Thousands of people gathered in support of rapid Swami Ramdev in New Delhi. Photo: Anindita Mukherjee / EPA
Indian police have used tear gas and batons to disperse a mass protest against corruption led by the guru of India's most famous yoga in the last high-level confrontation between authorities and activists.
At least 30 people were injured, several seriously, in scenes of chaos in the capital, Delhi, after talks between the government and the saffron-robed guru Swami Ramdev to end the protest broke down.
As government officials appeared on television threatens "decisive action", the police showed up and began to disperse tens of thousands of protesters, many from rural areas or small towns, who had gathered under a tent in the center the capital. Some of Ramdev's supporters threw stones at police.
Ramdev, who rose from humble origins to run an empire of 20 million pounds of ashrams and alternative medicine, was arrested while trying to dress up in women's clothes, and was transferred to the northern town of Haridwar, which has its headquarters.
"I could not imagine a more clumsy handling government," said Professor Jayati Ghosh, an Indian economist and respected analyst.
Ramdev, which attracts television audiences of up to 30 million euros and international network of ashrams which includes one on an island in Scotland, had begun his fast "unto death" on Saturday morning.
The incident is likely to further embarrass the government into crisis Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and fuel public anger over a series of huge corruption scandals.
Corruption has long been a problem in India. Payment of bribes is a small part of everyday life and ministers, bureaucrats, military and other officials repeatedly found to have made large sums of money illegally.
The issue has become a focus of frustration with the current government, a coalition led by the Congress Party. A recent scam may have cost the country up to £ 25 billion.
The leaders of the main opposition party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), attacked the Congress party and said the police action was "a shameful chapter in democracy of this country."
Ramdev criticized the Congress President Sonia Gandhi's Italian origin, saying that she did not seem to love the Indians, a charge often made by right in India.
Congress party figures said that Ramdev was linked to opposition parties, including extremist Hindu nationalist groups.
Digvijay Singh, a senior Congress leader had earlier questioned Ramdev luxurious lifestyle and called his campaign a "five star" of protest, accused the guru of inciting people.
"We can not allow people like Ramdev run riot in a capital city like Delhi. Some laws, some rules must be followed," said Singh. "And while he has been allowed to yoga Shivir [field], what was he doing there?" He was trying to agitate people. "
Political analysts say the recent campaign against corruption has, in part, met the public support because they exist outside the established policy. However, both Ramdev and Anna Hazare, a veteran social activist who launched a similar protest against corruption in April, are deeply conservative views on a wide range of issues.
Ramdev does not like Coca-Cola and Western clothing, believes that the World Health Organization is a Western conspiracy and is openly homophobic. Hazare is a strict teetotaler, he believes in flogging and prohibited snuff, beef and cable television in the town where he lives near the center of the city of Pune. Both men favor the death penalty for crimes of corruption.
"Ramdev and Hazare are fundamentally very popular," said Garcia. "They are authoritarian, with a simple message and are very socially and politically conservative. Figures are presented as moral, but are not."
Both men also oppose the political arena itself, a possible reason for the increased intensity of their activism.
Hazare on Sunday pledged to fast again. So did Ramdev, who plans to launch a political party to participate in the general election of 2014.
"My hunger strike is not over. I will continue the fast," Ramdev told a news conference.
The guru, who has made a fortune through alternative medicine, has asked the government to pursue billions of dollars in illegal funds abroad. Huge amounts of money have disappeared from India, one of the fastest growing economies in the world in recent decades.
Ramdev also called for a ban on high-denomination notes - 500 and 1,000 rupees (£ 7 and £ 14) - representing a huge amount of money for the hundreds of millions of people in India living on less than £ 1 day.
Corruption is said to be present at such a large scale in India, threatening the continuity of the country's economic success, pushing the stock market and investor concern.
Analysts are concerned that recent examples of corruption in the new post of fundamental reforms aimed at boosting foreign investment and improve the deplorable infrastructure in India, many projects which have been repeatedly postponed, partly due to opposition protests over the corruption that causes the parliamentary deadlock.
Corruption in India
Recent high-profile scandals in India have included corruption scam 2G - the name of the mobile phone technology in India which reportedly sold off at cut-rate price in exchange for bribes - and complaints of fraud in the preparations for the Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi. 2G The scam is believed to have cost the country up to £ 25 billion. An investigation has resulted in the jailing of a former minister and daughter of a political leader in southern India. An investigation into the 2010 Games is ongoing, but has led to the arrest of senior positions in the ruling Congress Party.
Other scandals have included a luxury development built for the widows of war heroes was appropriated by politicians, senior officials and bureaucrats in the commercial capital of Mumbai, and the revelations of corruption in state programs subsidized food distribution the poor. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 200 million poor people live mainly in the extent of corruption and the scope of the program, potentially the largest single instance of corruption in the world, with tens of thousands of officials, thousands of politicians and more than £ 30 billion dollars in aid involved.
Few sectors have been touched. A recent scandal was less cash to influence. A series of wiretaps released to the media revealed the corporate lobbyists, apparently discussing the appointment of cabinet ministers and journalists. There are scandals regularly over "paid news" by the newspapers which accept cash to run particular stories. Senior bank officials have been accused of accepting bribes for granting loans to companies. Many senior judges are alleged to be corrupt. A former chief justice is investigating.
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