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发帖数: 901 | 1 Police broke up a mass fast against graft led by India's most famous yoga
guru Sunday, risking more political headaches for the scandal-tainted
government.
A senior ruling party figure said the saffron-robed swami Ramdev had used
the anti-corruption event to incite people.
Police detained the guru and flew him to the northern Indian center of his $
40 million-a-year global yoga and health empire.
The campaign by Ramdev, who plans to launch a political party ahead of the
2014 general election, followed allegations of kickbacks at the Commonwealth
Games and a telecoms scam that may have cost the government $39 billion.
Political analysts said the police action could spark protests by Ramdev's
millions of supporters and dent the government's popularity in electorally
important northern states.
Ramdev accused the police of brutality when they broke up the hunger strike
which he and thousands of supporters started in New Delhi Saturday in a
marquee the size of four football pitches.
"The permission was for a yoga camp for 5,000, not for 50,000 people for
agitation. We have canceled the permission and asked them to move out," said
Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.
Police said 39 supporters of the guru and 23 policemen were injured in the
pre-dawn raid.
"My hunger strike has not ended. I will continue fasting," Ramdev later told
a news conference in his base of Haridwar, a town in the foothills of the
Himalayas.
HUGE TV FOLLOWING
Ramdev, who rose from an illiterate family to host a television show with 30
million viewers, carries such weight in India that four government
ministers met him when he arrived by private jet in New Delhi.
Tapping into spiraling voter anger at corruption as Asia's third largest
economy booms, the guru has called on the government to pursue billions of
dollars in illegal funds abroad and the withdrawal of high denomination bank
notes.
Graft has long been part of daily life in India and can affect everything
from getting an electricity connection to signing business deals.
But the latest scandals -- that have seen a minister jailed and business
billionaires questioned -- are unprecedented.
OPPOSITION SLAMS
The main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slammed
the Congress Party-led coalition government and called for a 24-hour protest.
India's leading communist party condemned police action, calling it "
deplorable and short-sighted," while Mayawati, the chief minister of the
country's most populous Uttar Pradesh state, asked for the Supreme Court to
order a probe.
Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who had earlier questioned the Swami'
s luxurious lifestyle and called the fast a "five-star" protest, accused
Ramdev of inciting people.
Ramdev's fast came after a similar one by social activist Anna Hazare, whose
April campaign struck a chord with millions of Indians and forced the
government to make concessions on an anti-corruption bill that effectively
gives India an independent ombudsman to battle graft.
Hazare said he would hold a one-day fast on June 8 to protest against the
police crackdown and would also boycott a meeting Monday of the panel
entrusted with drafting of the anti-graft bill.
Both Hazare and Ramdev's campaigns have underscored how India's traditional
national parties are struggling to deal with the growing anger among middle
class Indians increasingly fed up with graft. | k*****a
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