This man is not your staple idea of religiosity. While he stood against religious fundamentalism, he does not believe in letting go of his theism. For Agnivesh, saffron is the colour of sacrifice, compassion and justice; and if his clothes came in the way of his duty, he would renounce them just like he did so with his privileged life.
SUMIT DASGUPTA
This man with a saffron head-wrap, kurta and dhoti looks serene from a distance but evokes a sense of intense purpose and direction as you come close to him. His speeches are rousing, his voice booming with energy and his words, deeply moving with the ability to mobilize masses. This is not the description of an esoteric cult figure, who seems to be closely linked with fringe groups and is religiously fundamentalist. It is the opposite. This man is not your staple symbol of religious extremism, or political gimmicks that adorns itself with trinkets such as these. This is a man who battled and bruised for a secular India: an India, he imagined as, blessed in the idea of celebrating togetherness whilst acknowledging its differences. Perhaps, that is one of the differing points between Hindutva and Hinduism, and sure enough he lived a daring life, for the sake of secularism.
Vepa Shyam Rao, better known as Swami Agnivesh, at the age of 28 left his cozy, privileged upper caste lifestyle to become a sadhu and an activist. On September 11, 2020 he passed away at the age of 80 because of Liver Cirrhosis. Swami Agnivesh joined the Arya Samaj in 1968 and he was a scholar, activist, and spiritual leader. Born to a Brahmin couple in Andhra Pradesh, Swami Agnivesh renounced his name, caste, religion, family, and all his belongings and property to lead the life of a sannyasin.
Social Activism and Politics
Looking at Swami Agnivesh, grounded, humane and deeply motivated to do the right thing makes one to think if this is a puff piece. If words can hold any significance in this post-truth era, this man's life and his ideology did differentiate itself from the dominant. Despite largely seen in a monochrome of neo-popular saffron, Swami Agnivesh's life and beliefs have been quite the opposite. He is widely known for his campaign against bonded labour through his foundation Bandhua Mukti Morcha (Bonded Labour Liberation Front). His public work encouraged him to enter active politics. He was elected to the Haryana Assembly in 1977 and was made education minister after two years. He, however, resigned from the post in protest against the Haryana government's inaction against police who had opened fire at workers protesting bonded labour.
In 1968, he became a full-time worker at the Arya Samaj, and two years later, embraced sanyas, renouncing worldly possessions and relationships and becoming, in the process, Swami Agnivesh. But, as the website swamiagnivesh.com highlights, renunciation never meant escapism for Swamiji. On the day of his sanyas, he co-founded a political party with Swami Indravesh, the Arya Sabha, to work for political order. This party was founded on Arya Samaj principles which, as he spells out in his 1974 book Vaidik Samajvad (Vedic Socialism), rejects the lopsided materialism of both capitalism and communism in favour of “social spirituality”. Over the years, Swamiji has been influenced by the thoughts and writings of thinkers as diverse as Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Gandhiji and Karl Marx. Social and economic justice inspired by spirituality, not superstitions, has remained the foundations of his philosophy.
Vocal about his belief in Vedic socialism Swami Agnivesh wasn't popular with a lot of Hindu hardliners because it was difficult to label him (although, this doesn't mean they didn't try). In 2005 Agnivesh got into controversy for saying that the Jagannath Temple should be open to non-Hindus. People opposed him by calling him anti-Hindu and burnt his effigy. In 2008, he showed sensitivity to the demands of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that banned the singing of ‘Vande Matarm' by Muslim citizens of India.
The Uncorrupted Saffron Attire
To paraphrase Swamiji, when asked about his attire his belief and ideology, he made it clear to everyone that his attire is to represent his socio-spiritual outlook towards life. Whether it was Gandhi, Dayanand, Ambedkar, all worked for the betterment of the society and the people with a few differences in their methods and ideals. They all styled themselves in particular ways. For Swamiji, saffron was his uniform that projected to the rest of the world that while he stood against religious fundamentalism, he does not believe in letting go of his theism. He believes in Hinduism and their space in the same country that can allow multiple faiths and people who don't believe in any gods. Saffron is the colour of sacrifice, compassion and justice for Agnivesh and if his clothes came in the way of his duty, he will renounce them just like he did so with his privileged life. “All that matters is the fire inside me, the presence of the divine in the inner temple of my being, should continue to blaze till the end”, he said. In 2004, he won the Right Livelihood Award, which is referred to as the ‘Alternate Nobel Prize' for his commitment to promoting values of tolerance.
Swami Agnivesh also led several initiatives to foster peace and interfaith harmony in Kashmir at the height of militancy. In 2010, he was tasked by the Congress government to open a dialogue with the Maoist leadership. A year later he was part of the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare. He was forced to split from the group after a video surfaced allegedly showing him speaking to a minister from the Congress government. It was around this time that Swami Agnivesh appeared on the reality TV show Bigg Boss as a guest, which, some felt as odd.
The Lynched
Swami Agnivesh knew the pain and injustice involved in lynching. He knew what it means to be at the receiving end in the middle of an irrational angry crowd. Agnivesh was brutally attacked by a mob in Jharkhand in July 2018. The FIR registered by the local police identified eight of his attackers – all of whom were affiliated with the ruling party. According to The Wire, in 2018 Agnivesh asked SC to hand the probe over to the CBI but a supreme court Justice, who is now chief justice of India, refused to intervene. Agnivesh, who was 80 years old, had been facing severe health issues since the attack. The attack, he said, had left him battered, and had led to serious health complications, including a serious liver ailment.
He, with courage, spoke out about the mob-lynching incident of Palghar that led to a massive outcry on television and social media especially from the Bhartiya Janata Party; he also criticized the government for leaning towards the right and communalizing an issue that did not need any jaundiced lens. Ironically, in July 2018, a horrific lynching incident of Gosavi tribals took place in Dhule, Maharashtra. But it was never made to be a social media outcry as its 2020 counterpart. Agnivesh also drew attention to the system's failure to punish those who had lynched Muslims like Akhlaq, Pehlu Khan and Junaid as he often spoke about his own experience at the hands of a mob.
Final Journey
Swami Agnivesh had a multifaceted career. He had been a huge inspiration to all, from spiritual gurus to social workers to bonded labourers.
As Swami Agnivesh breathed his last on 11th September, he leaves a huge vacuum. Countless political leaders, social activists, policy and law makers
rushed to pay their last respects to Agnivesh's mortal remains that was kept at his office at #7, Jantar Mantar, Delhi. As prayers and bhajans rise we
hope the visitors make at least a part of Agnivesh's charism their own. His body was given to the pyre by Swami Aryavesh, the president of the World
Council of Arya Samaj in Gurugram. Amartya Sen was of the opinion that to operate with secularism, is to focus on the neutrality between different
religions and not allowing religious associations in state activities. In my paltry opinion Swami Agnivesh was able to understand the nuances of these
principles and, if not perfectly, was visibly able to apply it in his life and work.∎
