There were a large number of people with whom Anna and the people of Ralegan interacted during the ten years of this study. What role these people had in the making of Anna's leadership or in making the Ralegan of today is very difficult to say. Anna deliberately kept away from the politicians. He believes that politics divides villages and thus creates obstacles in the development of villages.

Political parties or political affiliations do not play any role in the Panchayat elections in Ralegan. Instead, the village gets together and the Sarpanch as well as other members of the Panchayat are nominated by the villagers by consensus. Even during the Assembly or Parliament elections, the village votes by consensus after giving due consideration to the merits of the options available.

Well-known political figures like Shri Bala Saheb (R.S.) Bharde and Shri V.S. Page interacted with Anna Hazare more as Gandhians than as Congressmen. However, it  appears that Anna and Ralegan Siddhi did benefit from the support provided by these two senior and respected politicians of Maharashtra. Mr. Anil Kumar Lakhina, the dynamic collector of Ahmednagar district at that time also helped a lot in getting schemes sanctioned out of turn for Ralegan. The administration's pragmatism to show results and Ralegan's capacity to successfully implement the schemes got combined with each other. The openness of Anna and the people of Ralegan in accepting ideas and assistance from different individuals and agencies have contributed to taking up of a large variety of programmes in the village. Individuals like Ashok Bedarkar, Leelatai Mulgaonkar, Navalbhau Firodia, Dr. N.H. Antia and Dr. Arole and the institutions like Rahuri Vidyapeeth and Pune University have made their contributions by interacting with Ralegan in many ways. But, in the entire development scenario, clearly, the leading role has been of the people of Ralegan, including Anna Hazare. The external agents have only played a very marginal, though useful role in the whole affair.
 
 

forward  back     table of contents
Anna Hazare Home Page
my home page