Thaindian News

Washington, Aug 18 (IANS) Indian Americans across the US have rallied in support of social activist Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption with protests before Indian missions and e-mails to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Indian students at Maryland University continued their week-long vigil in front of the Indian Embassy here Thursday besides mounting a massive social networking campaign to spread Hazare’s anti-corruption message.

Reports of rallies in support of the movement in front of the Indian missions have come in from San Francisco and Houston. Protests have also been held in Iselin, New Jersey and Artesia, California ahead of Hazare shifting to New Delhi’s Ramlila Ground to continue his fast for a strong anti-graft law.

More rallies are planned across the US this weekend in support of Hazare.

US media too is reporting the protests prominently with the New York Times suggesting that Hazare has driven the Indian government into a political corner. But the Wall Street Journal called the methods being used by the social activist the “grammar of anarchy.”

“Fuelled by obsessive coverage on India’s all news television networks, the jailhouse protest clearly captured the imagination of the country, and appeared to have backed government leaders into a political corner,” The Times said.

But the Journal suggested Hazare was undermining the Indian constitution saying “Methods of Hazare’s kind have no place in a democratic republic and, as the architect of India’s constitution B. R. Ambedkar warned in 1949, are nothing but the grammar of anarchy.”

The social reformer “has become a major thorn in the side of the government, which is led by the Congress party,” said the Washington Post. CNN suggested he has become an unlikely figurehead for the fight against corruption in India.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)