Swami Ramdev, also known as Baba Ramdev, issued the call-to-arms from his ashram near Haridwar 200 km north of New Delhi after he was ejected from the capital.
He and 50,000 supporters had gathered in Delhi to hold a hunger strike as part of a growing wave of dissent against the government’s failure to tackle corruption.
But early on Sunday, police wielding sticks and firing tear gas broke up the protest in a surprise move that infuriated Ramdev’s thousands of followers and triggered sharp criticism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Ramdev called for men and women to join his “army.” “They must be dedicated, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice,” he said in remarks reported by television news channels. “They will be given arms training. We will build an army of 11,000 men and women.”
His spokesman said that the force would have weapons but would act only in self-defense. He said that Ramdev was determined to stand up to police if they again attacked him or his supporters.
The main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), sought to tap into the anger, with leader of the opposition Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday traveling to met Ramdev in Haridwar.
Another hunger striker, veteran activist Anna Hazare, on Wednesday attracted thousands of people to a one-day demonstration in Delhi to protest against the police crackdown on Ramdev.
Several thousand supporters joined Hazare’s hunger strike, piling further pressure on the ruling Congress party, condemned for dispatching hundreds of police with batons and tear gas at midnight on Saturday to break up an anti-graft hunger strike by a yoga guru.
“When injustice and oppression prevail, it is not a crime to protest,” Hazare told a cheering crowd that chanted his name in New Delhi’s fierce summer heat.
“We have to fight the second war for freedom,” he added, referring to India’s first struggle for independence from British colonial rule.
The septuagenarian Hazare, clad in white, began his fast on a stage at the memorial site of independence movement leader Mahatma Gandhi.
With riot police out in force, protesters clapped, sang, beat drums and waved the green, saffron and white national flag outside the gates of the memorial — a sunken garden with a large marble slab marking the place where Gandhi was cremated.
Many participants wore t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “India Against Corruption.”
“What happened on Saturday was a brutal assault on democracy. Beating innocent people, including children, and women, who were protesting peacefully,” said 34-year-old Vikram Shetty, who has an MBA and works for a large foreign IT company in Bangalore. “I can’t sit at home and wait for change. This is the beginning of change.”
Some ministers are wary of caving to the demands of unelected activists.
“(Activists) may give suggestions. We will take the decisions and pass the legislation. That is the only correct way to function in a parliamentary democracy,” Home Minister P. Chidambaram told state-owned television channel Doordarshan.
While Ramdev stressed that his fast was apolitical, Congress officials have criticized his connections to a far-right Hindu organization and some analysts noted a nationalist upsurge created by the recent protests.
The Prime Minister’s office told NDTV news channel that the call to arms was anti-national and a threat to the government. “'War against corruption’ is led by people of many hues, but it is also the Hindu revolution’s catch-all device to rally new support to the cause,” wrote Sagarika Ghose, political columnist and deputy editor of CNN-IBN news channel.
Hazare has reportedly fasted for 108 days over the past 20 years, forcing ministers from office and establishing India’s right to information act.
A five-day fast in April won concessions on legislation to create an ombudsman.
He styles himself after Mahatma Gandhi, whose nonviolent protest movement ultimately led to the removal of British imperial power through a series of fasts, marches and strikes.
The New Delhi fasts have inspired others in major cities across the country, with up to 400 people gathering in Mumbai in support of Hazare and Ramdev.
Hazare told his supporters on Wednesday he would launch another hunger strike if the government did not implement a promised tough anti-corruption bill, which is due by Aug. 15.
Graft has long been part of daily life in India, which ranks 78th in Transparency International’s index on corruption, below China, but the scandals that have seen a minister jailed and business billionaires questioned are unprecedented.
