Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister of India stood in the parliament and explained why the police had arrested the country's wildly popular anti-corruption campaigner.
"The path he has chosen is totally misconceived and fraught with grave consequences for our parliamentary democracy," said the dignified and respected 78-year-old Manmohan Singh. "Those who believe that their voice and their voice alone represents the will of 1.2 billion people should reflect deeply on that position. They must allow the elected representatives of the people in parliament to do the job that they were elected for."
On Saturday night, Singh wrote a letter to the activist, who was no longer in jail, telling him that the parliament had agreed to some of his main demands for a new anti-corruption law.
The letter was hand-delivered by a government minister. The minister read it aloud to the activist, on his hunger strike on an elevated platform, surrounded by tens of thousands of followers, and broadcast to an Indian media with little interest in any other story.