why did god saved “ANNA HAZARE”
September 1965. An Indian military convoy move towards the fighting zone. Suddenly, two Pakistani jets shows up and scream in to attack. As bombs begin exploding around him, Kishan Baburao Hazare, driving a truck full of soldiers, speeds up. But when a splinter came towards the truck, he ducks below the dashboard and jams on the brakes with his hands. The windscreen shatters and bullets killed the man sitting next to Hazare. The 25-year-old driver tumbles out of his truck and started praying as the two jets started firing the convoy again. When they finally disappear, dozens of jawans lie dead. Of the few survivors, only Hazare escapes serious injury. “You saved me, God,” Hazare says, over and over again. “But why?”
The legacy of Baburao Hazare cannot be studied without referring to Ralegaon Siddhi, a village situated in Maharashtra’s Ahmadnagar. In the 1970s, Ralegaon Siddhi wasn’t very different from hundreds of other villages. With water available only during the monsoons, its farmers could barely grow one crop a year, and 70 percent of the families lived in poverty. Indeed, Ralegaon Siddhi’s most distinctive feature was its distilleries that made the village a popular place for drunks and gamblers. Thefts and brawls were commonplace.
The story of Hazare’s transformation began in 1964 at a Delhi railway station bookstall after he bought a book on Swami Vivekananda.
Thrilled by the great swami’s life and by his dictum that the noblest thing a man can do is work for the good of others, Hazare began reading religious texts and biographies of social reformers.He decided to became a vegetarian, gave up cigarettes and liquor, and tool a pledge to remain a bachelor devoting himself to public service. He realized that he had a worthy cause laying right in front of him which is the upliftment of his own village, Ralegaon Siddhi.
Finally, in August 1975, Hazare returned to Ralegaon after retiring from the army. His service benefits amounted to Rs20,000 and he planned to spend the money rebuilding the village temple.
Only a few people paid him any attention at first. But as the temple neared completion, the villagers began changing. Some offered to donate wood; many volunteered their labour. This whole operation taught hazare one thing, “If people are convinced that you are not selfish, they’re on your side.”
Among those who joined Hazare were a few young men. They called him “Anna”—big brother—and listened with fascination to his dream of transforming their village. Gradually, more youths joined the group, and Hazare suggested they form a Tarun Mandal [youth club].
One night, some drunks from a neighboring village beat up a 40-year-old farmer, because he had not saluted them. Anna called a village meeting at which he spoke out against drinking, and gambling. He gave an open warning to all the distillers to shut their shop & told villagers that they can drink elsewhere but not in village. Some distillers, fearing Anna and his boys, readily complied. Others had their liquor shop smashed up. He soon proved he meant business. A few days later when three men returned to Ralegaon drunk, Hazare had them tied to the temple pillars and personally beat them with his army belt.
Hazare soon realized that a far more important reason for the villagers’ misery was lack of work. Shutting down the liquor shops has made several families even poorer. As he wondered what could be done, Hazare read a newspaper article about a state government scheme that provided manual labour jobs on public works projects. He and the Tarun Mandal boys quickly rounded up about 200 villagers who needed work and got jobs for all of them.
He came to know that the government runs a number of rural development schemes, but because they were poorly publicized, illiterate villagers rarely get to hear about them. By finding out what schemes existed and studying them carefully, Hazare could help villagers take advantage of the scheme.
Besides of all these schemes Hazare took a keen interest in irrigation techniques and got engineers to draw up plans for a water conservation project in ralegaon.Due to which the income of the farmers have increased and they were able to pay off their debt. Afterwards Anna decided to construct a building for a high school on his own as the govt. refused to provide any money. He hired ten teachers, offering them free food and housing in lieu of wages, and got the school going & decided to visit Bombay to get some grant for the development of school.
To keep expenses down during his Bombay trips, Hazare slept on newspapers spread out on bus station floors, and bathed in the sea. But for one year, despite 20 visits to Bombay and innumerable more to Ahmadnagar, nothing happened. “Finally,” Hazare says, “I decided I’d had enough.” He descended on Ahmadnagar’s Zilla Parishad office one morning with 250 villagers and announced that they were all going on a hunger strike. Within hours, officials in Bombay sent an assurance that the money would be made available.
Hazare has tried to modernize age-old social customs too. The Ralegaon Tarun Mandal organizes group marriages thrice a year. Poor families don’t have to pay anything at all. Untouchability, too, is beginning to lose its force in Ralegaon. Today, the village’s Harijans share the community water tanks with caste Hindus and eat with them at the group marriages.
It’s hard to believe that Hazare could be responsible for all this. He’s a short, thin, mild-looking fellow; the kind of person you wouldn’t look at twice. Nor is his background the stuff from which leaders is supposed to be made. The son of a poor farmer, Hazare never got beyond the seventh class in school.
Since then, Hazare has won innumerable awards and honours including the Padma Bhushan. Today, he is nationally known for his many crusades, especially against corruption. It was largely due to him that Maharashtra’s Right to Information Act was passed and then amended in 2006. Meanwhile, Ralegaon Siddhi has become a model for many other villages in the country.
NOW WE KNOW WHY GOD SAVED ANNA HAZARE
Anna Hazare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NK/Dvr Anna Hazare of 65 Indo Pak War
Anna Hazare :The Indian Army Veteran NK/Dvr ... - Blogs
blogs.siliconindia.com/.../Anna-Hazare-The-Indian-Army-veteran-NKDv...
