LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

September 16--30, 2004 - Vol. 13, No. 18

Deendayalji, an Integrated Humanist

Dear Readers,

Namaste!

September 25 is a sacred day for all members of the BJP and in fact of the entire Parivar because on this day in 1916 a boy was bon in a village in Uttar Pradesh, who grew up to a politician, but dazzled as a person who was detatched from all worldly comforts and desires and became the author of a new philosophy called Integral Humanism.

With a brilliant educational career which would have easily made him a high ranking official or a successful professional man, Deendayalji instead took to service to the motherland, joining the RSS and becoming a Pracharak and later became the president of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. It was during his railway journey from Lucknow to Patna on the night of February 10-11, 1968 that he was done to death at the Mughalsarai Junction Railway yard, by whom it was never known. He had left the party and the country at large orphans.

The stories of Deendayalji's humility and dedication are a legion and it is impossible to recall them within the short space of an editorial of a fortnightly magazine. However, the picture of Deendayalji that always comes to mind is that of a man who had to join politics against his inner call-he always wanted to remain a Sangh Pracharak - and a stickler for propriety and duty. Who else but Deendayalji would have chosen a furnace - like dharamshala in Kota city of Rajasthan to hold the working committee meeting of the Jana Sangh with a strict taboo on any member staying in a hotel?

Who else would have defended the coalition including the communists in Bihar in 1967 inspite of mutual dislike of the two parties on the ground that if social untouchablity was reprehensible, so was political untouchability ? Few would recall that the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia was a friend of Deendayalji and the two together had even issued a joint statement in favour of an Indo-Pak confederation?

Deendayalji's lasting contribution to India's political thought process undoubtedly is his thesis on Integral Humanism, which rises over all contemporary political philosophies and will remain a matter of research by students and academicians alike.

We had paid tributes to Deendayalji with a special issue on Antyodaya, again Deendayji's contribution to politico-economic lexicon, last year. We once again pay our humble respect to this extraordinary leader of a political mission called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh- Bharatiya Janta Party.

—Arabinda Ghose