Anna Hazare- Rise of Another Mahatma Gandhi

Hazare's Anticorruption Protest

NEW DELHI – Indian social activist Anna Hazare departed New Delhi's Tihar Jail on Friday, leading a massive procession of supporters through the city streets and launching a hunger fast and demonstration to pressure the government to enact strong anti-corruption reforms.

Mr. Hazare waved to his supporters from atop a raised platform on a truck moving slowly along with the crowd. Several thousand supporters waved national flags, sang and danced during the procession; others threw flower petals on Mr. Hazare.

"A second freedom struggle has begun!" Mr. Hazare said after arriving at the protest site in central New Delhi. He said he had already been fasting for a few days and had lost three kilograms of weight. "We have to launch a new revolution in our country."
Says The Wall Street Journal

Unlikely Echo of Gandhi Inspires Indians to Act

NEW DELHI — In a “new” India often obsessed with wealth and status, where cricket batsmen and Bollywood movie stars are wildly idolized, Anna Hazare is a figure from an earlier, seemingly discarded era. His pointed white cap and simple white cotton clothes evoke a Gandhian simplicity. His rural, homespun demeanor ordinarily might elicit snickers from India’s urban elite.

Yet Mr. Hazare, 74, has emerged as the unlikely face of an impassioned people’s movement in India, a public outpouring that has coalesced around fighting corruption but has also tapped into deeper anxieties in a society buffeted by change.

His arrest on Tuesday, made while he was en route to a park in New Delhi where he intended to commence a hunger strike as part of his anticorruption campaign, drove thousands of people onto city streets across India. Under public pressure, government officials tried to release him within hours, but Mr. Hazare refused to leave jail unless the government released him unconditionally. On Thursday, the two sides reached a compromise, and Mr. Hazare is expected to leave jail on Friday to lead a hunger strike and mass protest in central New Delhi to push his demand that the government create a powerful, independent anticorruption agency.
Says The New York Times