Psychotherapy as Farming – The Story of Anna Hazare and the Healing of a Village
If you google ‘Anna Hazare’ on www.bbc.co.uk , the most prominent picture which might bob up would be that of a slightly-built Indian farmer called Anna Hazare (in Marathi “Anna” is an honorific term meaning “village elder” or “father”), sitting in the shadow of Mahatma Gandhi’s large picture while embarking on a hunger fast against corruption. But few know that the man who sat humbly in Mahatma Gandhi’s large shadow in BBC stories and pictures was the sort of man Gandhi had himself imitated a long time ago before he became the famed freedom fighter dressed in a loincloth. After studying law, the young, suited and booted M.K. Gandhi gave up his western clothes and adopted the garb of the Indian farmer/peasant, so as to better identify with the Indian farmer, such as Anna is, to lead the Indian freedom movement.
