What are the contributions of Anna hazare?
When Anna Hazare decided to dedicate his life for social cause
in 1975, he believed charity should begin from home. Swami
Vivekananda's words resonated in his mind - people would not listen
to philosophical ideologies with empty stomachs. Social change is
not possible if people are haunted by the daily problem of making
two ends meet. Hazare taxed his brains on how to solve this crucial
problem. He remembered that Late Mr. Vilasrao Salunkhe had in 1972,
started experiments in watershed development and water management
in some villages near Saswad in Pune district. His work used to be
frequently discussed in informal gatherings everywhere. So, Hazare
visited his project and was inspired. States Hazare, ``This visit
gave a direction to my ideas and I decided to undertake similar
work of watershed development in my village. ''
Hazare then paid a visit to the office of the then Director of
Agriculture, Mr. Dikshit, and told him that he had decided to work
for betterment of his fellow villagers. He expressed his desire to
undertake water conservation work in his village under his
guidance. After some days, Mr. Dikshit paid a visit to Ralegan
Siddhi along with his subordinates and made a geographical survey.
He was convinced that the topography of the village was suitable
for undertaking the watershed development programme and took a
decision to implement it.
On resumption of the watershed development work in the village,
Hazare started supervising the work at sites from dawn to dust,
without taking a farthing as remuneration. He considered it as
social work; and day by day his experience and knowledge was
building up. With his experience and knowledge, he constructed many
water harvesting structures with people's participation. So far, 48
nulla bunds, 5 cement check dams and 16 Gabion structures have been
constructed. The villagers under Hazare's guidance, also undertook
fodder development, continuous contour trenches and loose boulder
structures on 500 acres of land.
The watershed development work helped in conserving each drop of
rainwater in the village itself and in recharging the groundwater
aquifers. This ultimately raised the water table. In the same
village where earlier it was not possible to cultivate more than
300-350 acres of land for one crop, now the villagers are
harvesting two crops in 1500 acres of land. Due to availability of
water, the agricultural production has boosted up. The agricultural
development has created lot of employment in the village itself.
Not only has the distress migration completely stopped, but now
wage labourers have to be hired from other villages in order to get
various intercultural operations done in time.
Today the villagers have completely given up brewing of liquor.
Nobody sells liquor in the village. Further, the shopkeepers do not
sell cigarettes, beedies and tobacco too for the last 13 years.
Earlier only 300 liters of milk was sold from the village. Now
the milk production has gone up to 4000 liters. This milk is
purchased by cooperative and private dairies. This brings in Rs.
1.3 to 1.5 crores (13 to 15 million) annually to the village. The
dairy business has flourished as a subsidiary to agriculture which
has provided a new income generation avenue to the unemployed
youths of the village.The per capita income of the villagers has
increased from Rs. 225 to Rs. 2500. This has completely transformed
the economy of the village. The living conditions of the villagers
have improved and the gap between the haves and have-nots has
narrowed down. After the economic transformation of the village,
villagers constructed buildings worth Rs.1 crore (10 million) for
school, hostel and gymkhana and renovated the old village temple
through financial contributions and shramdan.Mass marriages are
arranged in the village (generally 25 to 30 marriages at a time) in
order to curb expenditure. This has helped in removing caste
barriers and promoting social cohesiveness.After the success of
watershed development programme in Ralegan Siddhi, Hazare
replicated it in the neighbouring four villages. The results are
encouraging. Now the same project is being replicated in 80 - 85
villages of Maharashtra. Like any other village in India including
Ralegan Siddhi, there was a social problem of untouchability. Today
people of all castes and creeds live together in peace like members
of the same family. The consecutive droughts led to non-payment of
bank loans taken by the Dalit community for agriculture purposes.
The bank decided to sell their mortgaged land to recover the loans.
At this critical time, rest of the villagers decided to toil on the
farmlands of Dalits and repay the loan by harvesting crops. The
villagers cultivated their land in 1983-84 and 1984-85 through
shramdan (voluntary labour), repaid the bank loan, and saved their
land.In the last 35 years, many institutions and cooperatives like
Gram Panchayat, Cooperative Consumer Society, Cooperative Credit
Society, Cooperative Dairy, Educational Society, Women's
Organization and Youth Organization, with different mandates are
operating in Ralegan Siddhi. Till date no elections were held for
the selection of members of these institutions. The members were
selected unanimously by the villagers in the Gram Sabha. The Gram
Sabha has emerged as a powerful forum for taking collective
decisions at the village level. All the developmental programmes
are implemented in the village after taking consent of the Gram
Sabha.
