“I changed roads. I did not change questions.”

1956

Birth — Garoth, Mandsaur district

Born on 5 December 1956 in Garoth, district Mandsaur. His mother was Shrimati Menabai and his father Shri Badrilal Rammuji. His grandfather came originally from Kotputli in Rajasthan, and settled in Garoth.

Year unverified

Schooling — and a hunger for books

Up to class eleven at the government school in Garoth. He studied for his B.Com and MBA at home, sitting only for the examinations. From childhood he had a hunger for books. 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.

• Chapter 19

Year unverified

Fifteen years old — and the boycott

He stood against the exploitative order of his community from childhood. At fifteen he rose in the community panchayat against one of its decisions, and told its contractors to their faces that their verdicts were swayed by a shoe made of silver. He was cast out of the community. He was asked to apologise. He accepted the boycott — he did not apologise.

• Chapter 27
• Chapter 30

1975

The Emergency — and the years underground

When the Emergency was declared in 1975, 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 of the Emergency in hiding — in towns such as Lahar, Datia, Ron and Guna. In those years he came into contact with the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini founded by Jayaprakash Narayan, and became active in it.

• Chapter 19
• Chapter 22

Year unverified

Janvadi Yuva Shakti — state president

After the Emergency, the Congress leader and Union Minister Shri Chandrajit Yadav left the party and formed the Janvadi Party. Madan Agrawal was made Madhya Pradesh state president of its youth wing, Janvadi Yuva Shakti. He held many public assemblies, on the pattern of a people's court.

• Chapter 19
• Chapter 21

Year unverified

Garoth–Bhanpura — the bribes returned

With S. N. Purohit, then a labour leader in Nagda, and other companions, he had bribes taken by officials in the Garoth–Bhanpura region returned to the people who had paid them.

• Chapter 21

Year unverified

From the visitors' gallery of the Assembly

In protest against being harassed and arrested by a police officer, he and his companions threw leaflets and raised slogans from the visitors' gallery of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly.

• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22

1984

Marriage — in a plain kurta-pyjama

He married Shrimati Vidya Agrawal, daughter of Shri Radhakrishna Agrawal of Piparia, a freedom fighter. When he went in his own wedding procession in 1984, he wore only a plain kurta and pyjama, while everyone else in the party had dressed up. It caused no little confusion: nobody took him for the groom, and because of his clothes people kept mistaking one guest after another for him.

• Chapter 8
• Chapter 30

Year unverified

Those who shaped him

It began with the writings of Marx, Lenin and the Buddha. He came into contact with thinkers of the Lohia school. And he was drawn, too, to much in Baba Amte, Gandhi and Vinoba.

• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20

Year unverified

Sannyas — and the same question

From the red flag to saffron cloth — only the road changed. The question stayed.

• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26

Still neededThe year of sannyas, the tradition, and under whose guidance — this is not yet on record.

Year unverified

Vicharon Ka Vidroh

Eight parts, forty-eight chapters. Two questions at the end of each — the book does not answer them.

Still neededYear of publication and publisher still to be confirmed.