Annaji and I
Posted on April 15, 2011
Ex IAS officer, T.R Raghunandan, shares with Ipaidabribe.com his recollections of a meeting with Anna Hazare, a few years ago. Here is his view of a man who is currently fighting what seems to be the toughest battle in India – corruption.
I met Anna Hazare for the first time in early 2002.
A good friend, then legislator in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly had invited me to the Gandhi Bhavan in Bangalore, for a discussion on water conservation. I was then the Secretary to the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department in Karnataka and we were struggling with the enormity of a continuous drought, which had devastated the rain fed areas of the State for three years, from 1999 onwards.
I gladly accepted the invitation.
Annaji’s reputation for transforming Ralegaon Siddhi had already become the stuff of legend and the village itself, located north of Pune in the rain-shadow of the Sahayadris, a place of pilgrimage for civil society, Panchayat representatives and government agencies. They flocked there to see for themselves how he had transformed a typical poverty stricken Deccan plateau village into a prosperous one, producing a surplus of agriculture production as well as milk.
The answer lay in watershed development; holding back the scant rainfall through trenches, vegetative bunds, low cost barrages built across seasonal streams, which slowed down destructive flash floods and drove water underground, instead of speeding away leaving devastation in its wake. Villagers contributed their labour to the water conservation and other community development tasks, often without waiting for government fund allocations. Their Shramdaan efforts were painstakingly noted in registers, to ensure that everybody contributed fairly.
Annaji spoke softly in his Marathi accented Hindi for the need to conserve water. “ Khet ka paani khet mein, Gaav ka paani gaav mein “ (water in the field is for the field, water in the village is for the village), he said. I was effusive; it was indeed a privilege to meet him. Contact established, I was able to send teams of officers and Panchayat representatives to Ralegaon Siddhi, who returned to Karnataka to start their own experiments in local sustainable development.
Our next meeting happened many years after; in the monsoon of 2008.
A colleague of mine, Rajwant Sandhu, who is now the Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh and I were in Pune and we planned an impromptu visit to Ralegaon Siddhi. Would Anna be there? Yes, said the voice on the phone, but he would not be able to speak, he was following a Maun Vrat – a fast of silence. ‘But Annaji can write,’ he quickly added, sensing that we were crestfallen.
Ralegaon Siddhi was remarkably green. There were a lot of trees too. There was no garbage along the roadside. And then we noticed him, standing beside a ditch being dug through Shramdaan, to lay a pipeline. Annaji paid no attention to us as we approached him, engrossed as he was in supervising the work. But once we met, the bowed Namaste, twinkling eyes and smile were familiar. We had planned to spend the entire day discussing rural development, but the talk soon turned to accountability of the government. I spoke about my belief in decentralisation and he carefully wrote down his responses.
He believed that the government should give more powers to the Gram Panchayats, because corruption can be controlled at that level. He wrote about creating bands of young people who would pressurise the State for greater transparency. He recounted his efforts at bringing in new laws that would ensure more efficiency in government functioning and reduce corruption in the transfer of officials. He noted that the Maharashtra Government Servants Regulation of Transfers and Prevention of Delay in Discharge of Official Duties Act, had been enacted in May 2008, and that his ‘Maun Vrat was to protest against the government’s delay in notifying the law so that it would begin to operate.
Towards evening, we went to the small museum in the village, which recounted Annaji's journey. Two posters stood out, one on Shramdaan and another from Annaji's days in the Army. We parted that evening, fully satisfied with the conversation, even though Annaji did not speak. The notes he wrote are still with me, precious reminders of an unforgettable meeting.
The last time we met, a few weeks back on a TV talk show, Anna was his vocal self. He served notice of his intention to go on indefinite fast if the government did not move on enacting a Lokpal bill. To me, after the passing away of Dr. L.C. Jain, Annaji is perhaps the last of that nearly extinct tribe -- the true Gandhian. The question is, will his methods urge in a new society?
To discover the answer to this question, watch this space for more to come in the next post.
Read the other posts in this series here:
The Lokpal Bill VII–Safety locks
The Lokpal Bill-VI: Heavy is the head that wears the crown
The Lokpal Bill-V: The light must shine on us all
The Jan Lokpal Bill-IV: Questions we need to be asking
The Jan Lokpal Bill–III: Setting the Stage for Discussion
It’s a fast. Not blackmail.