Kishan Baburao Hazare, popularly known as Anna Hazare, was born on 15 June 1934. He was raised in a very poor family, his father being a labourer in an factory and his grandfather having served the country in the army. Anna was raised in a family where he had six younger siblings and his aunt to took care of him. He studied up to seventh standard before he left his studies and started selling flowers due to economic problems in his house. He was then registered in the Indian army, despite being underweight, during the emergency of 1962 Indo-Pak war. His entire troop was wiped out by tank attacks of the Pakistani army, while he was the only survivor. Once during the war, a bullet had brushed past his right side. He then realized the meaning of the life and he decided to make good use of it and returned back to his village, Ralegan Siddhi, which was in a very acute drought prone area in the Ahmednagar district. The village had many problems like drought, plague, alcoholism, fragile eco-system. It was Anna Hazare who made remarkable changes to the village like removing alcoholism, implementing water development programme, making education compulsory for children, making grain banks for the proper storage of the grains in the village and he even helped in the removal of untouchability. He even started a group called India Against Corruption. He was also awarded Padma Shri in 1990 and Padma Bhushan in 1992.
After many good deeds, Anna took up social service as his primary objective and he took an oath to abolish the problems from his country. In 2011, Anna Hazare proposed to the government to produce a stronger Jan Lokpal bill which would put a dead end to the corruption in the India. He asked the government to make a team which would consist some members from the civil society as well as the members from the government. But the government refused to comply to his demands. So he decided to fast unto death from 5th april 2011 at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.This movement attracted the media and many famous people like Kapil Dev, Swami Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, Jayprakash Narayan, who joined him in his fight against corruption. Thousands of people all across the country also supported him in this crusade. On 8th july Anna Hazare ended his hunger strike as the government finally gave in to the demands of the Gandhian and made a new team for the Jan Lokpal bill. The team comprised of five nominees from the government and five nominees from the civil society which included Anna Hazare, Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Santosh Hegde and Arvind Kejriwal. This was a major victory in the battle against the corruption. But the war was yet to be won.
The "Team Anna" faced a lot of opposition from the government over many issues. "Team Anna" decided to boycott the meeting of the joint Lokpal bill because Swami Ramdev and his supporters were beaten in the middle of the night when they were on a fast, raising the issue of black money. On July 28 2011, the union cabinet passed a draft of the Lokpal bill which excluded the ministers, lower bureaucracy and the judiciary from the scanner of the investigation of corruption. Anna Hazare highly criticized this bill and asked the government to redraft the bill. He said if the government officials and the bureaucrats are excluded from the scanner, then who are we supposed to investigate? He threatened that if the government did not comply to the needs of the people, he would start a hunger strike on the 16th August 2011.
As expected the CONgress did not pay heed to the needs of the people, and hence Anna Hazare decided to start his hunger strike on the morning of 16th August. However, the Delhi police officials arrested him four hours before the hunger strike was to start and placed him in Tihar jail. This, however, did not impede the crusader from continuing with his hunger strike and he fasted in the jail itself. At first, the police officials allowed him to fast for 7 days with conditions that he would only have the support of 5000 people and would leave Delhi immediately after being released from the jail, but Anna refused to agree. After long talks and tense negotiations between "Team Anna" and Delhi police officials, it was declared that Anna Hazare would be allowed to fast for 15 days without any restrictions at Ramlila Maidan. So did the social service man continue to fight against the biggest problem currently faced by our motherland, corruption.
As you read this blog of mine, he will still be fighting for the betterment of the country. But are you ready to fight for your country? are you supporting "Team Anna"? Are you ready to stop corruption? Are you ready to stop the bribes to the babus of the government? Next time when a traffic policeman asks you for extra money for your automobile, would you refuse to comply to his conditions? Next time when a ticket collector in the train asks you for the ticket, are you ready to pay for the ticket legally? The power is in the hands of the people and the people are the root of the country? Only the people have the power to remove the corruption from its roots; A tree vanishes only when it is uprooted, not when its branches are chopped off.
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