Heroes of Modern India

"A hero is a man who is afraid to run away."

During a casual discussion with a couple of friends today, I realized that very few of us know about the heroes of modern India. In my opinion, one of the reasons for this ignorance stems from the basic human nature of idolizing do-gooders posthumously. Everyone knows about Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Mother Teresa et al., so here are some of the modern heroes (most of the information here is from Wikipedia.org):

Dr. Subramanian Swamy

President of Janta Party, Subramanian Swamy was one of the leaders who blew the lid off the 2G scam by going to the Supreme Court. On 27 November 2010 Subramanian Swamy announced that he will file a criminal case against former union minister A. Raja in the 2G Spectrum Scam before the Special Court for Corruption Cases in connection with the charges of irregularities in 2G spectrum allocation. He later said that under Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code, he would name the other “beneficiaries” in the scam. Until today, this scam has resulted to be the most historic and the biggest in the history of India.

He studied his masters degree in statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute. He then went to study at Harvard University on a full Rockefeller scholarship. He did his doctoral research with two Nobel Laureates namely Simon Kuznets and Paul A Samuelson. Dr. Swamy has also jointly authored with Professor Samuelson a path breaking study on Index Number Theory. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Economics by Harvard University (Class of 1965).

In 1964, Swamy joined the faculty of economics at Harvard and from then on he has till date taught at the Department of Economics. From 1969 to 1991, he was a Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

He is accounted by some to be an authority on the comparative study of India and China and is also well-versed in the Mandarin Chinese (Hanyu) language.

Swamy alleges that Sonia Gandhi's two sisters, Anushka and Nadia has received sixty percent of the kickbacks in 2G spectrum scam i.e. Rs.18,000 crores each.

On 15 April 2011, he sought permission of the Prime Minister of India to prosecute National Advisory Council Chairperson Sonia Gandhi in a number of graft cases under Sections 11 & 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Listing a number of instances in connection with which Sonia Gandhi could be prosecuted, in a 206-page long petition, Dr Swamy sought Manmohan Singh’s permission on the basis of what he calls prima facie cases built against the NAC chief based on documentary evidence.

Arvind Kejriwal

A Mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur, and a Magsaysay award winner, Arvind pioneered and campaigned actively for the Right To Information movement leading to the RTI act passed by the Parliament in 2005. Arvind even made Speech at Google explaining Right to Information Act.

On February 6, 2007, Arvind was named CNN-IBN 'Indian of the Year' in Public Service for the year 2006. 

As a member of India Against Corruption he is a active participant in the movement for the enactment of Jan Lokpal Bill.

Anna Hazare

There was a time when people hardly knew about Anna Hazare, and it's hard to believe that time was just a few years back, before Anna single handedly brought the Government to its knees on the Jan Lokpal movement. 

Anna Hazare started his career in the Indian Army as a driver in 1963. He spent his spare time reading the works of Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Vinoba Bhave; they inspired him to become a social worker and activist. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 he was the only survivor in an exchange of border fire while driving a truck in Khem Karan sector.

After voluntary retirement from the army, Hazare went to Ralegan Siddhi village in 1975. Initially he organised the youth of the village into an organisation named the Tarun Mandal. He helped to form the Pani Puravatha Mandals (Water Supply Associations) to ensure proper distribution of water. It was decided to ban the sale of tobacco, cigarettes, and beedies in the village. In order to implement this resolution, the youth group performed a unique "Holi" ceremony. The festival of Holi is celebrated as a symbolic burning of evil. The youth group brought all the tobacco, cigarettes, and beedies from the shops in the village and burnt them in a ‘Holi’ fire. Tobacco, cigarettes, or beedies are no longer sold in any shops at Ralegan Siddhi.

In 1932 Ralegan Siddhi got its first formal school, a single classroom primary school. In 1962 the villagers added more classrooms through community volunteer efforts. By 1971, out of an estimated population of 1,209, only 30.43% were literate (72 women and 290 men). Boys moved to the nearby towns of Shirur and Parner to pursue higher education, but due to socioeconomic conditions, girls could not do the same and were limited to primary education. Hazare, along with the youth of Ralegan Siddhi, worked to increase literacy rates and education levels. In 1976 they started a pre-school and a high school in 1979. The villagers formed a charitable trust, the Sant Yadavbaba Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, which was registered in 1979.

The social barriers and discrimination that existed due to the caste system in India have been largely eliminated by Ralegan Siddhi villagers. People of all castes come together to celebrate social events. The Dalits have been integrated into the social and economic life of the village. The villagers have built houses for the Dalits, and helped to repay their loans to free them from their indebtedness.

Later on, Hazare raised such issues fearlessly in all of Maharashtra using Gandhian methodologies and succedeed in rooting out corruption at different levels and bringing the corrupt to justice, including Shiv Sena'sheavily influential leader Babanrao Gholap. Both BJP and Shiv Sena went against Hazare on this issue, and even sent him to jail. But due to public protests, Hazare was freed and made sure that Gholap resigned from the cabinet.

Currently Anna Hazare is spearheading the anti-corruption campaign along with other activists like Kejriwal.

Prashant Bhushan

A lawyer and social activist, Prashant Bhushan is the son of eminent lawyer Shanti Bhushan. He is an activist who helps people through the judiciary system. In his career of 15 years he has worked on around 500 PILs. He is a strong supporter of a Clean Judiciary. He is a member of the committee constituted in April 2011 for the Jan Lokpal bill.

Kiran Bedi

She needs no introduction :)

Mahesh Chandra Mehta

Mahesh, another Ramon Magsaysay award winner, is known for his fights against pollution causing industries in various Indian courts.

Among the landmark environmental cases he has won involve preservation of the Taj Mahal through the banning of coal-based industries whose effluents were eating into the soft marble of the shrine; the installation of sewage plants in 250 towns and cities in the Ganges Basin after 5,000 industries were fined for polluting the holy river; and the relocation of 9,000 industries away from New Delhi, in a move to protect the city’s remaining forest; and the improvement of air quality in India’s four largest metropolitan cities, which eventually led to New Delhi becoming the first city in the world where all public transport run on compressed natural gas.

Sunderlal Bahuguna

For years he has been fighting for the preservation of forests in the Himalayas, first as a member of the Chipko movement in 1970s, and later spearheaded the Anti-Tehri Dam movement starting 1980s, to early 2004. He was one of the early environmentalists of India, and later he and people associated with the Chipko movement later started taking up environmental issues, like against large dams, mining and deforestation, across the country.

He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour, on January 26, 2009 and padma award on April 14, 2009.