Anna Hazare: News

Anna Kisan Baburao Hazare is a Gandhian social activist hailing from the state of Maharashtra. He is known for having led the Jan Lokpal Bill anti-corruption movement during 2011-12. Born in a poor household, Hazare did odd jobs from an early age to support his family. He joined the Indian Army in the early 1960s and was posted along the border during the 1965 India-Pakistan war. During this time, Hazare came across the works of Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi, which propelled him towards social service. He left the Army in 1975 and returned to his village Ralegan Siddhi, which faced serious issues of poverty, illiteracy, drought, and alcohol-induced crimes. Hazare resolved these problems with support from villagers, taking steps such as banning alcohol, increasing literacy rates, setting up of Grain Banks, among other novel solutions. From the 1990s onwards, Hazare turned his attention to government corruption and organized several protests over the next two decades, which held public servants accountable for scams and fund misappropriation. His biggest protest, which transformed him from a regional activist to a national leader, was the Jan Lokpal Bill movement of 2011-12 for a stringent Lokpal Bill to combat government corruption.