his fast on Dec. 29.

Hazare, who claims inspiration from Mohandas K. Gandhi, has called his protest against corruption India's second freedom struggle and has fasted three times already to garner support for his demands.

Thousands of people, many waving Indian flags and wearing the trademark white cap made popular by first independence leader Gandhi and now Hazare. The crowd, at least by Tuesday afternoon, was thinner than the tens of thousands that Hazare drew when he protested in the Indian capital in August.

Dozens of Hazare's critics also came out on the streets Tuesday, waving black flags and shouting slogans as Hazare's motorcade made its way through the city.

Eight hours were set aside for the debate in Parliament's lower house on Tuesday. The government has said it will try to pass the legislation by Thursday.

[Associated Press; By MUNEEZA NAQVI]

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