This was the time of March 1964. Dattopant Thengadi, founder of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, received a message from Guru Golwalkar through Deendayal Upadhyay of Jan Sangh that he should immediately file his nomination for Rajya Sabha from Lucknow. Dattopant, a celibate preacher who had taken a vow to sacrifice everything for the country and the Sangh, was shocked. His organization Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) neither had anything to do with politics nor did he have any desire.
But since it was the message of the Sangh chief, there was no question of not accepting it. He filed nomination papers and also became a Rajya Sabha MP. At that time Guru Golwalkar was also asked why he was sending Rajya Sabha? So his laughing reply was, “Go, give a speech, rest, you have worked hard”. But he knew Guru Golwalkar that any decision taken by him was very far-reaching and well thought out. Then one day when I met Guru Golwalkar in Nagpur in my free time, I asked him.
Guru Golwalkar’s answer was long. “I think that those in power will be tempted to impose dictatorship on this country. In my view, the situation will become so serious that no party in the country will be in a position to resist on its own. Everyone will be afraid of repression. In such a situation, the people of the opposition will be forced to think that all the opposition parties should unite against the dictatorship. It is true that there are serious differences within the opposition parties themselves, but the circumstances will force them to think that first we will try to suppress the dictatorship. Let us unite, later we can consider our internal differences”.
This answer shows how far ahead Guru Golwalkar was thinking. Till then, Indira Gandhi had not even emerged properly, but she started feeling that if not today then tomorrow these people would impose dictatorship. That is why he further told Thengadi that you will remain there as an independent and will increase relations with all the opposition parties except Congress, so that if you want to unite in future, it can be easy. And this happened, even though Guru Golwalkar was no more, but during the Emergency, Dattopant Thengadi, after the arrest of the prominent leaders, played a big role in forming the Joint Struggle Committee and taking support of the other opposition leaders, especially when his seniors were arrested. By then good friendly relations had been formed in each of his parties and this came in handy on such occasions. He also played a role in forming the Janata Party government.
Took training in enemy camp
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh This question may arise in the minds of many who knew the greats of that time that why only Dattopant Thengadi was chosen for this work? For this, you have to understand the amazing feat of Dattopant Thengadi, which he did in the few years before the establishment of the labor organization Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
Thengadi was born in 1920 in Arvi village of Wardha (Maharashtra) on 10 November, Diwali. Father was a lawyer and mother Janaki Devi was a woman with spiritual interest who was a great devotee of Lord Dattatreya. He also had a younger brother and a younger sister. From the very beginning he used to lead his fellow children. At the age of 15, he became the president of the children’s organization Vanar Sena. In 1936, Maurice came to Nagpur to study in college and joined a revolutionary organization there. Since childhood, Dattopant also used to go to the Sangh branch. Moropant Pingle was his classmate and also the main teacher of the branch, so he completed all the three education classes of the Sangh under his guidance. He also got the opportunity to meet and talk to Dr. Hedgewar.
When in 1942 Guru Golwalkar appealed to the youth to give a few years to the Sangh and come out as preachers, it also affected Dattopant Thengadi. On 22 March 1942, he was sent as a preacher to Calicut in Kerala. In three years, he established a lot of Sangh’s work in that difficult area. From there he was sent to Calcutta in 1945. Seeing his work, in 1948 he was made the preacher of Bengal as well as Assam province. This was the period when the Sangh was banned after Gandhi’s assassination. In such a situation, Dattopant also had to come back.
Every story of this special series related to hundred years of RSS
The next phase was of hiding, doing Satyagraha, arrests etc. In such a situation, he got a chance to join another organization, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. After its establishment on July 9, 1949, the hiding leaders of the Sangh created a platform for the meeting. Everyone took positions in ABVP or its related projects. Dattopant Thengadi was also made the state president of Vidarbha region. Due to this, these people were saved from arrests. In between, he was also associated with the news agency ‘Hindustan Samachar’.
Vidyarthi Parishad had started many types of public awareness programs during the ban period on the union. During the same programs, he met PY Deshpande, state president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC). This meeting gradually turned into friendship. Although the Sangh leaders had already been involved in the Congress movements, it was not a surprise to join their labor organization, but Guru Golwalkar wanted Dattopant to understand the working style of not only the Congress but also the Communist and Socialist labor unions before starting his own organization. Dattopant joined INTUC and worked diligently and gradually 9 unions associated with INTUC also made him their office bearer. In October 1950, he had become a member of the National Executive of INTUC. He was also given the responsibility of the post of State Organization Minister of INTUC of Madhya Pradesh.
It is also important to know the mantras of Guru Golwalkar.
CP Bhishikar has written in his book ‘Shri Guruji- Pioneer of A News Era’ the suggestions which he gave to Thengadi before joining INTUC, follow the discipline of the organization wholeheartedly, this should be your first priority. If there is a conflict between their discipline and your conscience, then resign immediately.
Do a comparative study of Gandhiji’s and Marx’s views on trade unions, work and study should go together, study is also necessary to maintain your mental balance. Also study communist trade unions. Always stay with a laborer during your journey, know how they live. If we cannot live with a poor person, cannot understand the realities of their life and cannot reach their mental level. You have become a member of the National Council as a representative of 30,000 workers, now give me a simple and honest answer, do you love all these workers the same way your mother loved you? While working for Congress as a weaver, never think of political gain…consider this community as an economic community and treat everyone equally without thinking whether someone is upper caste, or Harijan or Muslim. Just think of the problems the weavers face. In the economic sector there are also organizations like Scheduled Caste Federation and All India Landless Workers Organization. If the economic aspect is kept in mind, these organizations will also opt for integration with other landless workers, and this will also help in reducing mutual hatred and bitterness.”
