Uniting India
Anna Hazare-The Crusader Against Corruption
Anna Hazare the crusader against corruption was born on 15thjune 1937 in Bhingar, Bombay Province in British India. He is unknown to the rest of India till he took up the issue of corruption at National level in the esteemed company of Kiran Bedi, the former super cop, Arvind Kejriwal, a social activist, and Prashant Bhushan who is a prominent lawyer. Anna Hazare served in the military in 1963. He also participated in India- Pakistan war in 1965. He was influenced by a book ‘Call for the Youth in the Nation Building’ written by Swami Vivekananda. He took an oath in 1975 after his retirement from military to serve the humanity.
He transformed his Ralegan Siddhi village in Ahmad Nagar district in Maharashtra State in to a model village from a poverty clad village. He made the village self sustained in Power Generation with the help of solar power, bio fuels and wind mills. He concentrated on providing Educational facilities and conducted collective marriages in his village. He ran a crusade against liquor shops and untouchability in his village. He was also responsible for watershed management projects there. He fought against corruption in the Government of Maharashtra. He was awarded padmashri in 1990 and Padma Bhushan in 1992 for his social work by the Government of India.
He started fast until death on 5thApril 2011 to exert pressure on the Government of India for initiating Jan Lokpal Bill (The Citizens ombudsman bill) in the Parliament. The Government of India was forced to concede all his demands due to the people’s support. The Government held a number of meetings with his committee members for drafting a common Lok Pal Bill. Both the parties could not come to an understanding. Two different bills were prepared by both the parties. But the Government decided to put forward its bill in the Parliament ignoring Anna Hazare’s bill. So Anna Hazare and his committee members decided to boycott any further meetings with the Government since they feel that the bill of the ruling party members diluted the Jan Lok Pal Bill to a larger extent.
Anna Hazare gave notice to the Government that he would resort to fast unto death from 16th August 2011 onwards due to the rejection of the Government proposal by his committee members including himself. The Government arrested him on 16trshAugust 2011 at 07.30 hrs at his residence along with his committee members even before he reached the venue for fasting in New Delhi. All hell broke loose in entire India. Thousands of his sympathisers are arrested in places like New Delhi and Mumbai etc. People came in support of Anna Hazare en masse. Never before such massive voluntary gathering of people was observed post independence in India. Ultimately the Government of India decided to release him from prison at 0905pm within 12hrs of his arrest. But he refused to get released on any conditions.
It is the duty of every socially conscious Indian to support out and out the crusade against corruption at all levels by the young at heart and energetic Anna Hazare. Certain vested interests are trying their best to breakup the core committee members of Anna Hazare. Their mission breakup is sure to fail.
‘’ Anna Hazare is the shining example of creativity and service by Field Marshal-K.M.Cariappa”
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Pochiraju Sivaram on August 19, 2011 at 3:08 pm, and is filed under Inspiring People, Politics, Uncategorized. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
Every single politician is corrupted now a days. In olden days the people came into politics to serve the people but now days?? They all are coming to earn money. None of them are responsibel for their deeds, when they were caught they simply escaping uisng their influence. Almost all Govt employees are become corrupted.Can’t we stop this? Yes We can. Please Support Hazare. This great person is fighting for us and for our future. We all must support him, to have a better future.
Thanks Narasimha Raju for expressing your views on a very vital issue.
Anna Hazare is a great person who influenced so many Indians after Gandhi. Gandhi foght for our freedom against Elnglish people. Anna Hazare fighting against corruption against Indian Crooked polticians. We must support Hazare, All Indians are looking forward for a change. We all can bring the change.
Thanks Deepa for your support to Anna Hazare.
Thanks for presenting his bio. I am, like many of the Indians live outside India and having been galvanized by the man and the change he has brought into the collective psyche of all of us – Indians, that have been just accepting the greedy and selfish oligarchies for decades. We are closely following the developments. I hope you continue the coverage on Anna and the people’s movement and keep us posted on other key personalities involved as well.
There is some worry (since we are so far away and do not really feel the pulse of the people in India) that some self-interest groups and parties may usurp power by taking over the movement. How do you feel about that possibility?
Thanks for your compliment. This agitation has brought youth into the limelight. The awakening of the youth is its biggest plus point. It won’t be a temporary phenomenon henceforth. It will take many decades to provide proper education to the poor till then some party is certain to usurp power to rule at the centre. but there is a remote possibility of hijacking the movement.