Anna Hazare supports Ramdev’s campaign

Agencies/New Delhi

Supporters of yoga guru Baba Ramdev carry his portrait before raising it in the Ramlila grounds where he is scheduled to start his fast. The government suffered a fresh blow yesterday in containing growing anger over corruption as leading civil activist Anna Hazare joined forces with Ramdev

India’s government suffered a fresh blow yesterday in containing growing anger over corruption from millions of voters as a leading civil activist joined forces with an influential yoga guru in a “fast-until-death” against graft. The saffron-robed Baba Ramdev, India’s most famous yoga guru, has pledged a hunger strike from tomorrow to protest against corruption in Asia’s third-largest economy and called on his legions of followers to join him. Anna Hazare, whose highly-publicised fast in April rang a chord with millions of Indians and forced the government to make legislative concessions on an anti-corruption bill, pledged his support yesterday for Ramdev’s strike. Support for Ramdev, 46, also came from spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.Investors worry the latest troubles will again force the government to pay less attention to reform bills, such as making it easier for industry to acquire land, postponed due to opposition protests over graft causing parliamentary deadlock. “The government has tried to cheat us,” Hazare, whose hunger strike demanding the anti-corruption law triggered protests by thousands of people across India, told reporters. “I will support Baba Ramdev so that the government does not do what it did when we were fighting. We will fight together against corruption.” Such is Ramdev’s popularity that some of India’s most powerful government ministers turned up at Delhi airport to greet him on Wednesday and persuade him to call off the strike. They failed and were forced to carry out a second day of talks. Ramdev, who turned an ancient spiritual tradition into a mass healing movement, runs a $40mn-a-year global yoga and health empire, owns a Scottish island and says he can cure cancer. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally appealed to Ramdev, whose daily TV show attracts 30mn viewers in a country where the healing powers of yoga are hugely popular, to call off the protest. Ramdev will begin his fast tomorrow in New Delhi and has predicted that 10mn people will join his protest until the government agrees to pass an anti-corruption law and set up a task force for repatriating illegal funds held in foreign bank accounts by Indians. Top leaders of the Congress met at the prime minister’s residence to find urgent ways to address the issue.The meeting was attended by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram and other senior leaders.The government is hopeful it will be able to persuade the yoga guru as Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal is scheduled to meet Ramdev today.But, his close associates said despite various government officials meeting Ramdev, he was determined to go on a hunger strike.“Many government people have approached Baba Ramdev, but how can any one stop the cause the Baba has initiated,” his spokesman S K Tijarawala said.Senior ruling Congress Party officials have questioned Ramxdev’s links with the Hindu-nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the umbrella organisation of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.   But Ramdev has said his protest is apolitical, and some commentators said this kind of movement would gain little traction if it was not for widespread grassroots anger. “You will never have this kind of mass movement for the wrong reasons,” anti-corruption activist and former police officer Kiran Bedi told CNN-IBN. “One out of two Indians, according to surveys, is either a victim of corruption or perpetrator of corruption.” In a sign the controversy had sparked divisions within the government, Congress Party general secretary Digvijaya Singh criticised the move to send ministers to meet Ramdev because of his links to the RSS. He also criticised Ramdev. “Even to teach yoga, he charges Rs50,000 from those who sit in the front seats, Rs30,000 for the backseat and Rs1,000 for the last seat. What else is this,” he said.The Congress general secretary said the party was not scared of Ramdev.“If the Congress was scared, Ramdev would have been put behind bars. There is no fear that is why he is out in the open and there are discussions with him.” Over 500 volunteers were busy sewing huge fabric drapes, erecting towers and setting up huge outdoor kitchens yesterday at the site of a 250,000sq ft tent in the capital where Ramdev’s fast will take place. Politicians fear that outrage over the corruption scandals, made all the harder to stomach by rising food and fuel prices, may turn into a national popular movement against the establishment.