Kisan Baburao Hazare popularly known as Anna was born on 15 June 1937 in Bhingar, near Ahmednagar. He was the eldest son of Baburao Hazare and Laxmi Bai, and had two sisters and four brothers. His father worked as an unskilled labourer in a 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.
Due to unforeseen sequence of events, he discontinues his education in class seven and sold 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. In April 1960, Anna went on to join the Indian Army, where he initially worked as an army truck driver and was later attested as a soldier. He undertook army training at Aurangabad. 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.
Anna’s village Ralegan Siddhi witnessed alcoholism, utter poverty and migration to urban slums. In 1932, it got its first formal school, a single classroom primary school. Anna along with the youth of Ralegan Siddhi, worked to increase literacy rates and education levels in the village. In 1976 they started a pre-school and a high school in 1979. Inspired by Anna’s unique approach of salvaging a hopeless village, the state government has implemented the ‘Model Village’ scheme as part of its official strategy. Anna Hazare is now synonymous with rural development in India and has been awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1992 for his efforts.
In order to take things forward, Anna has also continuously struggled for 11 years against the government for giving rights to citizens by making legislations for Right to Information, more rights for the Gram Sabha, regulating transfers of the government officers, prohibition and against red tapism. He thinks, the dream of India as a strong nation will not be realised without self-reliant, self sufficient villages, which can be achieved only through social commitment and involvement of the common man. He opines that proper planning of natural and human resources can result in the betterment of a person, area, village instead of exploiting such resources. Anna also believes, today we all are exploiting the earthen resources like petrol, diesel, kerosene, coal and water. This can never be termed as perennial development as it is going to lead to a state of destruction one day. Arvind Kejriwal, the new and enterprising chief minister of the capital is a protege of Anna Hazare.