Protests swelled across India yesterday in support of an anti-corruption campaigner who is fasting in jail, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government at a loss over how to end the standoff.

Arun Jaitley, a leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said: "It is a wake-up call for all of us unless we put our house in order. The people of this country are becoming restless."

The slight 74-year-old Anna Hazare fasted as thousands of his followers gathered outside the jail, the latest development in a crisis that saw him arrested on Tuesday, before he could begin a public hunger strike, and then refuse to leave jail after the government ordered his release. At least 15,000 people gathered at one protest site in Delhi alone.