India government in showdown over anti-graft bill

NEW DELHI: The Indian government faced off against angry opposition parties and a popular hunger-striking activist Tuesday as it sought to push a divisive anti-corruption bill through parliament.

Parliament met for a special three-day session devoted to the new legislation which would create an independent "Lokpal" or ombudsman to probe corruption among senior politicians and civil servants.

"If you don't pass this bill, the people of this country will never forgive you," Telecoms Minister Kapil Sibal warned MPs as the debate got off to a heated start with the opposition insisting on a raft of amendments.

The bill has been condemned as weak and ineffectual by critics, including veteran activist Anna Hazare, 74, who was cheered on by several thousand flag-waving supporters as he began a three-day public fast in Mumbai to press for the law to be redrafted.

A similar protest by Hazare in August had galvanised millions of people who took to the streets of cities across India in a spontaneous outpouring of anger and frustration with the endemic graft that blights their daily lives.

The main points of contention focus on the ambit of the ombudsman's office and its powers of investigation.

The government bill offers only limited jurisdiction over the prime minister and requires the ombudsman to put any criminal probes in the hands of the government-controlled Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Hazare and a number of opposition parties want the ombudsman's office to have its own, independent investigative team.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's administration, which has been tainted by a series of high-profile corruption scandals, has a lot riding on the new legislation as it battles against accusations of policy drift.

The mass demonstrations triggered by Hazare's campaign earlier in the year had forced a review of the bill's initial draft and observers say any further climbdown on the government's part would be very damaging politically.

"The government is acting as if this bill is a nuisance and they just want to get it over with," opposition leader Sushma Swaraj told parliament.

Calling the draft legislation "weak and bureaucratic" and "fraught with deficiencies," Swaraj said the government should either accept the opposition amendments or withdraw the bill entirely.

With key state elections looming, Hazare has threatened to take his protest to those regions going to the polls, and tens of thousands of his supporters have vowed a campaign of civil disobedience if the bill is passed in its present form.

Many see a new national hero in Hazare, who models himself on India's independence icon Mahatma Gandhi.

But critics see an autocrat who uses undemocratic methods to force his views on parliament and offers false hopes that a single law can end corruption in Asia's third-largest economy.

Writing in the Times of India on Tuesday, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said the government had "no hesitation in acknowledging" Hazare's role in pushing the anti-corruption issue up the national agenda.

"But it is an infant idea that can be killed by pessimism or obduracy," he warned.

The government will be keeping a wary eye on the turnout for Hazare's Mumbai fast. His August hunger strike in New Delhi had attracted daily crowds numbering in the tens of thousands.

"What is going to be passed in parliament today is a farce. This is not the bill that we want," said Vijaykumar Pulstya, 39, who came from far-away Haryana state in northern India to support Hazare.

Phoolsingh Maurya, a 70-year-old former head teacher, said public frustration with the government and official graft had reached breaking point.

"We have come to the stage where this government has to go. We cannot tolerate corruption for decades," he said.