WHY GOD SAVED ANNA HAZARE

The humble, yet remarkable, origins of the man who became the people's champion against corruption and injustice in India

-  Mohan Sivanand

NOVEMBER 1986

Kemkharan, September 1965. An Indian military convoy rumbles towards the fighting zone. Suddenly, two Pakistani Sabre jets dropped out of the sky and scream in to attack. As bombs begin exploding around him, Kishan Baburao Hazare, driving a truckful of soldiers, speeds up. But when a splinter grazes his forehead, he ducks below the dashboard and jams on the brakes with his hands. The windscreen shatters and bullets riddle the man next to Hazare. The 25-year-old driver tumbles out of his truck and prays fervently as the two Sabers strafe 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?”

Recently, at the village of Ralegaon Shindi, I discovered why God saved Baburao Hazare 11 years ago. Ralegaon Shindi wasn't very different from hundreds of other villages in this arid part of Maharashtra's Ahmadnagar district. With water available only during the monsoons, its farmers could barely grow one crop a year, and 70 per cent of the village's 315 families lived in abject poverty. Indeed, Ralegaon Shindi's most distinctive feature was its 40 illicit distilleries that made the village a popular haunt for drunks and gamblers. Thefts and brawls were commonplace.

Since he returned to Ralegaon Shindi in 1975, Hazare has spearheaded a movement that has changed all this forever. Today, Ralegaon Shindi is brisk and prosperous, signs of rural modernity abound. Its fields are heavy with grain. There's a bank, a boarding school, biogas plants. Some of its farmers drive around on mopeds.