Anna Hazare's place in history as a man who brought life back to his village is assured. He brought abundance of water, employment, health and education to a village that lay as a ruined society. Hazare was a valiant champion of villagers' rights too. In 2003, a decade before the simple man was taken away to Delhi and misused by Arvind Kejriwal for his political ambitions, I spent a day in Ralegan Siddhi. I was lucky. He was at his temple residence. I sat among a bus load of visiting villagers and listened to him. After they left, he spoke to exclusively. A most memorable day, accompanied by my batchmate R S Nagarkar of Pune
An army truck driver finds his mission in the battle-field: serve others.
At about 80 km towards Ahmednagar from Pune, turn left at Wadegaon. Ask anyone the way to Ralegan Siddhi. They will point you to a Shangri La. Be ready to strain your credulity as facts are reeled off, and evidence is presented. No one starves here --in fact everyone is well nourished--, there's no disease, the environment is clean and wooded, all the young are at school, the farm economy is booming, there are no social divisions, women are empowered and no one wastes time or money on movies, tobacco or liquor.
All this was wrung out of a drought prone 4 sq km land where till 1975, only 80 of its 2200 arable acres were farmed. The annual rain -- about 400 mm in a good year but mostly a third of that -- ran off the undulating land. The 2000 strong population sat and stared at a hopeless future. Children died early, men beat their wives, disease ran rampant and about the only businesses that made any money were the liquor stills - 40 of them. From there to paradise might seem an impossible hop. Yet, all it took was a mere 20 years -- and, an ex-army truck driver called Kissan Baburao 'Anna' Hazare.
Flower boy goes to the army:
Hazares owned 5 acres which if productive, should easily support a family in India. But given the conditions, they were in deep poverty. Young Hazare left for Mumbai after 7 years of schooling. He was in his mid-teens. He began to sell flowers and was quite successful, but life seemed so empty. He would frequent the movies, hang out with mates at street corners and was generally lost. By chance, he came to read the lives of Vivekananda and Gandhi. And gained two firm convictions. From the first, that the purpose of life was to serve others and from the second, never to preach what you did not practice.
China's incursion into India in 1962, provoked him to join the army. He was trained as a truck driver and sent to the front. There, after an accident he was alone and lost for several days. He faced death and when eventually rescued, convinced himself that he had been spared for a purpose. He foreswore marriage and determined to help his village.
The Ralegan that he returned to in 1975 was as we saw, a heartache place. A drought in 1972 had crippled it further. Fist fights and vandalism throve around the liquor vends and the bazaar. Wood work from the now crumbling temple had been ripped out to stoke the stills. But there were some game triers at reforming this unruly village. A relief committee run by the Tata group was reaching out. Catholic Relief Society supplied food grains to keep off hunger. And then there was Ashok Bedarkar, a young professional managing the Tata programmes. Hazare began looking for a beach-head to start his campaign. Unmarried at 35 made him rare. And his giving away his pension money to the needy made him an odd ball.
Changes fit for Ripley's:
Prompted by his intuition and powered by the settlement funds from the army, he renovated the village temple. And began to live --as he does till this day-- in two rooms there totalling, 200 sq. feet. Slowly people began to come and meet this man with strange ideas on money. By now he had earned their trust and the Maharashtrian honorofic, 'Anna'. The road out of the village's problems had to be built with contributed labour or 'shramdaan', he lectured. Each of the 250 families had to send one volunteer per day per week. Each day's labour counted as a Rs.30 contribution and earned Rs.70 from the government. Thus began small watershed works. As soon as about 60 small bunds, check dams, trenches and percolation ponds had been built there was a dramatic change: water table rose throughout the village. Anna had changed a despairing mind set and set the pace for galloping changes.
Within three years farmed acreage grew from 80 to 1300. Farmers gave away over 500 acres in the catchment areas. Village labour engineered these for harvesting all the rain that fell. Soon they were raising three crops a year and exporting table produce to the cities and even overseas. They worked out a water use regime: water drawal and crop selection is strictly regulated based on the rainfall and by sounding the water table. Today nearly 90% of the arable land is farmed. Along the way, Anna persuaded the villagers to accept the 25 Dalit families as their own, fought off the liquor barons, chastened the wife-beaters [--he had them thrashed in public], drove tobacco out of town, began a massive afforestation programme, built 11 bio gas plants, a 65 feet dia. community well and as a crowning innovation, started a Grain Bank, at the temple: anyone can 'borrow' grains when in need and return when able, with a little 'interest' added. Not many borrowers these days, though -- mostly farmers come bringing a little of their surpluses to add to the bank's reserves.
