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.
 

Book

Ralegan Siddhi : A Model for Village Development  by Dr Ramesh Awasthi and Dashrath K. Panmand
An introductory book  that chronicles the development of Ralegan Siddhi and Anna Hazare's contribution to the process.

 
Articles

Gandhi is Alive : Romesh Diwan
This Judgement Defames Me : Dilip D'Souza
Backgrounder on Anna's charges and the defamation case : Sujit Patwardhan
In Support of Hazare : Article in Down to Earth
Newspaper articles on the corruption issue

Press Releases

                  Center for Science and Environment

 Acknowledgments

                        Center for Science and Environment  for permission to use their photographs
                         Dr Ramesh Awasthi for permission to reproduce his book
 

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Any inputs/comments  to improve this page and add to its contents are welcome.