Anti-Corruption Campaign of Anna Hazare

Anti-Corruption Campaign of Anna Hazare Narrator: Is anybody interested in cleaning the mess? Meet Baburao Hazare better know as Anna Hazare. He wear his home pants clothes, the Gandgi cap, looks the complete Indian politician. But Anna Hazare loves to fight corrupt politicians and government officials. A social reformer for the last 20 years. Anna Hazare: I started with village development and achieve good results. But all I pleaded, I realize that the percolation of corruption throughout the entire society has a major ill effect on development. Even 12 cents out of a dollar do not reach the village. I thought, we are all talking about development, development, development and development. And on the other hand, this percolation is also increasing. What will be output of the development? I went over looking for proofs of corruption. There is corruption in all programs in that poverty alleviation. There is corruption in all programs in environmental regeneration. Narrator: Anna’s village is called Ralegan City in the western state of Maharasthtra. It used to be dropped down and poor. Water comes on ration on watershed development brought about the transformation. Today, most state governments in India had come around to accept this method. Almost anti-corruption campaign too has caught the imagination. Anna Hazare: Our activists started -- they would sit in front the residence of a corrupt official and sing devotional songs, nothing else. Neighbors were joining, they would say, “My God, they are singing devotional songs in front of his house, he must be a corrupt person.” The man would get branded in the society. He would get scarred. His son would be teased in the school by classmates. “They are singing devotional songs in front of your house. Your father must be a corrupt person”. The son would come back and complain to his parents. There will be pressure from inside as well. Narrator: People sent him hundreds of petitions. They know politicians are scared of him. But, it is a long hall. Anna Hazare: If you want alternate resort, you need your right to recall. Democracy has offered us the right to choose our representatives, which would also get our right to recall our representatives. In its absence, corruption has gone up. The elective representative feels safe for five years. “Who can touch me for five years do? Do whatever you want to do.” If I have the power to recall, I would bring him back in two months. He would have some pressure. These corrupt people are investing their loot in election to get into power. Then power gives them more money. The circle of power and money must be stopped. Narrator: To dig out corruption, we need to dig deeper. Anil Agwar: The laws are being framed in such a way that there is no social consensus. There is no participation of the people and therefore everybody wants to bypass the law in every way possible. For example, if somebody wants to plant trees on government land today, it is an illegal act. And a lot of the environment unfortunately belongs to the government; rivers, mountains, forests, ground water reserves, the air, a lot of these things belong to the government. And therefore, it is the laws of the government that applied to them. Saxena: That would require a lot of change in attitude of the government servants. But despite the fact that it is very badly emphasized from the Planning Commission or even from government of India, on the whole people’s participation has been an ideology without the methodology. So, therefore the road map --