Following the advice of Guru Golwalkar, after INTUC, Dattopant Thengadi joined the communist-influenced All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and was its provincial organization minister from 1952 to 1955. In 1954-55, he was the President of the Central Circle of the postal labor organization called RMS Employees Union. In these seven-eight years, he understood and studied the working methodology of all types of labor organizations. Understand the level of his studies from the fact that he had also visited some communist and some socialist ideology based countries. He understood that most communist organizations took instructions from foreign countries and there was a lack of Indian traditions and subjects. He used to say that the workers of the world should unite and Thengadi used to say that we have to unite the workers of the world.
labor organization talking about india
He was also against blind imitation of the West. Being western does not mean being modern, he believed this. He believed that our generations, who have been born after getting trapped in Macaulay’s trap, consider not only Western food and language but also Western ideas to be much better. They have developed a tendency to consider their culture inferior. There is a need for such a labor organization which will find solutions to the problems of the workers within the scope of India’s lifestyle, culture and traditions and not on the basis of Russia and China. Then the slogan was raised that ‘Leave slavery and say Vande Mataram’. Under his leadership, workers also started raising slogans like ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, which till now was taboo in any trade union. His three-point objective was ‘nationalization of workers, industrialization of the nation and workerization of industries’.
With this idea in mind, he founded a new labor organization in 1955 on the birth anniversary of Lokmanya Tilak i.e. 23rd July, which was named ‘Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh’ i.e. BMS. In this way, he became the person who established the first labor organization which is neither influenced by Marxist ideology nor associated with any other political party. Within three decades, in 1989, the Indian Labor Ministry declared BMS as India’s largest organization on the basis of membership, which is now growing bigger every year. In 1889, its number of 31 lakh members was more than the combined membership of INTUC, CITU and other labor organizations. In 2002 this number had reached 81 lakh.
When Dattopant Thengadi proposed a non-political labor organization in the international meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions held in Moscow, the communists first rejected it. Then Thengadi, by interfering in the international politics of the workers, along with some other labor leaders like him from all over the country and the world, formed a new international organization, ‘General Confederation of World Trade Unions’ and kept its flag white instead of the red flag.
It was due to the successes of the labor union that for the first time the Communist Party of China invited a nationalist organization. On invitation, a delegation led by Thengadi went to China. Then every year a delegation of BMS kept going to China. After returning from China, Dattopant had told that the Chinese trade unions had invited us only after studying our organization extensively.
After the workers, farmers were taken care of
Only after the expansion of the workers’ organization for about 20 years, Dattopant Thengadi started feeling that now there should be an organization of farmers too, which would stand on the basis of Indian knowledge, tradition and culture. Four years later, this dream came into existence and in 1979, an All India Conference of farmers was called on 3-4 March in Kota, Rajasthan and a new farmers’ organization was established, which was named ‘Bharatiya Kisan Sangh’ i.e. BKS. As Thengadi was getting older, he was becoming more aggressive, the policies of the World Trade Organization and the then Dunkel proposal became the reason that Dattopant Thengadi came up with the proposal of another organization, which came to fruition on 22 November 1991. A decade before that, the organizations of Sangh Parivar, BKS, BMS and ABVP had started Swadeshi public awareness.
Command of Swadeshi Jagran Manch handed over to communist face
On 22 November 1991, representatives of five organizations BKS, BMS, ABVP, ABGP (All India Customer Panchayat) and Sahakar Bharti gathered in Nagpur and ‘Swadeshi Jagran Manch’ came into existence. Whose convenor was made a face who was once a staunch communist, Dr. MG Bokare, former Vice Chancellor of Nagpur University. But later his views changed, then he also wrote a book ‘Hindu Economics’. Madan Das Devi, a big face of the Sangh, was named as co-coordinator of the organization. Next year, on the day of Swami Vivekananda Jayanti i.e. 12 January 1992, the first nationwide campaign of Swadeshi Jan Jagran of the Manch started, the rest has become history. His slogan against the World Trade Organization (WTO) became very famous at that time, ‘Leave WTO or break it or fold it’.
Dattopant Thengadi was also Baba Saheb’s election agent.
Very few people know that Dattopant Thengadi had good relations with Baba Saheb Ambedkar from the beginning, so good that Baba Saheb even made him his election agent from Bhandara (Maharashtra) seat during his Lok Sabha election campaign. On 14 April 1983, on the birth anniversary of Baba Saheb, Thengadi founded another organization named ‘Samajik Samrasata Manch’. ‘Sarvapanth Samadar Manch’ in 1991 and ‘Paryavaran Manch’ in 1995 were also started with the inspiration of Thengadi. Dattopant Thengadi left this world in 2004, someone summed up his entire life’s work in one word and gave him a title, which really fits and that is ‘Rashtrarishi’.
When Thengadi rejected the Padma Bhushan award
For years, people keep rubbing their heels in the corridors of power to get them the Padma Award. But in 2003, when the Government of India announced the Padma Bhushan award to Dattopant Thengadi, he flatly refused to accept it. Said that until Dr. Hedgewar and Guru Golwalkar do not get Bharat Ratna. It is not possible for me to accept this award. Anyway, he did not want anything for himself, once he was even offered the post of Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha, but he politely refused.
Back story: Leprosy patient volunteer established 100 acre leprosy ashram with ‘Guru Mantra’
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