ANNA HAZARE

All you wanted to know about Anna Hazare

WHO IS HAZARE ?

Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare, (Hindi: ) , popularly known as Anna Hazare, is a social activist who is especially recognized for his contribution to the development of Ralegan Siddhi, a village in Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India and his efforts for establishing it as a model village, for which he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by Government of India, in 1992. On April 5, 2011, Anna Hazare has started a 'fast unto death', to exert pressure on the Government of India to enact a strong anti-corruption act as envisaged in the Jan Lokpal Bill, a law that will establish a Lokpal (ombudsman) that will have the power to deal with corruption in public offices.

EARLY LIFE OF HAZARE

Anna Hazare was born in Bhingar village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra state in western India to Baburao Hazare and Laxmi Bai, an unskilled labourer family who owned five acres of land. Due to adverse conditions in 1952 they had to move to their family home in Ralegan Siddhi. He was raised by his childless aunt in Mumbai but could not continue beyond VII standard and had to quit midway due to financial problems.

IN THE INDIAN ARMY

Anna Hazare started his career as a driver in the Indian Army. He spent his spare time reading the books of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave that inspired him to become a social worker and activist. During the mid-1970s he was involved in a road accident while driving but he survived.

IN RALEGAN SIDDHI
In 1975, he led a movement to eradicate alcoholism from the village. Next, he motivated the residents of the village into shramdan (voluntary labour) to build canals, small-scale check-dams and percolation tanks in the nearby hills for watershed development. He also motivated the residents of the village to build a secondary school in the village through voluntary labour.

RIGHT TO INFORMATION MOVEMENT

In the early 2000s, Anna Hazare led a movement in Maharastra state, which forced the Government of Maharashtra to repeal the earlier weak act and pass a more stronger Right to Information Act, which was later considered as the base document for the Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI), enacted by the Union Government. It also ensured that the President of India assented to this new act.

MAHARASHTRA STATE GOVERNMENT ARRESTS HAZARE !

Anna Hazare was arrested in 1998 during Shiv Sena-BJP rule in Maharashtra when a defamation suit was filed against him by then Maharashtra Social Welfare minister Babanrao Golap of Shiv Sena. He was released following public uproar.

LOKPAL BILL MOVEMENT

In 2011, Anna Hazare led a movement for passing a stronger anti-corruption Lokpal (ombudsman) bill in the Indian Parliament. As a part of this movement, N. Santosh Hegde, a former justice of the Supreme Court of India and Lokayukta of Karnataka, Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court along with the members of the India Against Corruption movement drafted an alternate bill, named as the Jan Lokpal Bill (People's Ombudsman Bill) with more stringent provisions and wider power to the Lokpal (Ombudsman).

Hazare has started a fast unto death from 5 April 2011 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, to press for the demand to form a joint committee of the representatives of the Government and the civil society to draft a new bill with more stronger penal actions and more independence to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Ombudsmen in the states), after his demand was rejected by the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh