India celebrates people's victory as activist Anna Hazare ends 13-day fast

“It's a proud moment for the country that a mass movement which was carried out for 13 days was peaceful and non-violent,” Anna Hazare in a crisp white kurta smock and cap told thousands of cheering supporters from a stage at an open ground in New Delhi that has become the epicenter of a nationwide crusade.

“The people's parliament is bigger that Delhi's parliament.”

After initially arresting Hazare and dismissing him as an anarchist, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government caved in to the demands of the 74-year-old veteran activist as parliament backed anti-graft legislation that met many of his demands.

Hazare has tapped a groundswell of public anger against endemic corruption, uniting the country's bulging middle-class against a hapless political class and underlining voter anger at Singh and the ruling Congress party.

“Anna wins it for the people,” splashed the front page of India's Sunday Times newspaper, as supporters flocked to Hazare's fast site to revel in victory after parliament gave its support to many of the activist's demands late on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of mostly urban and wired voters across India celebrated the achievement of an unprecedented movement that may usher in a new force in Indian politics and damage the ruling Congress party in crucial state elections next year.

The veteran activist, whose health has seriously deteriorated, said that he would break his fast after a special session of parliament saw lawmakers backing a resolution by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to push for a law to create an independent ombudsman with wide-ranging power to investigate lawmakers, the judiciary and bureaucrats.

Undermined by graft scandals and seen as out-of-touch with voters battling high inflation, Congress' failure to deal with Hazare's campaign before it flared up into a national issue spells danger for the ruling party in state polls next year ahead of the 2014 general election.

While protests in India are not uncommon, the sight of many well-off young professionals using Twitter and Facebook taking to the streets of Asia's third-largest economy suggest an awakening of a previously politically-ambivalent middle-class.

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