Swami Agnivesh Religious people can be quite scary, especially nowadays. Swami Agnivesh was a religious person in the genuine sense of the term. He loved people. He stood for what was right. He gathered enemies because he was a good man. Today [Sep 11] is his third death anniversary. I met Swami Agnivesh personally only once. It was some 20 years ago when he visited the school where I was teaching in Delhi as the chief guest on the occasion of Independence Day or Republic Day. I had no idea what kind of a person he was until then. His speech on the occasion struck a chord with me. When words come from the heart, they are powerfully eloquent. Swami Agnivesh’s speech had the power to stir the depths within. Here was a man for whom religion was a matter of action rather than prayers and rituals. Swami Agnivesh was a champion of social justice and communal harmony. Ramachandra Guha described him as a man of “steely courage and enormous compassion.” That was the most apt description o...
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