The Man
He calls himself a fakir — a man who has no family, no property and no bank balance. He lives in a 10ft x 10ft spartan room attached to the Yadavbaba temple in Ahmednagar's Ralegan Siddhi village, 110km from Pune and wears only khadi. Soldier, thinker, change master, man of steel and the last action hero... That is Anna Hazare for you. A self made man, a florist, a driver... the most eligible bachelor, this saint from Relegan Sidhi, Maharashtra, has been there and seen it. Born to an unskilled laborer, he obviously did not get what we call a "head start" in life. Anna's grandfather was in the army and was posted at Bhingar when Anna was born. He died in 1945 but Anna's father continued to stay at Bhingar. In 1952 Anna's father resigned from his job and returned to his own village i.e. Ralegan Siddhi. At that time Anna had completed his education upto 4th standard and had six younger siblings. It was with great difficulty that Anna's father could make two ends meet. Anna's aunt (father's sister) took Anna to Bombay.
Anna studied upto the 7th standard in Bombay. He took up a job after the 7th standard in consideration of the economic situation back home. Anna's father at Ralegan had to work as a daily wage labourer and found it difficult to sustain his family. He was slipping deeper and deeper into debt. He had to sell off one part of his land and mortgage the other. Anna started selling flowers at Dadar (Bombay) in order to make his living. But Anna's working at somebody's shop for Rs. 40 a month was not enough. An entrepreneur par excellence that he was, soon, he started his own shop and even brought two of his brothers to Bombay. Gradually Anna's income went up to Rs. 700 to Rs. 800 per month. (not bad in 1960!!!!)
The Angry Young Man
1960s were amongst the most momentous years in his formative life perhaps, for, it was this time that he would be escaping arrest from police (for a street brawl) and would also get to see world beyond his imagination as he would join the Indian army. A duration of amazing lows and perhaps personal highs too. Away from the freewheeling world of his own and away from friends and family Anna contemplated suicide, but, would stave off his idea, for it would not help his sisters get married.
During the Indo-Pak war of 1965, he was driving a military vehicle somewhere on the western front when he saw a Pakistani plane flying low overhead. He and his colleagues jumped out and took shelter in the nearby bushes, Iying flat on the ground. The truck was blown off, all his colleagues were killed but Anna miraculously escaped unhurt.
Once again he had a miraculous escape when he was posted in Nagaland. One night, underground Nagas attacked the military post and killed all the inmates. By providence Anna had gone out to answer nature's call at that time and hence he was the lone survivor. These two events had a deep impact on Anna's mind. He realised that his life was not to be wasted. God had considered his life to be precious, otherwise he could have been killed along with his colleagues. Believe you me gentlemen, army can do it to you…
The Saint
"Call to the youth for nation building" by Swami Vivekananda in a book-stall at the New Delhi station would change Anna forever. Vivekananda's thoughts gave meaning to his life and he decided to devote the rest of his life working for the society. He read many more books by Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave. So deep was the impact of these books on young Anna that he urged his parents to go ahead and arrange the marriage of his younger brothers, as he had decided to remain a bachelor. The new found desire to live beyond his narrow self interest later drove him to seek voluntary retirement from the Army and come back to serve his own village.
In 1975 he completed 15 years of service in Army, a statutory requirement for being entitled to a pension. He sought retirement and finally in August 1975, he got relieved from the Army and came back to Ralegan Siddhi for good.
His first target was his own village. It was a miserable and barren place with insufficient rainfall and lacking any economy.It also suffered from freequent droughts.
The year was 1975. Launching watershed development programmes, he persuaded people to change their ways and managed to transform the barely breathing village to one Mahatma Gandhi would have been proud of.He used his savings for developmental work of the village. "I asked them to take an oath banning liquor, excessive grazing by cattle and felling of trees. Another oath was to have small families with men undergoing vasectomy," he recalled during an interaction. He motivated villagers into voluntary labour. Canals and bunds were built to hold rainwater which solved the water scarcity problem and also increased irrigation possibilities in the village.
The Change Master - Superman
Since 1975 under Anna’s leadership, Ralegan Siddhi, has been an evolving as an epitomisation of the Gandhian idiom of a self-sufficient village as an elementary unit of social organisation. Also an important characterisitic of the economic and social transformation of Ralegan is that it has taken place based on the principle of self-help and is concomitant with ensuring social equity, an ideal that is happily at variance with the current fancy for "free market ideals" and "trickle-down economics". Ralegan has been hailed as a model village, therefore, with characterisitic bureaucratic simplification attempts are being made to "replicate" the Ralegan miracle. Inconsiderate, the Ralegan experience is extremely relevant for its central tenet, that with the right moral basis and with reasonable inputs, the collective genius of the people is capable of significantly addressing its own needs.
For many years now, Ralegan Siddhi has been a byword for model development. His achievements have won him many awards like the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra award, the Krishi Bhushana award, the Padma Shree, Padma Bhushan and the Ramon Magsaysay award, Care International of the USA, Transparency International, Seoul (South Korea) also felicitated him.
Had he been a lesser mortal this would have been enough for him. Today at at the ripe old age of 72, this jihadist has declared a jihad against corruption. He has decided to sit for a fast unto death…. And support him we must gentlemen.
Refrences:
Ralegan sidhi: A model for village development by Dr Ramesh Awasthi & Dasharath K Panmand
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~venu/ANNA/message.html
http://annajihazare.blogspot.com/
http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/7893236.cms
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/06/anna_hazare_the.html
