Ralegan Siddhi, tale of a 'drunkun' village to a 'model' village

 "If you want change, it's sometimes necessary to be tough." 

 Gandhian social reformer Anna Hazare's transformation of his native village, Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra, from a barren landscape tilled by poor farmers blighted by illiteracy and alcoholism won international plaudits and a Padma Bhushan, India's third highest award. His work has been recognised by the World Bank.

He started work on improving his village following an epiphany as a low ranking soldier in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war: he was the sole survivor of a Pakistani assault which killed all his comrades.

On his return to the village, Mr Hazare established a series of projects to conserve water, stockpile grain, develop new dairies, plant trees and build schools and training institutes.

He launched social reforms to end caste divisions. He ended a ban on 'untouchables' from worshipping at the village temple and drawing water from the upper caste well, and introduced mixed community weddings to save money. He built a successful secondary school from where four 'untouchable' children have gone on to university and qualified as doctors. Literacy rates rose from 15 per cent in the mid-1970s to 100 per cent today.

According to senior aides in his charitable trust and the village Gram Sabha – or assembly – his revolution was based on a strict code of behaviour and harsh and violent punishments against those who broke it.

"Drunkards" who broke the ban on alcohol were brought to the village square, tied to a telegraph pole covered with barbed wire and personally whipped by Mr Hazare with his canvas army belt.

"There were 40 liquor units working. Some stopped on advice and some did not listen to him. So the youths went and destroyed the units. They were tied against the pole and were beaten by Anna Hazare personally. It happened to about ten to 15 people," Thakaram Raut, a retired secondary schoolteacher and trustee of Anna Hazare's Hind Swaraj Trust, said.

He told aides only he could administer the beatings because only those who, like him, had served the people "like a mother" had the right to punish them. Those thrashed by Mr Hazare eventually came to worship him, said Mr Raut.

"When they went to the temple, they prayed first to Annaji and then to God," he said. Mr Hazare has admitted the punishments in earlier interviews.
Senior aides in his model village says that he had ordered a gang of youths to destroy distilleries and publicly thrashed 'drunkards' in a campaign to ban alcohol from his village.

The code bans the consumption of alcohol and tobacco, compels "voluntary" labour on community projects and forbids families from having more than two children.
Mr Hazare says that the ban on alcohol and the use of violence to achieve it was central to the village's transformation.
Thakaram Raut says Mr Hazare used a gang of young men in their twenties to attack and destroy the distilleries of those who ignored his order for them to close. "If you want change, it's sometimes necessary to be tough."
The village head or Sarpanch, Jaisil Mahapari, explained that despite Mr Hazare's use of soft violence, he and Mahatma Gandhi shared a similar lifestyle and philosophy. "His lifestyle is very simple. Mahatma Gandhi was great in his land and Anna Hazare is great in his place. This village was known as a drunken village and now today it is drink free. He loves the villagers as his own children and punishes them to create obedient children," he said.
"People are afraid of him but this is respect," he added.
He was speaking in the main village square where hundreds of supporters of Mr Hazare's anti-corruption crusade rallied recently to increase pressure on the government to concede a more powerful watchdog.
The village is kept meticulously clean, its school buildings are smart and well-maintained, and its neatly trimmed hedges give the impression of an army cantonment.
Mr Mahapari said military discipline was central to Anna Hazare's approach. "Anna Hazare himself is an ex-military man, he's a man of discipline. He wants children to be disciplined. Until we are disciplined, nothing can happen, discipline is the hub of everything and all the villagers are aware of that," he said.
This discipline has stripped Ralegan Siddhi of the chaos which afflicts much of India and replaced it with a calm sense of purpose and order. Mr Raut said where villagers once "behaved like beasts" when drunk, now they relax by "singing songs of God and thinking of God. It's only because of ignorance that people use tobacco and alcohol," he said.
His friend Nand Kumar, whose late father was persuaded to swap his "country liquor" factory for fruit trading, said Anna Hazare is worshipped by the villagers because he had remained a bachelor and given his life to the village. "now he is giving his life to India," he said.