Anna Hazare Biography 
Kisan Baburao Hazare was born on 15 June, 1937 in a small village near Ahmednagar, Bombay province now known as Maharashtra state. He was born to Baburao Hazare an unskilled labourer at the Ayurveda ashram pharmacy with six siblings to support the family faced significant hardships. Hazare had a childless aunt who looked after him in these times and took him to Bombay, where he studied till class seven and then started selling flowers to make a living.
Just then, in 1962, there was ugly turnaround of events in south Asia. There was immediate and mass recruitment in the army and although he did not fulfill the minimum physical recruitments at 25 Hazare was selected. He then served the nation as a driver with a minor escape from death he realized the purpose and meaning of life and death. A small booklet ‘Call to the youth for nation building’ completely changed his perspective towards life.
He then took voluntary retirement and went to his native village Ralegan Siddhi which was hit by drought and acute poverty. He played an important role in turning around the fortunes for that village and its people by various projects like uprooting alcoholism, developing a grain bank, water shed harvesting, milk production, education etc.
In 1991 he launched the (BVJA) the people’s movement against corruption. In this he protested against the collusion between forest officers and timber merchants. As an activist he also had to visit Yerawada jail to serve a three month sentence. In 2003 he raised corruption charges against for NCP leaders and started a fast unto death on 9th august 2003 which ended on 17th august after negotiations.
In early 2000s he also led a movement for the right to information act which forced the Maharashtra state to launch a stronger Maharashtra right to information act, which was further the base document for the RTI act 2005 by the union govt.
In 2011 Hazare initiated a satyagraha to pass a stronger anti-corruption act in the Indian parliament as conceived in the Jan Lokpal Bill. This satyagaraha started with a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar, Delhi on 5th April to form a joint committee of members of civil society to draft a stronger Lokpal Bill. This fast ended on 8th April with the govt. of India issuing a notification in the gazette of India on formation of a joint committee. He calls this second struggle for independence and says he will continue to fight.
Published: N/A
Updated: October 01, 2017
