Anna Hazare to set off on nationwide tour as part of anti-corruption campaign

As part of his endless fight to end corruption in India, social activist Anna Hazare will embark on a nationwide tour, starting in January 2013.

Autor*in Anna Rees, 10.18.12

The tour will kick off at the Gandhi Maidan in Patna, Bihar and will last one and a half years, leading up to 2014’s Lok Sabha polls. Hazare has stated that the aim of his tour will be to mobilise citizens across the country against corruption, hoping to set up a volunteer-based organisation which speaks out against corruption in India as well as pressuring the government to pass the Jan Lokpal (anti-corruption) bill.

There is no stone Hazare leaves unturned in his anti-corruption campaign. Following the Gandhian model of peaceful protesting, Hazare has already brought corruption to the forefront of the Indian public agenda, staging five hunger strikes and capturing the attention and commitment of millions of citizens, all the while demonstrating corruption’s stranglehold on certain aspects of life from rising living costs to the management of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The nationwide tour offers Hazare a chance to connect with people from all over India and will help reinvigorate his cause, given that, as this article from The Guardian put it earlier this year, his custom of using a hunger strike as a protest tool is no longer having the high-level impact it once had after repeated use.

Next week, Hazare will launch the online component of his tour. Watch this space for more details.

Author: Anna Rees/ RESET editorial.

TAGGED WITH
Peaceful protests

As health concerns regarding the fasting activists who are taking part in Anna Hazare’s fight against corruption in India mount, questions are being raised as to the validity of this form of protest.