INDIAN police arrested a veteran social activist Anna Hazare today, just hours before he was due to begin a fast to the death to demand tough laws against corruption in a campaign that has rattled the under-fire government.
The 74-year-old Hazare, dressed in his trademark plain white shirt, white cap and spectacles in the style of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, was driven away in a white car by plainclothes police, waving to hundreds of supporters who had gathered outside his home.
A police spokesman said Hazare and four others had been placed under “preventive arrest” to ensure they did not carry out a threat to protest in Delhi. No charges have yet been filed.
Hazare has become a serious challenge to the authority of the Congress party-led government in its second term as it reels from a string of corruption scandals and a perception that it is out of touch with millions of Indians hit by high food inflation.
“The second freedom struggle has started ... This is a fight for change. Unless there is change, there is no freedom, there is no actual democracy, there is no true republic, there is no true people’s rule,” Hazare said in a message broadcast on YouTube.
“The protests should not stop. The time has come for no jail in the country to have a free space.”
Both houses of parliament were adjourned after the opposition protested at the arrests of Hazare and key aides, which appeared to signal a hardening of the beleaguered prime minister’s stance towards anti-government protests.
A police spokesman said 250-300 of Hazare supporters were also detained today trying to carry out the anti-graft protest.
Police denied Hazare permission yesterday to fast near a cricket stadium because he had refused to end his fast in three days and ensure no more than 5,000 people took part.
Local media said police took Hazare into preventative custody to stop a breakdown in law and order in New Delhi as tens of thousands of followers were due to take part in the fast.
But in a country where the memory of Gandhiji’s independence battles against the British with fasts and peaceful protests is embedded in the national consciousness, the crackdown shocked many Indians.
Opposition figures likened the crackdown to the 1975 “Emergency” when then-prime minister Indira Gandhi arrested thousands of opposition members to stay in power.
