BANGALORE: Supporters of Anna Hazare celebrated at Freedom Park on Sunday, after the stand-off between the government and Team Anna ended with the Centre giving in to the demand for a stronger Lokpal Bill.Once Hazare decided to break his fast after about 290 hours, the people fasting at Freedom Park also broke their fast and joined the ‘victory march’ that was being carried out from the park to K R Circle and back.Without police permission to march onto the streets, the victory march was confined to the footpath and the route was shortened to prevent any traffic disruption.“We are happy today. This movement has been successful and the government has promised to bring in a strong Lokpal Bill,” said Pratima Reddy, who has been on a hunger strike for the last 13 days.Her happiness was shared by others who had been fasting for over a week in support of Hazare.Looking at the celebrations at Freedom Park with pride, Prithvi Reddy, State Coordinator, India Against Corruption (IAC), said that the movement has been successful only because of the persistence and conviction of the people who supported Anna.But he also added that the entire movement was more of an event management exercise.“One of the reasons that we decided to persuade Anna to end the fast was because people had started to take unnecessary advantage of the movement,” he said.He explained that people had started to drink at the fast, making a mockery out of the entire event, which he said was ‘extremely unfortunate’.However, he spoke of how Hazare is now an icon and that IAC had not expected such a huge response.“Anna has shown us that a person can survive even if he is honest,” said Shachi Dharmaraj, one of the supporters at Freedom Park.“He is like a missing link between Mahatma Gandhi and the present generation,” she added.As part of the core committee that met with Hazare regularly to decide how to organise the protest across the country, Prithvi Reddy explained that it was the core committee’s decision to request Hazare to end the fast.“Anna is too precious to us and the core committee voted unanimously to ask him to end the strike,” he said.He also explained that the core committee wanted to give Parliament time to discuss the Bill.“What this movement has allowed us to do is create an aware citizenry and we can see that discussions have now become issue-based,” he said.“I’m quite happy and hope this continues.Democracy has succeeded and it is the responsibility of the people to continue to assert themselves,” said H S Doreswamy, who addressed Hazare’s supporters at Freedom Park on the last day.“It is almost a month and we have forgotten our homes,” said another organiser, who was happy to go back to her family after the movement’s success.The end of the fast, a moment of celebration was however, a matter of choice.While the country rejoiced at vendors tried their best to make the best of some last minute sales.While some had managed to earn enough on the last day, others were disappointed that the protest had come to an end and their business had not seen much profit.“I brought 5000 flags, hoping to sell them today, but did not know that this ‘function’ was over,” said Irshad, who was trying to sell Indian flags to supporters gathered at the park.While vendors like him started to pack up and leave the park, the organisers smiled as they cleaned the park many leftovers.“We did not collect any donations today.We have collected a surplus and will now use it for later campaigns,” said an IAC volunteer at the park.
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