One
day Naik (Nk) Anna Hazare was driving his vehicle as part of the convoy
across international border when, their vehicular column came under
intense attack of fighter aircrafts of PAF. The attack continued for 10
to 15 minutes. All drivers under took all passive measures to ward off
the attacks. Once the attack was over, Nk Anna Hazare got up from the
road side deep pit a shelter which he had taken to save himself,
visited other vehicles and found that all other drivers and co-drivers
had been killed due to Pakistan Air Force air strafing and he was the
sole survivor. Anna was deeply shaken and questioned him as to why only
his life had been spared among all his colleagues, however, he got
no answer. As the Indo-Pak war came to an end, Anna Hazare requested
for some leave .While moving back the question as to why only he
survived never left his psyche. At Pathankot railway station he
purchased one book on life of Swami Vivekananda which he read and re
-read throughout his journey back home. One particular thought in the
book really hit his mind hard that was, Swami Vivekananda propagated
that we human being are meant to live for others not for themselves as
most of the humans are doing presently which is next to animal
behavior.
On
reaching his village whose economic status and social status was very
low. The whole village had no cultivable land, they had only 20 odd
cattle’s for milking, there was no source of drinkable water and the
general area around the village was devoid of trees. His village was
located in rain shadow area which was draught stricken. The villagers
were very poor and their only source of income was sale of locally
brewed illicit liquor. There was not even one concrete house in the
village and all were living under thatched huts. There was no school in
nearby areas up to 20 kms. Drinking water used to come once in a week in
water trailers sent by the Collector from Ahmednagar 60 km away. In
general, villagers were living under very poor and pathetic conditions.
Anna Hazare decided to do something for his village and at that stage he
did not know as what he will do; nevertheless he decided to do
something. He took premature discharge from the Army and came and
settled in his village.
Anna
only received Rs 25000/- from the Army as lump-sum payment for pension
which he pooled in and jumped in to improve the village. There was one
temple in the village Anna improved the temple and started living there.
He vowed to remain unmarried and dedicate his life for the up liftment
of the villagers. He motivated some young persons of the village and
first undertook the task of watershed management for the village. Prior
to the rainy season they made bunds so that water did not flow away.
They planted trees, ensuring cleanliness in the village and organized
classes in a make shift classroom at the temple. The village had almost
2500 acres of land out of which only few acres was cultivable. Through
sustained efforts of Anna and his team, the water table started rising,
land bank of cultivable land increased, children started learning, and
people purchased few buffalos and cows.
Today
the Anna Hazare, s village displays a different story.All 2000 acres of
land is being cultivated, village has 3000 cattle, all houses in the
village are pucka and per capita income of villagers has gone up by many
folds. There is one school which is of international standard. This
school apart from taking students of the area also admits students who
have been dropouts or failures. The School is being run like military
schools and it produces very good results. All areas around 40 kms of
Ralegan Sidhi have green cover, water table has come up and water is
being conserved through water shed management techniques. He
accomplished all this through “Sharam Daan”, motivating villagers to
work on the rolling landscape of the area around his village. He
developed a very innovative bunds and small reservoirs along the
contours which were designed to hold almost every drop of whatever
scanty rainfall the parched land received. Soon the subsoil water
reserves reached a level sufficient to cater to the agricultural and
drinking needs of the village even if it did not rain for two
consecutive years. There is one institute come up in the village being
supervised by Shri Anna Hazare which conducts classes for students and
farmers from all over the globe. They come to learn techniques of rural
development and watershed management. Today Anna has been asked by the
Maharashtra Government to bring up 300 villages of the state on model
village like Ralegan Sidhi. Shri Anna is on advisory in agriculture and
rural development of five states and has got 45 awards to his credit out
of which 30 are international awards.
Anna
sahib spearheaded “Bharastachar Nirman Andolan”, a movement aimed at
cleansing the society of the malaise of corruption in public life. Anna
Hazare was the person who initiated the Right to Information act first
time in Maharashtra. He had to agitate for a very long time to get this
act through in Maharashtra against all the opposition from the
politicians and beuaurecrats; thereafter he agitated to get it through
at National level. He was the force behind getting Telgi Stamp scam
unearthed and later investigated in which number of ministers had to
resign and many Babu,s were suspended.
One
fine day one contingent of police led by one inspector reported to him
at his residence at Ralegan. Anna very politely asked inspector purpose
of his visit. The inspector informed Anna that Chief Minister had
detailed him with 20 Sepoys saying that Anna was under threat in view of
his role in unearthing Telgi Scam. Anna very politely told the
inspector that he had died long back while serving in Army during 1965
Indo Pak War and if anyone wants to pump some bullets into a dead body
let them. He asked the inspector to go back and inform the CM that he
needs no protection.
While
serving as Commandant Mechanized Infantry Regimental Centre at
Ahmednagar; I came very close to Shri Anna Hazare. Once I invited him to
our regimental centre to address 5000 soldiers posted there and large
number of them was under training. Anna accepted our invitation; most
interesting part of his one hour talk to them was that out of 5000
persons not even single person dosed off, which used to be normal
phenomena since training schedule for the soldiers used to be very hard
and invariably some of them used to fall asleep in the mass lectures.
All men identified themselves with Anna Hazare since he was Ex soldier
were highly motivated with his talk to them.
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1965Jump to India - India. Despite the declaration of a ceasefire, India was perceived as the victor due to its success in halting the Pakistan-backed insurgency ...
Indo-Pakistani Air War of 1965 - Wikipedia, the free ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_Air_War_of_1965The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 saw the Indian and Pakistani Air Forces engaged in large-scale aerial combat against each other for the first time since the ...The India-Pakistan War of 1965 - Office of the Historian
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/india-pakistan-warThe 1965 war between India and Pakistan was the second conflict between the two countries over the status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The clash did ...
1965 war-from google images[click on photos to get details]
