The Anna I want to get to know

To be very frank I used to be claustrophobic each time someone would mention Lokpal Bill, hunger strikes or Anna Hazare just two months ago. Especially in Ban-galore among the youth it was like a mania. Out of the 500 friends I have on facebook, atleast 10 of them would post something about the campaign everyday! The newspapers carried it on the front page with aplomb! I was becoming sick and nauseated with the excess of this. Sometimes I would be taken aback when the guy who I never suspected to have a patriotic bone in his entire body would post stuff on the internet on Anna Hazare goading friends to come for the candle light ceremony held in Bangalore. I would think, was he faking it for popularity or was he really into it. Well, this guy turned out to be really into it, finally participating in the event held here in the month of August. That day I saw processions like I never saw in my life. Perhaps people feel the vacuum in their lives in the absence of a moral leader.

The hunger strike ended. The mania quietened for the time being. People got on with what they had been doing. Life became as it was like before. It was then I found myself think more about the Lokpal Bill. In my to-do list, I made an entry-read on the Lokpal Bill. I intended to scratch the surface and get deep into what it really was and how important was it to have the entire nation respond to it, and most surprising was how this MTV-blackberry-facebooking generation (which includes me as well) took the lead to run as its torch bearers while all this while I had thought it was only Indian Idol which united us. I was curious and intrigued. It was like unveiling of some sort for me. 

I don’t know what took over me that night. I just went from page to page, link to link to get all the information I could possibly lay my hands on the internet on the Lokpal Bill. What started as inquisitives initially took over me in a way that I found myself trying to link the Lokpal Bill to the hero of the nation, Anna Hazare. I am certain several people know about what it’s all about but then if you have been claustrophobic like me and missed it altogether, let me take the pleasure of taking you through the trip of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

This Bill is a revolution, an attempt to cleanse our system of corruption and way of doing things that’s eaten into our development, giving powers to the public and minimising, almost removing all Government influence in the process. I don’t know if the legislative and the executive community would ever let it happen or if the politician and bureaucrats are as keen, but if, by a slim chance it sees the light of the day, India will go forth leaps and bound. There would be no stopping us.

The Jan Lokpal Bill is a draft anti-corruption Bill drawn by prominent civil society activists seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body that would investigate corruption cases, complete the investigation within a year and envisage trial in the case getting over in the next one year. Drafted by Justice Santosh Hedge (former Supreme Court Judge and Lokayukta of Karnataka), Prashant Bhushan (Supreme Court Lawyer) and Arvind Kejriwal (RTI activist), the draft Bill envisages a system where a corrupt person found guilty would go to jail within two years of the complaint being made and his ill-gotten wealth being confiscated. It also seeks power to the Jan Lokpal to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without Government punishment. The way it is going to benefit a common citizen like you and me: if any work of any citizen is not done in a prescribed time in any Government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads being constructed and so on. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the Government will be recovered at the time of conviction. Just think about that. It’s a win-win situation for the ‘aam admi’ and also for the country.

What is most surprising is that in the history of this Republic, the Governments have tried to get the Lokpal Bill enacted in the Parliament eight times earlier—1971, 1977, 1985, 1989, 1995, 2001, 2005 and 2008, but was never passed. No Government—from Indira Gandhi to that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh—could succeed. In fact, I never heard about it till April this year. It was a 74 year old social activist who brought the Lokpal Bill to what it is today—at the fore!!

Anna Hazare. I wasn’t really keen to delve into what he has done in the past two months, what he plans to do in the next few, the cities where people have come out onto the streets to show their support and solidarity to his campaign against corruption. I was a mere spectator amused but still curious to see the end of the commotion and half hoping that all this led to the good of my country. What intrigued me was the identity of this man. Where had he just appeared from out of nowhere ? And what made him have that power over the entire country to respond to him this way. I had to find out. I had to understand.