In 1992, the village built itself a grand school with its own funds and labour. Today 850 boys and girls study in it, only 650 of them Ralegan children. In the boys' hostel are 250 kids from all over Maharashtra. To be eligible they need to be drop-outs; if they have failed in their studies their chances of admission are better. Yet, over 90% of the children pass high school. The school has science laboratories, computer courses and a big library. There's a retired army sergeant who drills fitness into them. Kids rise at 5.30 am for a shrieking, mass run through the village. The school has vast play grounds. Children run a nursery, and actively plant and care for trees. Girls are taught to swim, to ride bicycles and lately bikes. Anna believes that development in society isn't possible without women playing an active part.
Main media knows Anna mostly as an agitator. He is a good one too. He will fight for the village's right to every sanctioned scheme. Villagers will not pay a bribe. They will collar and expose any bribe seeker. Anna's reputation is such that the Government trembles when he demands action and transparency. [Read this story.] Awards and cash have come his way. All the prize money -- over Rs.19 lakhs-- has gone into running his Vivekananda Trust, that awards an annual cash prize of Rs.25,000 to a village level leader. Ralegan has become a legend. There's a steady stream of politicians and leaders who come to see for themselves. Buses drone in constantly bringing villagers. Some on day trips, and some for weeks long courses. There is a formal Training Centre. When he is in town --which is rarely, these days-- he will receive and talk to anyone, sharing his ideas and vision.
Cloning Ralegan:
We are in luck. He is 'in'. He is a short, compact man with an earnest face. He sits cross legged on the floor and has all the time for you. His simplicity and readiness are slightly unnerving. You expected a greater reserve from a man who is widely venerated. Soon you know why he lacks it. "As long as there is 'my' and 'mine', there is sadness," he says. "When you define your family in narrow terms, the contrasts within it and without will be stark. So there will be sadness. But as soon as you define 'family' in inclusive, wide terms all sadness disappears."
Why is this emphasis on not consuming liquor, tobacco or meat? Doesn't it amount to coercing people?
"You can begin where you want in development," he says."But at some point or the other you have to address these issues. They come in the way. They are connected with issues of health, economics, education, responsibility and family harmony. In Ralegan we got them out of the way quite early. Others will have to get them out of the way later, if they envy Ralegan and want to emulate it."
Now, the punch question. How replicable is the Ralegan process? Is it possible to find an Anna in every village? Also Ralegan has few Dalits and no Muslims or Christians. How do you take the value set from here and plant them elsewhere?
He listens carefully. And begins. You know it's going to be a long answer.
"I began to ask myself these questions once Ralegan was on its way. I decided to find out. So I asked ten college Principals to send me their alumni list. I sent out a thousand form letters. I asked them if they would be interested in propagating the Ralegan experiment. They would be trained for six months. Each day would run from 5 am to 10 pm.They must learn to clean the streets and toilets. Live a simple life and expect little money. After training they would have to spend years in villages as hard as Ralegan was before 1975. They would be paid reasonably. Would they be prepared for this challenge of rebuilding India?
"Not a very good copy, you'd say for a recruitment ad, but I got 403 responses. I picked a 110. When the street cleaning part began 14 left. As the course ground forward, a few more left. But in the end I had 75 potential leaders with me. There are three Muslims and 5 girls among them. Is this not remarkable? I had cast the net randomly and found 75 young Indians ready to work for others. All this from Maharashtra alone with one form letter.
"The criteria for selecting the villages for development were severe. They had to be a minimum of 20 km from any big town. The villages needed to have a population below 4000 and had to be located in a drought-prone district - we want to transform them by focussing on watershed development. Our trainees screened many villages and selected 75 clusters. Each covers a 2500 hectare area. They are all over Maharashtra. Some were deliberately chosen for mixed populations. I visited everyone of them.
"Our young leaders moved in and prepared action plans after surveying and auditing the project areas. I interacted with CAPART [Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology] and have already raised money for 25 of the project areas. At between Rs.10 and 15 millions per project, I have enough to start. 4 have been underway since late 2001. Others will be starting soon."
He pauses. The seriousness switches to a bright smile. The 25 year long trucker's stop at Ralegan seems to be over. He is on the road again. Driving for India.
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Anna Hazare
Ralegan SiddhiParner taluk
Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra - 414302
Phone: 91-02488-2249237
email: hst1@vsnl.com
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