Swami Agnivesh, India’s renowned secular ascetic, dies

By Matters India Reporter

New Delhi, Sept 11, 2020: Church groups in India on September 11 joined activists, academics and politicians to mourn the death of Swami Agnivesh, who is considered the country’s most renowned secular and democratic sanyasi. The once professor of Kolkata’s St Xavier’s College was 80 at the time of his death.

Swami Agnivesh was declared dead at 6:30 pm September 11 by New Delhi’s Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. The Arya Samaj leader was admitted there on September 8 to undergo treatment for liver cirrhosis. On September 10, he was put on ventilator support following multi-organ failure.

According to the hospital statement, Agnivesh’s condition began deteriorating in the evening and he suffered a heart attack at 6 pm. Doctors tried to resuscitate him but failed.

Agnivesh’s body will be kept at 7 Jantar Mantar Road, New Delhi, from 11 a.m. to 2 pm for people to pay last respect. The cremation will be held at 4 pm on September 12d in the Vedic way at Agnilok Ashram, Bahalpa in Gurugram, Haryana.

In July 2018 Swami Agnivesh was assaulted, allegedly by the youth front workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chanting “Jai Sri Ram,” in Jharkhand’s Pakur, where he was supporting tribal communities’ protest against land acquisition by the state.

The BJP, which was in power in Jharkhand at the time, condemned it and insisted the attackers weren’t associated with the party, but added it was not a surprise given “Swami Agnivesh’s ‘track record'”.

A month later, Swami Agnivesh was attacked again, this time in Delhi while he was on his way to pay his last respects to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Swami Agnivesh’s “demise is an irreparable loss for the entire nation including Arya Samaj,” says Swami Aryavesh, the Hindu ascetic group’s public relations officer. Swami Agnivesh, he added, was a revolutionary leader of the Hindu reformist organizations.

John Dayal, spokesperson of the All India Catholic Union, saluted “one of the bravest men I have met as a journalist and as an activist.” In a condolence message, the Catholic lay leader hailed Swami Agnivesh for retrieving “the sanctity of the ochre/saffron robes from hijackers posing as nationalists, challenged them on their turf, and defeated them more often than not.”

Dayal, who claims to have known Agnivesh for more than four decades, noted that the ascetic as a political activist, a minister in Haryana, a campaigner against bonded labor and child rights, as a fighter against the Sangh Parivar (rightwing Hindu groups).

The Indian Catholic Press Association mourned the “passing away of a great Indian and a true human who was a relentless fighter for justice and human rights.”

In a condolence message, president of the association, Ignatius Gonsalves, says Agnivesh’s life and legacy not only inspire but challenge all those cherish the great leader had championed. “This is particularly true of people in the media,” he added.

Anto Akkara, a veteran journalist, said Agnivesh had stood “like a rock behind the campaign for truth and justice for Kandhamal.” Kandhamal, a district in the eastern Indian state was the scene of monthlong anti-Christian persecution in 2008.

Agnivesh’s death was also mourned among others by Congress parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor, senior lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi.

While Tharoor expressed shock and sadness over the death of a “man of vigor and conviction,” Sathyarthi hailed Agnivesh as crusader against bonded labor.

Bhushan described Agnivesh’s death as “a huge tragedy” and added that the ascetic as “a true warrior for humanity and tolerance. Among the bravest that I knew… willing to take huge risks for public good.”

Jesuit Father Felix Raj, vice chancellor of St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata, said the activist sanyasi had taught in the college during 1964-1969. “Swami Agnivesh was truly “ a man for others”…A sanyasi in the Arya Samaj Order, he stood tall, both on the national and international stage, as an educationist, a philanthropist, a philosopher, a spiritualist, most of all as a humanist,” Father Raj said in his condolence message.

“He was contemplative in action, finding God in all things,” the Jesuit educationist added.

Agnivesh was born Vepa Shyam Rao on September 21, 1939 in a Brahmin family at Srikakulam in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He lost his father at the age of four.

He was brought up by his maternal grandfather who was the diwan of the princely state Sakti (now Chhattisgarh). He gained degrees in Law and Commerce, became a lecturer in management at the reputed St Xavier’s College in Kolkata (then Calcutta).

He was best known for his work against bonded labor through the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, which he founded in 1981. Agnivesh became president (2004–2014) of the World Council of Arya Samaj, the highest international body of the Arya Samaj movement established by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875.

He also served as the chairperson of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery from 1994 to 2004.

Swami Agnivesh also served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Haryana and a cabinet minister (for education) in the northern Indian state.

He was also an advocate for dialogue between religions. He was involved in various areas of social activism including campaigns against female feticide and the emancipation of women.