Anna Hazare

Anna Hazare is a bachelor. The term “Anna” means elder brother in Marathi, and that’s how he is fondly called by the citizens of India. He lives a very austere life in a single room attached to a temple.

He was born as Kisan Baburao Hazare in a village near Ahmednagar as the eldest son of Baburao Hazare and Laxmi Bai. He has six siblings. His father was an unskilled laborer and the family struggled to make ends meet.

A relative took upon himself the responsibility of educating Anna Hazare and took him to Mumbai where he was admitted into a local school. However, due to financial strains the relative had to discontinue the boy’s education while in seventh standard.

Anna Hazare started earning his livelihood by selling flowers at the railway stations. He was hardworking and soon set up two flower shops of his own.

He joined the Indian Army in 1960. He was trained at Aurangabad and initially he worked as an army truck driver.

He was posted at the border in the Khem Karan sector during the Indo-Pakistan War in 1965 where he miraculously survived an enemy attack. This incident shook him and for a time he even considered committing suicide.

However, war time experiences in which he emerged to be the sole survivor made him think about the meaning of life. He began reading the works of great minds like Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave which made him realize that he should be doing something purposeful in his life.

During his stint in the army he was posted at different places like Punjab, Sikkim, Bhutan, Mizoram, Maharashtra, and Jammu. He was honorably discharged from the army in 1975 after 15 years of service.

He returned to his native village of Ralegan Siddhi and was dismayed to find it plagued by the issues of abject poverty, water problems, alcoholism and hopelessness. He was determined to do something about it.

He was the major force behind the transformation of the village Ralegan Siddhi from a poverty ridden, hopeless place with a huge population of alcoholics and drug addicts to a “Model Village” based on sustainable development.

Hazare played a key role in persuading the Government of India to pass the The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013. He had been campaigning for years, often going on indefinite fasts in his bid to make the government take action towards creating a strong anti-corruption act.