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[OS] INDIA - Profile: Indian activist Anna Hazare

Released on 2013-03-11 00:00 GMT

Email-ID 2609048 Date 2011-08-19 01:57:59 From clint.richards@stratfor.com To os@stratfor.com

[OS] INDIA - Profile: Indian activist Anna Hazare





From the look of this guys jowls a couple of weeks of not eating might not

be a terrible thing. [CR]



Profile: Indian activist Anna Hazare

Last Modified: 18 Aug 2011 22:21

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/08/2011818112830580586.html



Anti-corruption campaigner Kisan Baburao, popularly known as Anna Hazare,

has emerged as one of the biggest heroes for middle class Indians today.



Although he has been involved in anti-graft programmes in his home state

of Maharashtra for decades, Hazare was only catapulted to national fame in

April, when his highly publicised fast-unto-death galvanised people across

the nation on the problem of corruption.



His hunger strike came at an opportune time; when India's federal

government was already under attack from opposition parties over a series

of scandals that cost the state close to $40bn.



Many Indians found a common cause in Hazare's call for an anti-corruption

ombudsman, known as Jan Lokpal Bill. After the success of the April hunger

strike, "Anna" is a household name.



His supporters now ranges from Bollywood stars to former bureaucrats and

includes many prominant social activists.



But others have been wary of Hazare's proposed ombudsman, and have termed

the concept "draconian and overarching".



Even Santosh Hegde, a retired judge and an aide to Hazare, acknowledged he

had "objections" to certain clauses in the bill.



Hegde is said to disgree with its directives to the judiciary, inculding

the provision of life imprisonment as punishment under the Prevention of

Corruption Act, among other issues.



In 1991, Hazare launched the People's Movement against Corruption

(Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Aandolan), a grassroots campaign to fight graft

in Ralegan Siddhi, his home village in Maharashtra state.



In 1995, his campaign forced the then-state government of Maharashtra to

drop two ministers from its cabinet on corruption allegations.



In 2003, his hunger strike against four tainted ministers forced the state

government to form a commission to probe his allegations.



Hazare's arrest



Hazare's arrest this week, one day after the 65th anniversary of India's

independence on August 16, infuriated his supporters and led to

spontaneous protests across the country.



Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, told parliament Hazare's intention

to fast indefinitely to push for reform was a direct challenge to the

government's authority.



"The path he has chosen is totally misconceived and fraught with grave

consequences for our parliamentary democracy," Singh said.



Today, Hazare, 74, is being compared with India's biggest icon of

non-violence and the struggle for freedom, Mahatma Gandhi.



But Gandhi's great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi, has pointed to differences in

the way the two leaders have used fasting as an instrument of protest.



"Hazare's fast is different because Bapu's [Gandhi's] fast was to reform

an adversary into a friend, while Anna's fast is against an enemy. It is

like a me-versus-you kind of thing," Tushar Gandhi told India's Press

Trust of India news agency.



Salil Tripathi, an Indian journalist based in London, wrote in

www.thedailystar.net: "And remember, Hazare is no angel. Hazare wants to

eradicate the consumption of alcohol in the village where he has worked,

and when people have defied that, his followers have meted out corporal

punishment.



"His views on women are patronising and chauvinist, and his methods

frequently un-Gandhian. While claiming to be non-partisan, he has become a

political player, with politicians from the opposition Bharatiya Janata

Party backing him strategically."



Hazare, a former army driver, is known for improving the economy and

environment of his village. In 1992, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the

third-highest civilian award, for his work.



In the early 2000s, Hazare led a movement in his home state that forced

the state government to pass a stronger Maharashtra Right to Information

Act. The campaign later formed the basis of the federal Right to

Information Act adopted in 2005.



Hazare, who has never married, once was reported to have attempted suicide

because he was frustrated with life. Thankfully, however, that one

lifeline has infused new life to the anti-corruption movement in the

country.



But he has not been far from controversy. In April, he praised Narendra

Modi, a right-wing politician, accused to have been involved in communal

riots in the state of Gujarat.



--

Clint Richards

Strategic Forecasting Inc.

clint.richards@stratfor.com

www.stratfor.com









