For latest updates on the anti-corruption struggle, read https://news.biharprabha.com/2011/08/chronology-of-anti-corruption-movement-by-anna-hazare/
22 June 2011
In a veiled warning to Anna Hazare for his proposed fast, Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Wednesday indicated that the Gandhian might be meted out the same treatment, depending upon the prevailing situation at that time, as yoga guru Ramdev was given at Ramlila ground.
16 June 2011
The Government and the civil society split wide open due to differences in jointly drafting the bill. Government representatives said that if a consensus on the common bill was not reached, two drafts would be sent to the Cabinet, one drafted by the Government and the other drafted by the civil society. Team Anna also claimed that only 15 points, out of a total 71 recommended, were agreed upon and included in the joint draft. Hazare declared that if the government version of the bill was passed in the Parliament, he would start his hunger strike from August 16, 2011.
9 June 2011
Hazare described his fight against corruption as the “Second Freedom Struggle” and set an ultimatum of 15 August 2011, as the last date to pass a strong Jan Lokpal Bill, threatening to otherwise intensify his anti-corruption agitation and start another fast from 16 August.
6 June 2011
Prime Minister Mnamohan Singh justified the action against Baba Ramdev as an operation that had to be conducted, and that there was no alternative. However Manmohan Singh did not elaborate as to why force was used on a peaceful gathering and why the swoop was done at 1 AM in the morning.
5 June 2011
At midnight, police raided the grounds when most protesters were sleeping and Ramdev was busy at a meeting with his core group.
A large police force lobbed tear gas shells, burned the place and lathicharge the crowd at 1 am (IST) to evict them.
Police had arranged buses to drop supporters at railway stations and bus stands in advance; had ammunition ready and were in battle-gear wearing vests and helmets and kept some ambulances on standby.
Delhi Police arrested Ramdev, who was disguised in a salwar kameez with a group of female protesters heading peacefully towards the New Delhi Railway Station
Ramdev was held in a government guesthouse for a few hours and then sent to Dehradun in a BSF aircraft.
Ramdev was sent to his Patanjali Yogpeeth ashram in Haridwar where he delivered a press conference.
53 people were injured and were treated at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital, AIIMS Trauma Center and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
One of Baba Ramdev’s supporters was injured in the incident and her condition was still critical as of 17th August 2011.
Protesters huddled near the Metro station, bus depots and railway stations. Many walked down to Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and other nearby ashrams.According to New Delhi railway station authorities, supporters continued to leave in batches through the course of the day. While several supporters spent the day at a park near Ramlila Maidan, others took shelter at an Arya Samaj facility in Paharganj.
Ramdev was prohibited from entering Delhi for 15 days.
4 June 2011
Swami Ramdev begins his indefinite hunger strike at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi to bring back the black money stashed in tax havens abroad.
65,000 followers gathered at Ramlila Maidan
In a press conference in the evening Kapil Sibbal made public a letter from Ramdev’s camp to call off the hunger strike. Ramdev took it as a betrayal and hardened his position.
16 April 2011
The first meeting regarding a draft of the Lokpal Bill was held on 16 April. The government agreed to audio-record all meetings of the Lokpal Bill panel and to hold public consultations before a final draft is prepared.Hazare demanded that the proceedings be televised live but the government refused.
9 April 2011
After accepting all the demands of Hazare, the Government of India issued a Official Gazette saying that the draft of the lokpal would be made and presented in the coming monsoon session of Lok Sabha.
Victory celebrations took place at locations throughout the country. and even Hazare’s village.
Bollywood lauded the outcome, repeating their support for the movement.
Protesters and leaders of the movement alike stated that the path to attaining complete passage of the bill is still a difficult one, and the movement may see harsher days ahead.
Many commentators have called the movement the ‘wake-up’ call for India.
Within a day of the beginning of the agitation, more than 30,000 people had pledged their support to the Lokpal Bill. Organisers of the India Against Corruption said 30,000 people from Maharashtra expressed their support on their website.The website has 20,000 members in Mumbai alone.Within a few days the Facebook page for India Against Corruption had more than 220,000 likes.
8 April 2011
Protests spread to numerous other places, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Chennai, Patna, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Ranchi, Pune, and the University of Jammu.
