Supporters of Yoga Guru Assemble For Anticorruption Protest in India
Led by a prominent yoga guru, thousands of protesters on Saturday staged a huge anticorruption protest in the heart of India’s capital, gathering beneath a vast outdoor tent for a yoga session, followed by a hunger strike orchestrated as a pressure tactic against the government. The guru, Swami Ramdev, had been demanding that the government take various steps to recover so-called black money, the misappropriated cash stashed in foreign banks by some corrupt Indian politicians and business people. After a long, confusing day of speeches, yoga sessions and back-and-forth negotiations with government ministers, Swami Ramdev announced on Saturday evening that the government had acceded to his demands. But his seeming triumph quickly became muddled. A top government minister was simultaneously telling reporters that, in fact, a deal had been struck a day earlier and that Swami Ramdev’s representatives had promised that they would call off the strike on Monday. When the minister’s comment was relayed back to the yoga tent, Swami Ramdev angrily declared that the fast would go on.
The chaotic day is the gaudiest piece of political theater in what otherwise has become a growing anticorruption pressure campaign by different segments of India’s civil society against the Congress Party-led national government. In April, a veteran campaigner, Anna Hazare, staged a hunger strike in New Delhi that provoked a spontaneous outpouring of public support. Government leaders ultimately capitulated to his demand for a special committee to draft legislation for a new anticorruption agency. Swami Ramdev, a yoga practitioner with a vast following across India, began dabbling in political issues more than a year ago and has made fighting corruption a centerpiece of his message. He has sought to separate himself from other civil society factions by focusing his demands on black money. He is demanding the recovery of black money, the creation of special corruption courts, the confiscation of assets from people convicted on corruption charges and stiff sentences, even the death penalty, for violators.
Government officials had responded by releasing a four-page memorandum detailing various actions currently being taken on the issue. Meanwhile, a powerful Congress Party leader, Digvijay Singh, criticized Swami Ramdev and accused opposition parties, including right-wing Hindu groups, of furtively promoting the rally. The spectacle of powerful government ministers scrambling to curry favor with a yoga guru has already drawn biting criticism from some political commentators, while others have also criticized the tactics of the reform camp as being dangerously antidemocratic in nature.