Anna Hazare : True Blue Marathi Manoos

Anna is fast building up into a social brand. His slow and steady rise from a humble social activist of Ralegan Siddhi village to a still more humble but infinitely more powerful social activist at the national level has been phenomenal.

In his own way Anna has carried forward the hoary tradition of social reform of Maharashtra.
Right from 18th century onwards Maharashtra had seen saints and reformers fighting against ingrained social and religious inequites.

While the patron-seer of the Bhakti Movement like Sant Eknath, SantTukaram, Sant Dyaneshwar unleashed social reform through their religious activities, reformers like Maharishi Karve, Jyotiba Phula and Dr. Ambedkar carried social reconstruction with an equally strong social missionary zeal. Their social activism merged with the Freedom Movement and made it all the more strong.

The fire of social reform had never really died in the state. There is an inherent quality in Marathi people to resist injustice. Even now social activism is very strong in the grassroot level. NGOs are vibrant. And the average marathi manoos is relatively more vocal about his immediate environment.

Anna, then, is the product of his times. He caught the angst of his village folk and provided leadership to solve their problems. He forced the Maharashtra Government to frame the Right To Information Act which proved to be the base of the National Act. He worked extensively for rural upliftment, untouchability and democratic decentralization at the Gram Sabha level.
It was here that he learned to deal with the shrewd ruling class and have his way. A lesson that is proving useful right now.

Part of Anna’s charisma lies in his rural moorings. A simple dhoti-kurta clad villager, who writes in Marathi, speaks in Hindi and who is totally unpretentious. It is this self abnegation which probably has succeeded in moving the urban youth from their depths. A youth fed up with scheming urban slickers.

The Dhoti, Kurta which probably would have died a natural death gets a new lease of life. The Gandhi cap lives again. And the political class squirms uncomfortably in its seat as this son-of-soil of Maharashtra wakes up a somnolent and lethargic India.