It was late and my eyes hurt but there were so many pages and links on him on the internet that I took time to reach where I wanted to be. I sat back to read what I had found on my computer screen and my imagination took over. Hailing from a village in Maharashtra, Anna, whose real name is Kisan Baburao Hazare, was born in a humble family in the village of Ralegan Siddh. Due to financial constraints his schooling ended in the seventh standard while his siblings were not schooled at all. For a man who in his formative years started selling flowers at the Dadar Railway station in Mumbai and who later went to own two flower shops in the city, he sure came a long way when he was later awarded with the third highest civilian award of Padma Bhushan (1992) for his efforts in establishing his native village as a model for others, for the prohibition of alchohol; introducing the grain bank; watershed development programme; milk production, removal of untouchability; collective marriages and gram sabha. Ralegan Siddhi had been a village plagued by acute poverty, deprivation, a fragile ecosystem, neglect hopelessness till Anna.

The same man took over to transform the entire nation when he started an indefinite hunger strike on 5 April 2011 to exert pressure on the Indian Government to enact the Jan Lokpal Bill. The fast led to nation-wide protests in support of Hazare. The fast ended on 9 April 2011, a day after the Government accepted Hazare’s demands. The Government issued a gazette notification on the formation of a joint committee, consisting of Government and civil society representatives, to draft the legislation.

A firm believer in Bappu and his non-violence Anna has the nation following him.

I still wasn’t quite satisfied till I tumbled on an aspect of Anna’s life that most don’t know. Did you know that during the Indo-China War of 1962 Hazare was recruited in April 1963, despite not meeting the physical requirements and was attested as a soldier after undertaking training at Aurangabad. It was during this emergency recruitment that he became a part of the Indian Army. Hazare was posted at the border in the Khem Karan sector during the Indo-Pakistan War in 1965. However, the best part that I am certain very few know is that he was the sole survivor of an enemy attack—variously claimed to have been a bomb, an aerial assault and an exchange of fire at the border—while he was driving a truck. He has said that, “It sent me thinking. I felt that God wanted me to stay alive for some reason. I was reborn in the battlefield of Khem Karan. And I decided to dedicate my new life to serving people.” Hazare was honourably discharged in 1975 after completing his 12 years of service.

The Battle of Khem Karan (also called the Battle of Asal Uttar) was one of the largest tank battles ever fought during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 when the Pakistani Army thrust its tanks and infantry into Indian territory, capturing the Indian town of Khem Karan in the Punjab State 5km from the International Border. The Indian troops retaliated and after three days of bitter fighting, where almost 100 Pakistani tanks were destroyed or captured while the Indians lost only 32 tanks during the offensive. This was a key turning point of the war, one which tilted the balance of the war in favour of India. I grew up listening to the stories of valour of the war hero, Havildar Abdul Hamid, who knocked out seven enemy tanks with a recoilless gun and was the posthumous recipient of the highest military decoration, the Param Vir Chakra after his death.

As I logged out of my system to retire for the day, I found a new meaning to the Lokpal Bill. I saw what the entire commotion was all about, and I understood the fire within the man who was bent on making it happen in our own lifetime. This fire was the fire of a patriot. This fire was that of a soldier who had fought for his country in a battlefield in his youth and seen victory, and who was now again fighting not to lose but to win, yet again. The campaign began to mean to me something more personal.

I am ready for taking up the torch this December with Team Anna!! Hope to see you there too.

**The writer claims she is no authority on the Lokpal Bill and she hasn’t attempted to debate on it. This is a personal story on how she uncovered an aspect of Anna Hazare in her research on the Lokpal Bill and found something in his past that she could relate to. And now Anna Hazare is not just a social activist to her, championing the Jan Lokpal Bill and shaking the very political set up of our country, he is a real hero to her, a fauji(soldier), the lone survivor of an enemy attack in the battlefield of Khemkaran(1965). She finds meaning in that.
The writer works in an IT Consultancy in Bangalore as a HR Manager

16-Oct-2011 / 06:36 AM / Urmila Chanam / 1 Comments