Anna Hazare
IN APRIL 2011, the country stood up to demand the lokpal. I had not expected our campaign to become such a big movement. Under public pressure, the United Progressive Alliance government agreed to involve members of the civil society in drafting the lokpal bill. The joint drafting committee met for three months, but then the government felt that the bill would be lethal for them and backed out.
We declared that we would resume our andolan [agitation] on August 16, and asked the government to suggest a place that could accommodate thousands of people. Till August 15, the government did not tell us where we could hold our agitation. I decided to sit on a dharna at the Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash Narayan Memorial Park. People poured into Delhi from all over the country. On the morning of August 16, a team of policemen came up to me and said their top officer wanted to meet me. They took me straight to the court. The judge asked me: “Will you apply for bail?” I refused. I was taken to Tihar jail. And, who sent me to Tihar jail? The same person who was in Tihar jail recently.
There was no need to put me in jail. It backfired on the government. The government’s plan was to get me to commit against holding an agitation. I came to know later that they had kept an Air Force plane ready to take me to a remote place called Bhandardara in Maharashtra.
Then, the Tihar jail chief told me that my release orders were ready. I said I will not leave jail till I am granted permission to hold a dharna. He said I could not stay in jail. And, I said that if I could not go back to jail, I would stay put in his office. I stayed in his office for two days, without food or water. And then came the message that we had been granted permission to hold the andolan at the Ramlila Maidan.
Seeing the massive response to the andolan, the government began negotiating with us. Prime minister Manmohan Singh conveyed to me his government’s readiness to bring the bill in Parliament. I wanted it in writing as I did not trust the government. He wrote a letter, which was brought to me by Vilasrao Deshmukh. I ended my anshan [fast]. But there was a delay, and I began another round of anshan. The bill was finally passed in December 2013.
After the law was enacted, a new government came to power. But it took the Modi government five years to set up the lokpal. In March 2018, I sat on a hunger strike yet again. Modi did not wish to set up the lokpal, despite the strong anti-corruption pitch of his poll campaign.
The lokpal may not completely end corruption, but people will be empowered. People should know they have the power to begin an investigation against the high and mighty.
Anna Hazare is a social activist.
—As told to Soni Mishra