Anna Hazare breaks fast after 288 hours, nation relieved

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Anna-Hazare-breaks-fast-after-288-hours-nation-relieved/articleshow/9766385.cms

NEW DELHI: Anna Hazare ended his 12-day fast on Sunday morning before thousands of cheering supporters at Ramlila Maidan.

The 74-year-old Gandhian accepted a glass of tender coconut water mixed with honey from a Dalit and a Muslim girl -- Simran and Ikrah -- at 10:20 am on the dais at the Ramlila Ground ending over 288 hours of fast that began on August 16.

After a brief address, Hazare was driven straight to Medanta Medicity run by eminent cardiologist Dr Naresh Trehan who was attending to him along with his team during his entire period of fast. Hazare will stay in the hospital for two-three days.

"I have only suspended my agitation. I will not rest until all the changes that I look to are achieved," he said to a thunderous applause from thousands of his supporters waving tricolour and shouting slogans like 'Anna Hazare Zindabad'.

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1. No modern-day Mahatma

http://www.economist.com/node/21526895

ROM his fasting-bed in the heart of Delhi, a frail old man in homespun cotton has channelled Indian rage over a string of high-profile corruption cases, tying the entire government in knots. Anna (“Elder Brother”) Hazare says he will continue his hunger strike until a rotten government passes, word-for-word, a bill creating a Lokpal, a powerful new anti-corruption body—and he has set an August 30th deadline. The Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh has already offered a Lokpal of its own, but Mr Hazare says it is too weak. Thanks to this master of political theatre, a discredited Indian government faces one of the biggest stand-offs with the people since, well, Mahatma Gandhi.

After revelations of stupendous corruption when politicians granted telecoms licences and prepared Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth games, Indians are right to be furious. Yet Mr Hazare and his followers could end up doing more harm than good. The man is no saint, and his movement displays a whiff of Hindu chauvinism (see article). The activists’ slogan—“Anna is India, India is Anna”—is absurd. Their campaign is tinged with nostalgia for a golden age before economic liberalisation when government was, in their view, clean and decent.

This is a dangerous misdiagnosis. Corruption was rife even before liberalisation: the Bofors scandal in the 1980s brought down the government. The economic liberalisation of the past 20 years—in particular, the dismantling of the “licence Raj”—has vastly reduced the scope for corruption, not increased it. Mr Hazare’s proposed cure is equally mistaken. India already has anti-corruption bureaucrats, who have failed to solve the problem. Creating another huge bureaucracy, which a Lokpal would be, is not the answer.