Anna Hazare

Kisan Baburao "Anna" Hazare (born 15 June 1937) is an Indian social activist who led movements to promote rural development, increase government transparency, and investigate and punish corruption in public life.

In addition to organising and encouraging grassroots movements, Hazare frequently conducted hunger strikes to further his causes—a tactic reminiscent, to many, of the work of Mahatma Gandhi.

Hazare also contributed to the development and structuring of Ralegan Siddhi, a village in Parner taluka of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India.

Kisan Baburao Hazare was born on 15 June 1937 (some sources say 15 January 1940 ) in Bhingar, near Ahmednagar.

He was the eldest son of Baburao Hazare and Laxmi Bai.

He has two sisters and four brothers.

He later adopted the name Anna, which in Marathi means "elder person" or "father".

His father worked as an unskilled labourer in Ayurveda Ashram Pharmacy and struggled to support the family financially.

In time, the family moved to their ancestral village of Ralegan Siddhi, where they owned a small amount of agricultural land.

A relative took on the burden of providing Kisan with an education, taking him to Mumbai because the village had no primary school.

The relative became unable financially to continue the support and Kisan's schooling ended in the Standard Seventh grade; his siblings never attended school.

He started selling flowers at the Dadar railway station in Mumbai and eventually managed to own two flower shops in the city.

He also became involved in vigilantism, joining groups who acted to prevent landlords' thugs from intimidating the poor out of their shelter.

Hazare was drafted into the Indian Army in April 1960, where he initially worked as an army truck driver and was later attested as a soldier.

He undertook army training at Aurangabad.

During his fifteen-year career in the army (1960–75), Anna Hazare was posted at several locations, including Punjab (Indo Pak war 1965), Nagaland, Bombay (1971) and Jammu (1974)

During the Indo pak war, Hazare survived a road crash while driving for the army.

He interpreted his survival as a further sign that his life was intended to be dedicated to service.

He had another escape in Nagaland, where one night, underground Naga rebels attacked his post and killed all the inmates.

He had a miraculous escape as he had gone out to return nature's call and hence turned out to be the lone survivor.

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Hazare was posted at the border in the Khem Karan sector.

He was the sole survivor of an enemy attack—variously claimed to have been a bomb, an aerial assault and an exchange of fire at the border—while he was driving a truck.

The experiences of wartime, coupled with the poverty from which he had come, affected him.

He considered suicide at one point but instead turned to pondering the meaning of life and death.

He said of the truck attack, "[It] sent me thinking. I felt that God wanted me to stay alive for some reason. I was reborn in the battlefield of Khem Karan. And I decided to dedicate my new life to serving people."

At a book stand in New Delhi railway station, he came across Swami Vivekananda's booklet "Call to the youth for nation building" which inspired him to think deeper.

He spent his spare time reading the works of Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Vinoba Bhave.

In a blog post, Hazare expressed his views on Kashmir by saying that it was his "active conviction that Kashmir is an integral part of India" and that if required once again for service, he would remain "ready to take part in war against Pakistan."

Official records show that he was honourably discharged in 1975 after completing 12 years of service.

Hazare returned to Ralegan Siddhi, a village then described by Satpathy and Mehta as "one of the many villages of India plagued by acute poverty, deprivation, a fragile ecosystem, neglect and hopelessness."

Although most of the villagers owned some land, cultivation was extremely difficult due to the rocky ground preventing retention of the monsoon rains, this situation was worsened by gradual environmental deterioration as trees were cut down, erosion spread and droughts were also experienced.

The shortage of water also led to disease from unsanitary conditions and water reuse for multiple purposes.

He was awarded the Padma Bhushan—the third-highest civilian award—by the Government of India in 1992 for his efforts in establishing this village as a model for others.

Hazare started a hunger strike on 5 April 2011 to exert pressure on the Indian government to enact a stringent anti-corruption law, The Lokpal Bill, 2011 as envisaged in the Jan Lokpal Bill, for the institution of an ombudsman with the power to deal with corruption in public places.

The fast led to nationwide protests in support.

The fast ended on 9 April 2011, a day after the government accepted Hazare's demands.

The government issued a gazette notification on the formation of a joint committee, consisting of government and civil society representatives, to draft the legislation.

Foreign Policy named him among top 100 global thinkers in 2011.

Also in 2011, Hazare was ranked as the most influential person in Mumbai by a national daily newspaper.

He has faced criticism for his authoritarian views on justice, including death as punishment for corrupt public officials and his alleged support for forced vasectomies as a method of family planning.