New Delhi: Arya Samaj leader Swami Agnivesh passed away on Friday, September 11. He was 80.
A social activist of repute, Swami Agnivesh had been undergoing treatment at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in New Delhi for complications that arose from liver cirrhosis. It was reported that he suffered a multi-organ failure on Thursday. He passed in the evening on Friday.
The Wire has reported how Swami Agnivesh’s liver ailment had its roots in a brutal attack on him in 2018, by a mob comprising members of BJP, RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. This attack was followed by another mob attack in New Delhi, near the BJP headquarters where he was headed, to pay respects to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Swami Agnivesh had asked the Supreme Court to hand probe into the assaults on him over to the Central Bureau of Investigation but a bench headed by Justice S.A. Bobde, now Chief Justice of India, had refused to intervene.
This year, after the lynching incident at Palghar in Maharashtra, Agnivesh had released a video condemning the violence and had also asked for attention to crimes of violence against Muslims.
Agnivesh was born as Vepa Shyam Rao, in 1939, in what is now Chhattisgarh.
A social worker who travelled into the depth of villages, Swami Agnivesh’s entry into activism and politics came after stints as a lecturer and lawyer.
In 1968, he joined the Arya Samaj and by 1970 he founded the Arya Sabha based on the former’s principles and renounced worldly possessions. He also headed the Samaj’s Word Council.
In 1977, Agnivesh contested and won the assembly polls from Haryana and was made education minister. In 1981, he founded the organisation against bonded labour, the Bandhua Mukti Morcha, that remains functional in fighting bonded labour and in calling for humane treatment of labourers.
Agnivesh also led campaigns against female foeticide, religious disharmony, mistreatment of women and to promote peace in Kashmir.
In 1999, Agnivesh was among those who launched a multi-religious forum called Religions for Social Justice, which aimed to tackle religious fundamentalism.
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.
He was part of the India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, in 2010, that led to the Jan Lokpal Bill. However, he quit the movement in the backdrop of a video emerging that appeared to show him speaking to a Congress leader.
For The Wire, Swami Agnivesh wrote four opinion pieces, on the use of science to subjugate people, the necessity to unite against communal polarisation, the protests in Kerala in the backdrop of the Sabarimala ruling, and corruption in political ranks.
His foundation, the Bandhua Mukti Morcha, has announced that his body will be placed at the organisation’s office at 7 Jantar Mantar Road in Delhi for the public to offer finals tributes from 11 am to 2 pm on Saturday.