Anna Hazare's recent arrest and release has rightly generated a sense of outrage and violation amongst the people in India. Anna and his life's message, however, are larger and go beyond this particular issue that has captured media attention. Since 1975 under his leadership, Anna's village, Ralegan Siddhi, has been an evolving as an epitomisation of the Gandhian idiom of a self-sufficient village as an elementary unit of social organisation. Also an important characterisitic of the economic and social transformation of Ralegan is that it has taken place based on the principle of self-help and is concomitant with ensuring social equity, an ideal that is happily at variance with the current fancy for "free market ideals" and "trickle-down economics". Ralegan has been hailed as a model village, therefore, with characterisitic bureaucratic simplification attempts are being made to "replicate" the Ralegan miracle. Inconsiderate, the Ralegan experience is extremely relevant for its central tenet, that with the right moral basis and with reasonable inputs, the collective genius of the people is capable of significantly addressing its own needs.
For many years now, Ralegan Siddhi has been a byword for model development. However amongst most people I know, there seems to be a general lack of understanding of what really happened in Ralegan and how it came about to be so. When I myself wanted to learn more about Anna Hazare and his role in Ralegan, I did not find any relevant information on the web. Therefore, this page is an attempt to fill this gap and, hopefully, in the future, serve as a clearing house for information on Anna Hazare, his life and its enduring message. 
No comments:
Post a Comment