PUNE, 2 January 2006 — Effective from March 2006, all the 160 Air-India flights will screen a 16-minute documentary with subtitles in French on India’s renowned social activist Anna Hazare, who is credited with giving the citizens of the country the famous National Right to Information Act.
The documentary titled “On the footsteps of Mahatma” will feature Anna Hazare and his revolutionary work in developing rural Maharasthra and the objective is to spread the message of Anna to the world. Produced in a span of a month’s time in the regional language Marathi and in Hindi and English, the documentary has interviews with Anna, excerpts from his speeches and brings out the transformation in his village Relegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district, adjoining Pune.
The documentary also traces Anna Hazare’s life over the past 30 years from when he returned to his native village after retiring from the army, his struggle in transforming a barren village with severe water scarcity into India’s model village by involving villagers in development works, instances like rain water harvesting by locals and the training of 60 village youths as nursing assistants.
Vasant Patil who conceptualized the documentary said that the entire world should come to know about Anna and his work. The documentary will be screened at the Tokyo International Documentary festival in March 2006 and also at the International Women’s Festival in Calcutta and Pune International Film Festival this month. Also the documentary will be screened at as many international events as possible, Patil said. However, the documentary to spread Anna’s message to the world was released at his native village last Wednesday.
While on the one hand the federal government is honoring the great social worker, on the other hand, the Congress-led Democratic Front government in Maharashtra is humiliating him. Anna Hazare is on an indefinite fast since yesterday to protest against the government’s inaction against the four state ministers indicted by the P.B. Sawant Commission. Another committee headed by former bureaucrat D.M. Sukhtankar, however, gave a clean chit to the ministers earlier found guilty of corruption by the Sawant Commission.
The state government accepting the Sukhtankar report has nearly decided to take all the ministers back into the government, and this has angered Anna Hazare who has gone on fast unto death.
NCP President Shard Pawar, to whose party the four ministers belong, defending the former ministers, as a rebuke to Hazare said, “In a democracy, one has the freedom to go on fast. And there is no exception for Hazare.”
