By Devraj Bollareddy

Today ( June 15) is Anna Hazare’s 85th birthday. Kisan Baburao ‘Anna’ Hazare is an Indian activist who garnered a lot of praise and recognition for his work on bettering Indian society as a whole. His contributions towards eliminating corruption, the development of rural areas, and the de-stigmatization of the caste system played a huge role in shaping many societies and mindsets.

Today, let’s take a look back at why Anna Hazare is such a prominent figure in Indian society.

Anna Hazare played a huge part in the 2011 anti-corruption moment, the moment aimed to make political corruption virtually non-existent in India and in order to catalyze this, Hazare began a hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar monument in Delhi. Although the hunger strike initially started out as an indefinite one, it was brought to an end just 4 days later on the 9th of April when the hunger strike sparked nationwide protests and the government finally accepted Hazare’s demands.

Time magazine regarded the 2011 Indian anti-corruption moment as one of the top 10 most significant news stories of 2011 and Foreign Policy named Anna Hazare among the top 100 global thinkers of 2011.

Hazare’s initiatives go beyond the realm of corruption, he also worked really hard to eliminate untouchability and discrimination within the castes in India.

Anna Hazare was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award by the Government of India in 1992.

Hazare’s exceptional leadership motivated villagers to shun untouchability and allow Dalit’s to become an integrated part of society. Hazare always stood for transparency between the government and citizens, he even played a huge part in the right-to-information movement that took place in Maharashtra in the early 2000s.

This act would later go on to become the base document for the drafting of the right to information act in 2005. In 2006, the union government slightly amended the right to information act, which led Anna Hazare to go on another hunger strike, this time lasting 10 days, he ended his fast only after the government agreed to his demands and changed their earlier decision.