Kisan Hazare was born on 15 June 1937 (some sources say 1940)in near to Ahmednagar. The eldest son, with two sisters and four brothers, the later adoption of the nameAnna reflects the Marathi word for "elder brother". His father worked in a pharmacy and struggled to support the family financially. In time, the family moved to their ancestral village of Ralegan Siddhi, where they owned a small amount of agricultural land. A relative took on the burden of providing Kisan with an education, taking him to Mumbai because the village had no primary school. The relative became unable financially to continue the support and Kisan's schooling ended in the Standard Seventh grade; his siblings were not schooled at all. He started selling flowers at the Dadar railway station in Mumbai and was able eventually to own two flower shops in the city. He also became involved in vigilantism, joining groups who acted to prevent the poor from being bullied out of their shelters by thugs in the employ of landlords.
The Indo-China War of 1962 caused the Indian Army to commence emergency recruitment measures. Hazare was recruited in April 1963, despite not meeting the physical requirements, and was attested as a soldier on 16 November of that year after undertaking training at Aurangabad.
During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Hazare was posted at the border in the Khem Karan sector. 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. The experiences of war time, coupled with the poverty from which he had come, affected him. He had considered suicide at one point but now turned to pondering the meaning of life and death. He has said of the truck attack that " sent me thinking. I felt that God wanted me to stay alive for some reason. I was re-born in the battlefield of Khem Karan. And I decided to dedicate my new life to serving people." He spent his spare time reading the works of Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Vinoba Bhave. In a blog post, Hazare expressed his views on Kashmir by saying that it was his "active conviction that Kashmir is an integral part of India" and that if required once again for service, he would remain "ready to take part in war against Pakistan."
During the mid-1970s, Hazare survived a road accident while driving for the army. He interpreted his survival as a further sign that his life was intended to be dedicated to the service of the community. Despite subsequent allegations that he had deserted from the army, official records show that he was honourably discharged in 1975 after completing his 12 years of service
Hazare returned to Ralegan Siddhi, a village described by Satpathy and Mehta as being then "one of the many villages of India plagued by acute poverty, deprivation, a fragile ecosystem, neglect and hopelessness
Although most of the villagers owned some land, cultivation was extremely difficult due to the rocky ground preventing retention of the monsoon rains; this situation had not been assisted by a gradual deterioration as trees were cut down, erosion spread and droughts were also experienced. The shortage of water also led to disease because conditions became unsanitary and water was re-used for multiple purposes. The economy of the village had become reliant on illegal manufacture and sale of alcohol, a product to which many of the villagers had themselves become addicted. Many inhabitants were at the mercy of moneylenders in order to survive, and those lenders would charge monthly interest rates of as much as 10%. Crime and violence (including domestic violence) had become commonplace, while education and employment opportunities were poor.
Hazare was relatively wealthy because of the gratuity from his army service. He set about using that money to restore a run-down, vandalised village temple as a focal point for the community. Some were able to respond with small financial donations but many other villagers, particularly among the elderly, donated their labour in a process that became known as shramdaan. Some youths also became involved in the work and these he organised into a Tarun Mandal . One of the works of Vivekananda which he had read was Call to the youth for nation building.
Hazare and the youth group decided to take up the issue of alcoholism as a means to drive a process of reform. At a meeting conducted in the temple, the villagers resolved to close down liquor dens and ban alcohol in the village. Since these resolutions were made in the temple, they became, in a sense, religious commitments. Over thirty liquor brewing units were closed by their owners voluntarily. Those who did not succumb to social pressure were forced to close down their businesses when the youth group smashed up their liquor dens. The owners could not complain as their businesses were illegal.
When some villagers were found to be drunk they were tied to pillars and then flogged, sometimes personally by Hazare. He justified this punishment by stating that “rural India was a harsh society”and that
Doesn’t a mother administer bitter medicines to a sick child when she knows that the medicine can cure her child? The child may not like the medicine, but the mother does it only because she cares for the child. The alcoholics were punished so that their families would not be destroyed.
Hazare appealed to the government of Maharashtra to bring in a law whereby prohibition would come into force in a village if 25% of the women in the village demanded it. In 2009 the state government amended the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 to reflect this.
It was decided to ban the sale of tobacco, cigarettes, and beedies (an unfiltered cigarette where the tobacco is rolled in tendu also known as Diospyros melanoxylon leaves instead of paper) in the village. In order to implement this resolution, the youth group performed a unique "Holi" ceremony twenty two years ago. The festival of Holi is celebrated as a symbolic burning of evil. The youth group brought all the tobacco, cigarettes, and beedies from the shops in the village and burnt them in a Holi fire. Tobacco, cigarettes, or beedies are no longer sold.
n 2011, Hazare initiated a Satyagraha movement for passing a stronger anti-corruption Lokpal (ombudsman) bill in the Indian Parliament as conceived in the Jan Lokpal Bill (People's Ombudsman Bill). The Jan Lokpal Bill was drafted earlier by N. Santosh Hegde, former justice of theSupreme Court of India and Lokayukta of Karnataka, Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court and Arvind Kejriwal, a social activist along with members of the India Against Corruption movement. This draft bill incorporated more stringent provisions and wider power to the Lokpal (Ombudsman) than the draft Lokpal bill prepared by the government in 2010.These include placing "the Prime Minister within the ambit of the proposed lokpal’s powers"
