Hazare was born in Bhingar, a small village not far from Ralegan Siddhi. He was named Kisan Baburao Hazare -- only later would he be called "Anna," an honorific term meaning "elder brother." His grandfather had been a constable in the British army and his father worked as a vegetable vendor. His family moved to Ralegan Siddhi soon after his siblings -- two brothers and three sisters -- were born. An uncle offered to take him to Mumbai so that he could attend school. He completed the seventh grade, then took a job selling flowers. He later joined the army, where he was the only member of his unit who survived an attack during the 1965 war with Pakistan. In his autobiography, Hazare says he turned inward, trying to understand why he had been spared while those around him lost their lives. Deeply influenced by the work of Swami Vivekanand, a Hindu mystic, he writes that he decided to dedicate his life to the service of others, to renounce material pleasures and to follow in the mystic's footsteps.

After serving 12 years in the army, Hazare returned to Ralegan Siddhi in 1975. There, he set about to transform a village that could have been a textbook case of rural dysfunction. Piles of garbage filled the streets. Few homes had toilets. People routinely relieved themselves on the side of the road. The one well that provided drinking water for the entire village was lined with steps where people gathered to bathe and wash clothes. Diarrhea-related diseases were the norm and the infant mortality rate was high. A lack of irrigation meant that, in this drought-prone region, crops often failed. Primary schools were poor and the region had no high school.

Unemployment was high and alcoholism pervasive. Thakaram Raut, a 68-year old former headmaster, remembered, "People prepared their own liquor and did not know when to stop. They drank too much -- they behaved like beasts."

Hazare has a stubborn streak. He didn't set out to merely improve Ralegan Siddhi -- he planned to make it a model village. And he largely succeeded, by the accounts not just of villagers but also reports for international development agencies and the citations from the dozens of awards he has collected. A 1996 study for the Food and Agriculture Organization said that the "extremely degraded" community Hazare encountered in 1975 was, two decades later, "unrecognizable."

Hazare's first focus was close to home: using his army savings for repairs to the Hindu temple, enlisting local youth to help with the work, and then persuading them to join him in a campaign to rid the town of alcohol.

Dagdu Mapari, now a clerk in the local secondary school and president of the cooperative bank board, was one of the recruits. In the early days, he recalled, chronic drinkers were given three warnings; on the fourth, they were tied to the light pole outside the temple and beaten. The beatings stopped 15 years ago, villagers say, but the pole still stands as an admonishment. The village, they say, has also stayed dry.