India: Baba Ramdev, yoga guru, vows to continue fast despite crackdown

Indian yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, vowed Monday to continue his fast from his northern state of Uttarakhand despite being expelled from the capital New Delhi this weekend.

Ramdev and tens of thousands of his supporters took over a big tent in the capital Saturday and began a massive fast to protest government corruption. He pledged to not end his fast until a list of demands were met by the government.

However, the protest turned violent Sunday when the police decided to break up the crowd using truncheons and tear gas, the Los Angeles Times reports. The crackdown sparked panic in and around the tent.

Ramdev claimed the police were out to kill him and he reportedly disguised himself as a woman to try to escape.

However, the police managed to detain him and fly him to Uttarakhand to take him to his ashram near Haridwar.

The police said they had no option but to break up the protest given that 40,000 people showed up for an event that was supposed to have 5,000, the Associated Press reports.

From Haridwar in Uttarakhand, Ramdev said he would return to the capital to continue his protest.

"The government can stop me from entering Delhi only for a month," he told his supporters, reports NDTV.

Ramdev has developed a huge following through his early morning television show, which attracts 20 million viewers a day, the Los Angeles Times reports. His messages of health and yoga turned into calls for political action.

Leaders of the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, attacked the Congress Party for their handling of the situation and called it “a shameful chapter in the democracy of this country," reports the New York Times.

Congress Party leaders said Ramdev deserves the blame.

“You cannot allow people like Ramdev to run riot in the capital,” Digvijay Singh, a powerful Congress Party leader, told the Times. “He was trying to incite people. Therefore, the action of the police is justified.”