Dharmaguru · Spiritual Thinker · Author · Social Worker
A life committed to carrying dignity, equality and justice all the way to the last person in society.
About the person
At fifteen he told the contractors of his community, in full panchayat, that their verdicts were swayed by a shoe made of silver. He was cast out and asked to apologise; he accepted the boycott and did not apologise. He went underground through the Emergency, became state president of Janvadi Yuva Shakti, and had bribes taken by officials returned to the people. Then from the red flag to saffron cloth — only the road changed; the question stayed. ‘Vicharon Ka Vidroh’ is the account of that question.
Born on 5 December 1956 in Garoth, district Mandsaur, to Shrimati Menabai and Shri Badrilal Rammuji. His grandfather came from Kotputli in Rajasthan and settled in Garoth.
He studied up to class eleven at the government school in Garoth. For his B.Com and MBA he studied at home, sitting only for the examinations.
He read hungrily from childhood. In those years he read Marx, Lenin and the Buddha and was drawn to communism. He came into contact with communist leaders, and with thinkers of the Lohia school.
He was drawn, too, to much in Baba Amte, Gandhi and Vinoba.
He stood against the exploitative order of his community from childhood. At fifteen he rose in the community panchayat against one of its decisions.
He was cast out. He was asked to apologise. He accepted the boycott — he did not apologise.
Your verdicts are swayed by a shoe made of silver.
When the Emergency was declared, his friend and mentor Comrade C. S. Surana was arrested by an administration angered by his raising of public grievances. Madan Agrawal went underground the same day.
He spent the whole Emergency in hiding — in towns such as Lahar, Datia, Ron and Guna. In those years he joined the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini founded by Jayaprakash Narayan, and became active in it.
After the Emergency, Shri Chandrajit Yadav left the Congress and formed the Janvadi Party. Madan Agrawal became Madhya Pradesh state president of its youth wing, Janvadi Yuva Shakti, and held many public assemblies on the pattern of a people's court.
With the Nagda labour leader S. N. Purohit and others, he had bribes taken by officials in the Garoth–Bhanpura region returned to the people who had paid them.
In protest at a police officer's excesses, he and his companions threw leaflets and raised slogans from the visitors' gallery of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly.
He married Shrimati Vidya Agrawal, daughter of Shri Radhakrishna Agrawal of Piparia, a freedom fighter.
When he went in his own wedding procession, he wore a plain kurta and pyjama, while everyone else had dressed up. The confusion lasted a long while. Nobody took him for the groom; because of his clothes, people kept mistaking one guest after another for him.
From the red flag to saffron cloth — only the road changed. The question stayed.
At the centre of his writing is a single insistence: do not accept, test. That insistence runs through his spiritual life, his social work, and every chapter of his book.
My fire did not go out. It changed direction.
Four journeys
Religion is an organisation; the spirit walks alone. His quarrel has never been with God, but with His contractors.
The spiritual journey
My fire did not go out. It changed direction.
People ask — how did a comrade arrive at the spiritual? His answer is that the question itself is wrong. Becoming a swami was not fleeing the world; it was seeing the world with a new eye.
Life journey