From the Indian sky a shining star moved over to the permanent planetary world, as it were. Aryasamaj veteran Swami Agnivesh was that star that shone in the Indian firmament for about four decades.
Agnivesh’s marching into eternal bliss has led a vacuum in the heart of every living patriotic Indian. At 6.30 pm on August 11 he succumbed to a multi-organ failure in Delhi, India’s political capital.
Swami Agnivesh belonged to the Hindu religious sect called Arya Samaj. Arya Samaj is a monotheistic reform movement within the Hindu fold, founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1875. It does not uphold idol worship.
Agnivesh lived as a genuine Aryasamaj Guru with abiding humanising spiritual principles. He donned the garb of a Hindu Guru in saffron colour, but the most secularised Hindu religious Guru the world has seen. Mr. Xavier Dias, his friend and admirer, describes him as one who donned fire, not saffron.
His spirit of human compassion made him fight for the liberation of bonded labourers. He founded ‘Bonded Labour Liberation Front’ in 1981.
He thought of direct politics for a while. He founded Arya Sabha, a political outfit and won an assembly election in Haryana. Though he became Education Minister in the Haryana government, within two years he resigned protesting against the police firing on workers who revolted against bonded labour system.
Born in Andhra Pradesh in 1939, he became the President of the World Council of Arya Samaj. He was a great influence in his advocacy for dialogue between religions.
For his genuine conviction and principles he was a target of vitriolic and even physical attack by religious fundamentalists. In July 2018 he was physically attacked in Jharkhand’s Pakur by the alleged Hindu Yuva Morcha lynch mob chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram.’ The incident happened when he was supporting the tribal communities against land acquisition by the state.
Even as his death was announced, his vile detractors cast unholy and uncivilized aspersions on him, calling him a Hindu turncoat, a traitor. Even a well placed police official Nageshwar Rao, Indian Police Service, avowing allegiance to the ruling BJP, termed his death as ‘good riddance,’ a statement condemned outright by all right thinking persons. He wrote on Facebook: “GOOD RIDDANCE@swamiagnivesh.You were an anti-Hindu donning saffron clothes. You did enormous damage to Hinduism. I am ashamed you were born a Telungu Brahmin.”
Agnivesh has many titles to his credit: scholar, politician, social activist, spiritual Guru, genuine patriot, upholder of democracy and secularism, campaigner against corruption, among others. These human qualities were the very ones his detractors found uncomfortable and condemnable.
Mr. John Dayal, social critic, political analyst and a friend of late Agnivesh wrote: ‘Swami Agnivesh retrieved the sanctity of the ochre/saffron robes from hijackers posing as nationalists, challenged them on their turf and defeated them more often than not.’ (Facebook jottings)
May Agnivesh’s tribe increase! India stands in need of such genuine secular-minded spiritual leaders to prevent the nation from being swallowed by arrogant nationalism. More Agniveshes are welcome as genuine incarnations of hope for the downtrodden, the marginalised and the victims of narrow nationalist politics riding on terror-provoking religious fundamentalism.
His words resonate loud and clear, ‘There are three Ds that I always propagate: Doubt, Debate and Dissent.’
Agnivesh has not disappeared into oblivion. The planet that now he is transformed into becomes a beacon of light calling all to doubt, debate and dissent in this dark period of India’s existence.
Swami Agnivesh was truly a fire-clad Guru!