Anna Hazare sheds tears for brothers in arms

PUNE, Jan 8: He came, and what he saw made him cry. Quite literally. For, Anna Hazare, Friday morning was not just a courtesy visit in hi...

PUNE, Jan 8: He came, and what he saw made him cry. Quite literally. For, Anna Hazare, Friday morning was not just a courtesy visit in his capacity as a stalwart social worker, to the War Memorial, but one that was emotionally charged with nostalgic memories of his good old days as a man, in the midst of a bloody battlefield.

He had seen his comrades fighting to their last breath, with memories keeping abreast of his past, and here he was finally at a place where he could offer his obeisance and respect to those brave ones who sacrificed their lives. His heart melted as he stood in front of the 50-ft high memorial erected by citizens at the Morwada junction in the city. And his eyes welled with tears. He stood motionless for two minutes and then silently shed tears – for those men and officers of the three armed forces from the State who laid down their lives in defence of the country since independence.

Anna – the elder brother – as the gentle but firm benefactor of rural masses is known all over Maharashtra, may have been a high profile social worker for the past quarter century or so, but before his advent on the rural front, he was a soldier in uniform on the frontier of the country, belonging to the Army Service Corps (ASC), having experienced the heat and dust of two armed conflicts with Pakistan and having seen his comrades-in-arm falling to the bullets of the enemy.

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He had heard of the unique memorial to his fallen comrades in Pune but could not visit it earlier. Today, before embarking upon one of his yet another whirlwind tours, Hazare decided to make it a point to come and pay his homage to those 1,080 men whose names have been engraved in marble at the site. To receive this once a plain soldier but now a towering personality with all the affection and admiration for him was no less a person than the former director general of his own corps, Lt Gen Y D Sahasrabuddhe (retd), highest officer of Anna’s corps before retirement.

Also present were Lt Gen B T Pandit (retd), Veer Chakra winner, Maj Gen S C N Jatar (retd), Colonel Anil Athale, joint coordinator of the Express-Citizens’ War Memorial Committee which raised funds for the memorial and then dissolved itself, apart from several other citizen-activists.

Softly wiping his tears, Anna, known to be a man of a few words, went round the marble panels bearing names of the martyrs in uniform barely uttering a word. On taking the round, he paused and said it was a noble gesture on part of the citizens’ committee to have thought of erecting the monument.