Deendayal Upadhyaya

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya
President of Bharatiya Jana Sangh
In office 1967–1968
Preceded by	Balraj Madhok
Succeeded by	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Personal details
Born	(1916-09-25)25 September 1916 Chandrabhan, Uttar Pradesh, India
Died	11 February 1968(1968-02-11) (aged 51) Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh, India
Nationality	Indian
Political party	Bharatiya Jana Sangh
Alma mater	Sanatan Dharma College
Occupation	Politician

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay (25 September 1916 – 11 February 1968) was an RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of Bharatiya Janata Party. He became president of the Jana Sangh in December 1967. His tenure did not play any bigger role. He contested the Lok Sabha election and lost. He was killed in a train theft incident and was found dead on February 11, 1968 on a railway track near Mughalsarai Junction railway station.^[1]

Early life and education

He was born in 1916 in the village Chandrabhan, now called Deendayal Dham, near the Farah town in Mathura District, 26 km away from Mathura. His father, Bhagwati Prasad, was an astrologer and his mother Rampyari was religious. Both his parents died when he was eight years old and he was brought up by his maternal uncle.^[2] His education was under the guardianship of his maternal uncle and aunt. He went to high school in Pilani Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan where he matriculated. He did Intermediate at the Birla College in Pilani. He did his B. A. at the Sanatan Dharma College, Kanpur in 1939. He joined St. John's College, Agra to pursue a master's degree in English literature but did not complete his master's degree. He then joined Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh as it's full-time worker, called Pracharak.

RSS and Jana Sangh

While he was a student at Sanatan Dharma College, Kanpur in 1937, he came into contact with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) through his classmate Baluji Mahashabde. He met the founder of the RSS, K. B. Hedgewar, who engaged with him in an intellectual discussion at one of the shakhas. Sunder Singh Bhandari was also one of his classmates at Kanpur. He started full-time work in the RSS from 1942. He had attended the 40-day summer vacation RSS camp at Nagpur where he underwent training in Sangh Education. After completing second-year training in the RSS Education Wing, Upadhyaya became a lifelong pracharak of the RSS. He worked as the pracharak for the Lakhimpur district and, from 1955, as the joint prant pracharak (regional organiser) for Uttar Pradesh. He was regarded as an ideal swayamsevak of the RSS essentially because ‘his discourse reflected the pure thought-current of the Sangh’.^[3]

He started the monthly Rashtra Dharma from Lucknow in the 1940s. The publication was meant for spreading the ideology of Hindutva nationalism. He did not have his name printed as editor in any of its issues. Later he started the weekly Panchjanya and the daily Swadesh.^[4]

In 1951, when Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Deendayal was seconded to the party by the RSS, tasked with moulding it into a genuine member of the Sangh Parivar. He was appointed as General Secretary of its Uttar Pradesh branch, and later the all-India General Secretary. For 15 years, he remained the outfit's general secretary. He also contested for Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, but failed to attract significant political traction and did not get elected.

Upadhyaya edited Panchjanya (weekly) and Swadesh (daily) from Lucknow. In Hindi, he wrote a drama on Chandragupta Maurya, and later wrote a biography of Shankaracharya. He translated a Marathi biography of Hedgewar.

Philosophy and social thought

Upadhyaya conceived the political philosophy Integral Humanism. This philosophy advocates the simultaneous and integrated program of the body, mind and intellect and soul of each human being. His philosophy of Integral Humanism is a synthesis of the material and the spiritual, the individual and the collective. He visualised for India a decentralised polity and self-reliant economy with the village as the base.

Deendayal Upadhyaya was convinced that India as an independent nation could not rely upon Western concepts like individualism, democracy, socialism, communism or capitalism and was of the view that the Indian polity after Independence has been raised upon these superficial Western foundations and not rooted in the traditions of India's ancient culture. He was of the view that the Indian intellect was getting suffocated by Western theories, which left a "roadblock" to the growth and expansion of original Bharatiya (Sanskrit: "of Bharat" [India]) thought. Upadhyay tried to answer what he felt was the urgent need in India for a "fresh breeze".

He welcomed modern technology but wanted it to be adapted to suit Indian requirements. He believed in Swaraj ("self-governance").

Death

In December 1967, Upadhyaya was elected president of the Jana Sangh. In the evening of 10 February 1968, at Lucknow he boarded the Sealdah Express for Patna. The train reached Mughalsarai at about 2:10 AM but Upadhyaya was not found on the train.^[1] He was murdered under mysterious circumstances on 11 February 1968 while travelling. His body was found near Mughalsarai railway station in Uttar Pradesh^[5][6] 10 minutes after the train arrived. His body was lying near a traction pole 748 feet from the end of the platform of Mughalsarai station where the train halted. He was clutching a five-rupee note in his hand. He was last seen alive at Jaunpur after midnight.^[1]

The CBI investigation team claimed that Upadhyay had been pushed out of the coach by robbers just before the train entered the Mughalsarai station.^[7] A passenger named M.P. Singh travelling in the adjoining cabin of the same coach had seen a man (later identified as Bharat Lal) enter Upadhyaya's cabin at Mughalsarai and walk off with his file and bedding.^[1] CBI later arrested Bharat Lal and his associate Ram Awadh in the case and charged them with murder and theft. As per CBI, they confessed to pushing Updadhyay out of the train after he caught them stealing his bag. Upadhyaya had threatened to report them to the police. However, the two accused were acquitted of the murder charges for lack of evidence.^[7] Bharat Lal alone was convicted of the theft of the belongings of the deceased. He appealed to the Allahabad High Court. The sessions judge had remarked in his judgment that "the offence of murder not having been proved against the accused, the problem of truth about the murder still remains".^[1]

Over 70 MPs demanded a commission of inquiry to uncover the truth. The Government of India agreed to this promptly and appointed Justice Y.V. Chandrachud of Bombay High Court as the sole member of the commission.^[1] Justice Chandrachud reported his findings "That Shri Upadhyaya was pushed out of the running train when he was standing near the door of the I Class compartment of the F.C.T. Bogie"; that he dashed against the traction pole and "died an instantaneous death"; and the injuries on his body were caused in a single transaction and were such as could not have been caused inside the compartment. Justice also held that the murder "was accompanied by an immediate theft, which shows that the two are part and parcel of the same transaction." Finally, the judge observed: "I can say with a certain amount of confidence that nothing that has come before me can support the accusation that there was any politics in Shri Upadhyaya’s murder. Undoubtedly, he had political rivals but his death is the rash and extempore handiwork of mere thieves." The CBI he said had conducted the investigation with care and objectivity.^[1]

In 2017, Upadhyay's niece and several politicians have demanded a fresh probe in his murder.^[8]

Legacy

Since 2016 the BJP government under PM Modi named several public institutions after him.^[9][10] In Delhi, a road/marg has been named after Upadhaya.

In August 2017, the BJP state government in UP proposed renaming of Mughalsarai station in honour of Upadhyay as his dead body was found near it.^[9] Opposition parties protested this move in the Parliament of India. The Samajwadi Party protested with a statement that the station was being renamed after someone "who had made “no contribution to the freedom struggle".^[11]

The Deen Dayal Research Institute deals with queries on Upadhyaya and his works.^[12]

See also

• Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana
• Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana
• Deen Dayal Antyoday Upchar Yojna

References

Sources

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