The government continued to squabble with the activists stating that the bill drafting committee will be headed by a government appointed minister and not a civil society member as the protesters demanded to avoid allowing the government to make the bill less powerful.
The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, met with the President of India to outline to her how the government was going ahead with the demands of the population. 15 supporters of Hazare on fast were hospitalized.
Bollywood came out in support of the protests, with actors, musicians and directors speaking in support of the movement and Hazare. Director Farah Khan, actor Anupam Kher, music director Vishal Dadlani, poet-filmmaker Pritish Nandy and actor Tom Alter all visited Jantar Mantar; others stated their support for the movement via social networking websites or the media. Oscar winning Indian composer A. R. Rahman also declared his support for the anti-graft movement.
Qatari artist M. F. Hussain showed his support by drawing a cartoon of Hazare.
Indian students at Cambridge University, the former alma mater of the Indian Prime Minister also expressed their support for the movement.
Many prominent people from government agencies as well as from various corporate houses came out in support of the movement. Some of them were – Delhi Metro chief E. Sreedharan.(also called the Metro Man of India), Punj Lloyd chairman Atul Punj, Maruti Suzuki chairman R. C. Bhargava, Hero group’s Sunil Munjal, Tata Steel vice-chairman B Muthuraman, Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj, Godrej Group head Adi Godrej, Biocon Chairman and Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Kotak Mahindra Bank vice-chairman & managing director Uday Kotak. They all declared their support for Hazare and the movement.
ASSOCHAM President Dilip Modi and FICCI Director General Rajiv Kumar, too came out in support of the movement.
The Government of India accepted the compromise formula that there be a politician chairman and an activist non-politician Co-Chairman. It was reported that Pranab Mukherjee will be the Chairman of the draft committee while Shanti Bhushan will be the co-chairman.Bhushan was one of the original drafters of the Lokpal Bill along with Hazare, Justice N. Santosh Hegde, advocate Prashant Bhushan, and RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal.
7 April 2011
Protests have continued as the Government fails to offer better terms to the activists
Two rounds of talks failed. There was agreement regarding constituting a panel to examine the Bill but the government would not accede to demands that it should be a formally constituted panel or that Hazare should lead it. As a consequence of this, Hazare continued his fast.
Narendra Modi, the chief Minister of Gujarat lashes out at Manmohan Singh for resisting the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill.
Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Indian National Congress party and the head of the National Advisory Council appealed to Hazare to end his indefinite fast.
Hazare and the protesters tried to keep the protests non-political. No politicians were welcome at the site of the fast. Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti and pro Sonia Gandhi journalist Barkha Dutt were forced by civilians to leave, after the protesters objected to their presence, which they believed was harming the integrity of their movement.
5 April 2011
Protesters have come out in support of Anna Hazare
Hazare initiated his fast at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Elsewhere, people attended a protest at Freedom Park, Bangalore.
Campaigners for India Against Corruption (IAC) estimated that a petition circulated in the city of Pune which demanded that the government enact a bill had attracted between 5000 and 6000 signatures between 3 April and 5 April. Hazare has been involved with IAC, a group established by various prominent activists with the primary purpose of achieving the legal enactment and subsequent enforcement of a strong version of the Jan Lokpal bill
4 April 2011
Hazare announced that he would commence his “fast unto death” and that this would last until a comprehensive measure to tackle corruption was introduced. He claimed that the government had excluded “civil society” from the panel set up to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill, and implied that at least one of the people who was to be on the drafting committee – Sharad Pawar – might be unsuitable for that role because of his large landholdings. Kiran Bedi and Swami Agnivesh voiced their support for Hazare.
30 March 2011
Kapil Dev, a former captain of the Indian national cricket team, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, complaining that the many investigations into scams arising from the recent Commonwealth Games had achieved nothing so far. He said that, “Why can’t we have an independent Lokpal to look into these scams? I consider you as the cleanest politician in the recent history and I urge you for a Jan Lokpal Bill”.
28 March 2011
There were protest marches in various cities across the world, including some in the US. These included a 240-mile march in California that began on 12 March in San Diego and ended on 26 March at the statue erected in honour of Gandhi in San Francisco.
13 March 2011
A poster against corruption in India
A group of Delhi residents drove around the city dressed in similar clothing in an attempt to raise awareness of corruption issues and to gain support for the Jan Lokpal Bill.