Swami Agnivesh

Every society has a few exceptional persons as its conscience - keepers. With piercing eyes they perceive the injustices committed and with impassioned accents they rally their fellowmen to fight against evil. One such outstanding conscience-keeper of our country is Swami Agnivesh. He has been rightly described as a global firebrand for humanism. There is no endeavour to enlarge social justice within the country and in the wider world in which he is not in the forefront, be it the ending of bonded labour and child labour of all kinds, or the enforcement of equal rights for women. He has been an eloquent champion of the poorer peoples rights in this age of rapid globalisation and also of environmental protection. But above all it is in the fight against religious fundamentalism and the growth of communal hatred that Swami Agnivesh has made his greatest contribution. The marches he organized at the time of the Sati incident in Rajasthan in 1987 and to have the doors of Nathdwara temple opened to Dalits in 1988, the Delhi - Meerut peace march of 1989 and the march of 51 leaders of various denominations to Manoharpur in 1999 to offer sympathy to Mrs. Gladys Staines after her husband had been killed by fanatics, and the way he countered the communal forces in Gujarat in 2002 have all evoked widespread admiration. Swami Agnivesh deplores the fact that religions have allowed themselves to be politically exploited. Instead of nurturing and enabling our humanity, religions have unleashed hatred and violence. In his view the very idea of religion needs to be reconstructed with spirituality and social justice at its core. It is in recognition of his dedicated and tireless work to remove the seeds of hate form our land that this extraordinary man of religion, Swami Agnivesh, is being honoured with this year's Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana (Peace and Harmony) Award.

Excerpts from the speech by

Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, India

Swami Agnivesh is a unique personality of our times. He exemplifies our national ethos in his quest of a deeper faith. He has said: "One of the foremost needs in the Indian context today is in reform the very idea or religion." He despairs at the gradual depletion of spirituality in our religious and has expressed his anguish and pain at the erosion of ethics in our society and polity. I share Agniveshji's view tha "men of religion" msut "play a more positive role in politics, and imbue in it the values that nourish public culture and the art of governance." It recalls the views of Swami Vivekananda, of whom we cannot but think when we see Agniveshji, who sought to build his movement for national regeneration and reconstruction on the foundation of deeply spiritual values, and not bigotry, religious fanaticism or casteism. Agniveshji's relentless fight for the poor and deprived sections of society, his crusade against alcoholism, female foeticide, bonded labour and child labour, his struggle for gender equality and justice and above all, his campaign against vulgar consumerism and environmental degradation are manifestations of his creative application of religion to the problems of our time.

Swami Agnivesh

India - (Right Livelihood Award 2004 - Alternative Nobel Prize )

In Swedish Parliament in Stockholm

"...for strong commitment and cooperation over many years to promote the values of co-existence, tolerance and understanding in India and between the countries of South Asia"

Swami Agnivesh was born Vepa Shyam Rao on 21st September 1939, the grandson of the Diwan (Chief Minister) of a princely state called Shakti, now in Chattisgarh. He gained law and business management degrees, became a lecturer in Calcutta and for a while also practised law. He comes from an orthodox Hindu family, but in 1968 he became a full-time worker of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reformist movement, and two years later became a sanyasi, renouncing worldly possessions and becoming, in the process, Swami Agnivesh. On the same date that he became a "renouncer", Agnivesh co-founded a political party, the Arya Sabha, to work for political order, founded on Arya Samaj principles. The principles were spelt out in a book published in 1974, Vaidik Samajvad (Vedic Socialism). This rejects the lopsided materialism of both capitalism and communism in favour of what the Arya Sabha constitution calls "social spirituality". When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in 1975, cracking down on opposition parties, Agnivesh and some colleagues were arrested. He was in jail for 14 months. After the 1977 elections which swept Indira Gandhi from office, Agnivesh was elected to the Haryana state legislative assembly, becoming education minister. He rapidly became disillusioned, resigned and decided to devote all his energy and time to social justice movements. During this period he began to denounce bonded labour, a cause for which he became well known. He founded the Bandhua Mukti Morcha (BMM, the Bonded Labour Liberation Front) in 1981, and is still its Chairperson. Swami Agnivesh puts the number of child labourers in India (despite constitutional provisions) at 65 million. Some are in debt bondage or have been pledged by parents in return for financial advances; some are lured by procurers who promise bright prospects after training. BMM has secured the release of more than 172,000 Indian workers, and has helped create a number of trade unions, including the All India Brick Kiln Workers, the Stone Quarry Workers and the Construction Workers. Working also at the international level, Agnivesh has also thrice been elected as Chairperson of the UN Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. Agnivesh has had a high profile with a number of social issues apart from child and bonded labour:

" In 1987 he led a 18 day long 'padhyatra' (march on foot) from Delhi to Deorala in Rajasthan to protest against sati (the immolation of widows on their husband's funeral pyres) following a particularly notorious incident. The march was stopped, and Agnivesh briefly gaoled, but both received widespread, sympathetic coverage. The Indian Parliament later enacted the Sati Prevention Act. Back in Delhi Agnivesh launched a campaign against female infanticide, which also resulted in legislation.

" In 1988/89 he led a movement to secure the entry of 'untouchables' into Hindu temples which were discriminating against them. Again he was arrested but the action had a substantial impact on public opinion.

" In 1989 he led a multi-religious march from Delhi to Meerat to protest against and defuse communal violence that had claimed the lives of 45 Muslim youths. Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer was also a prominent participant in the march.

" From 1989-95, he participated in a number of people's movements (including Narmada Bachao Andolan) in respect of land, water, forests and fisheries issues, and campaigned with women's movements against alcohol in both Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, winning total prohibition (for a short period) in both states.

" In 1999, concerned about escalating religious fundamentalism and obscurantism, he helped to launch a multi-religious forum called Religions for Social Justice, which led a group of 55 religious leaders to the place where an Australian Christian missionary and his two sons had been burned to death while they slept, by Hindu religious fanatics. The leaders in The Times of India on the theme of religious tolerance and reconciliation, written by Agnivesh, attest to the impact of this initiative. For many years he has also written articles in leading newspapers jointly with a Christian priest, Rev. Valson Thampu.

" In other recent newspaper articles Agnivesh has deplored the consumerism and materialism that he perceives to be undermining Indian culture. The Arya Samaj movement, with which he is still involved, launched a people's movement in 1997 against the 'western cultural invasion' and the 'neo-colonialism' of the WTO and World Bank.

" In 2001, Agnivesh led a protest march from Mumbai to Gujarat against economic globalisation.

" Swami Agnivesh was deeply disturbed by the massacre in Gujarat in 2002. He once again organized a group of 72 eminent religious-social leaders who spent five days in the violence affected areas of Gujarat and denounced the Hindu fundamentalist organizations and sectors responsible.