Since last 15 years, thousands of visitors, not only from
neighbouring states of India, but also from abroad, have viusited
& are still visiting Ralegan Siddhi to study the impact of
watershed development. They include researchers, academicians,
farmers, government officials, people's representatives and
students.
While implemainting the watershed program trained manpower is
required and realising that there was paucity of trained manpower
in Ralegan Siddhi. a training institute to impart training in
watershed development was established. So far, about 17-18 thousand
people from different states of India have been trained at the
Training Centre on Watershed Development.
Ralegan Siddhi should not be viewed from the narrow angle of
materialistic development, i.e. structures in watershed or economic
development. The developmental process in Ralegan Siddhi is beyond
this. There is a social and nationalistic thread passing through
the process of change.
The big dams are getting filled with silt due to soil erosion
which is the result of uncontrolled tree felling in the catchment
areas. No emphasis was given to soil conservation and range
development. The top loose soil is getting washed away each year by
the rainwater and getting deposited in the big dams. The top soil
is the creamy layer of the land. According to scientists, it takes
more than hundred years to form 1 inch of top soil. On one hand,
this precious resource of top soil is being washed away from the
villages; and on the other hand, it is getting deposited in big
dams thus reducing the life of the dams. This is going to create
many problems in the near future.All the major cities are supplied
drinking water from a nearby dams. All the industries and sugar
factories are provided water from the same dams. The
hydro-electricity power generation plants are situated on big dams.
All these facilities will come to standstill one day when the dams
get filled with silt completely. These dams will meet the fate of
death; say after 100 or 200 or 500 years. Nobody can avoid this
sorry fate. Neither the government nor the people would be able to
de-silt these big dams as the back-water spread of these dams is 60
- 90 km. It will not be possible to remove the huge mountain of 90
km. length and 200 - 300 ft. height from the dam site. There won't
be any alternate sites available for construction of new dams. What
is going to happen to all these big dams? That is the question.
Transformation of village economy alone could bring in
transformation of the economy of the nation. That is possible only
through watershed development programme. Today, our concept of
development is based on exploitation of environment and humanity.
We are dreaming of development by uncontrolled extraction of
subsurface and surface resources like petroleum, coal, groundwater,
vegetation and aquatic resources.The growing population is putting
tremendous pressure on the available resources. The demands will
continue to grow. Villages in India are facing the problem of
scarcity of drinking water due to depleted groundwater resource.
Water tankers roaming the rural roads for supplying drinking water
to villages is a common sight now. If the trend continues in
future, one day water will not be available even for supplying by
tankers. What will happen to our coming generations if all the
resources of groundwater, petroleum and coal exhaust one day?The
development of an individual, family and village is not possible by
exploiting environment indiscriminately, but by sustainable use of
available resources. Watershed development and water management is
the right approach in that direction. Today, every country is
facing the problem of environmental degradation. International
leaders and scientists are worried about the future of the Earth
alike. Watershed development will certainly provide a solution to
maintaining ecological balance.Our idea of development is limited
to construction of skyscrapers and wide roads only. On one hand,
the height of buildings is going up day by day and; on the other
hand, the level of human values is coming down. This is not real
development. An individual should be able to stand on his own and
at the same time think of betterment of fellow beings, which is
true development. One should be able to look beyond oneself, think
of one's neighbour, village and the nation. Today, there is a need
to create such individuals who are capable of looking beyond
oneself. Such individuals are not created through donations,
subsidy and grants. This is possible through local leadership
building programme where stress would be given on character, right
values and dedication. Somebody has to make sacrifices.A field full
of swaying crop tells us that a grain has buried itself into the
ground to give birth to thousands of grains. The grains which do
not burry themselves are taken to the flourmill and ground into
flour. The grains which sacrifice by burying themselves in the
soil, give birth to a swaying field of crop.