This is the tale of two people who stood up to their governments by going on hunger strikes, all within about 15 years. It is rather interesting to see how their stories differ, which really shows how India, its political scene and the people who thought they could keep society in order by their moral authority — seen as conscious guardians — have changed over time.

First, we have Anna Hazare. A serial agitator since the ’90s in Maharashtra, Hazare caught everyone’s attention when he started a hunger strike on April 5, 2011, in Delhi. It ended in just 96 hours on April 9, when the government agreed to form a joint committee to draft the Jan Lokpal Bill. His second, longer hunger strike began on August 16 at the famous Ramlila Maidan. It ended on August 28, 12 days later, after Parliament passed a resolution in favour of his core demands.

He had a relatively harmless demand: To get strong anti-corruption measures in place by creating an independent ombudsman, a Lokpal. In India, corruption is something that many people think everyone else is doing. Because so many people believe this, anti-corruption campaigns often succeed, even though they do not always completely solve the problem. And with the Manmohan Singh government besieged with a series of scams, or rather allegations of scams, Anna’s agitation struck the right chord. The impact of Anna’s fast was........

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