Leading social reformer, extremely active in anti child n bonded labour movements, a relentless fighter against female feticide, former lawmaker from Haryana and a noted Arya Samaj leader, Swamy Agnivesh is no more, who breathed his last this evening while being treated for liver Cirrhossis at the age of eighty, in the Liver n Billiary Sciences hospital in New Delhi.
Born in 1931 on September 21, always clad in Saffron attire, Swamy Agnivesh was born in Saikakulum district of Hyderabad. He was quite a learned man becoming lecturer in prestigious St. Xaviour’s law college in Kolkata after completing his law n MBA, before practising law.
A fighter to preserve secularism n true democratic values and rid the society of castism and parochial forces he plunged into active politics in 1970, forming for the very first time, a political party, namely ARYA SABHA in the same year.
Swamy Agnivesh was suffering from Liver Corhossis for the last several days being on ventilator at the Institute of Liver n Billiary Sciences in New Delhi who breathed his last after massive cardiac arrest due to multi organ failure.
He was a very popular social activist who’ve led a movement against bonded labour and arrested number of times. He was also physically attacked by fundamentalists and bigots while fighting for the poor n under privileged sections and protecting the secular values of the society including also jailed number of times.
Swamy Agnivesh was imprisoned for ten months during draconian emergency for leading and participating in emergency movement in 1975. After coming out of jail he contested from Haryana n was inducted as cabinet minister.
His entire life was dedicated to relentless struggle fighting against child labour, bonded labour, castism, communalism, redressing the grievances of the poor n under privileged and women rights etc.
His contribution in the child rights movement with the Noble laureate Kailash Satyarthy in the initial phase are also well known but later on detached with the latter. In true sense Noble laureate Kailash Sathyarthi is Swamy Agnivesh’s product who after leaving his company started his separate movement against child rights winning the prestigious Noble prize.
Though Swamy Agnivesh had received the reputed Lively hood prize quite before Sathyarti for his outstanding contribution to the society , he was also one of the main founding leaders and prominent activist of Anna Hazaare’s movement against Corruption having disasociated himself later on due to politics entering in the movement.
Swamy Agnivesh was also the president of World Council of Arya Samaj from 2004 to 2014 and also active in Telengana separate state movement since beginning. His passing away is a huge setback to the secular and democratic values of our society. An end of an era indeed. May his soul rest in peace.
