It was shocking to hear the sad news of the demise of nonagenarian Swami Akshay Brahmachari, a freedom fighter and Gandhian, through an email from Syed Shahabuddin, President All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat.
It is disturbing that no national newspaper of repute has covered the news of the demise of one of the last few surviving true Gandhians who dedicated their lives to truth and justice and were pillars of secular movement in India.
A majority of the young Congressmen and the activists of the fragile secular movement in India would not be able to recall the services of Akshay Brahmachari if or when somebody mentions his name before them.
Many would wonder who Akshay Brahmachari was. We are living in an age in which we are not even ready to recall and praise the services of the leaders who have selflessly worked for the nation, with the exception of those in the category of the ruling elites, even after their demise.
Swami Akshay Brahmachari and Syed Shahabuddin have one commonality between them – their concern for the restoration of Babri Masjid to its original status. Both have been associated with the Babri Masjid Movement, former since the conspiracy to install the idols in the premises of Babri Mosque in December 1949 and the latter for his association with mass agitation by Muslims on the issue of Babri Mosque since mid eighties. Brahmachari agitated in his prime youth as a true follower of Gandhi and Syed Shahabuddin joined the joint initiative of the Muslim leadership, as an M.P. in the second half of the eighties.
Throughout his life, Akshay Brahmachari lived as a true disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. He actively participated in Quit India Movement and his life was an epitome of humility and he untiringly worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. He was associated with Vedanta traditions of Hinduism and was the head of his small Ashram situated outside Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh.
I had the privilege of meeting him, listening to his speeches and receiving his responses to my letters. When the National Integration Council was freezed, for the reasons best known to the BJP-led Government under Atal Behari Vajpayee, Swami Akshay Brahmachari was one of the initiators who encouraged me to explore possibilities to initiate the process of Peoples’ Integration Council and sent Rs. 1100 as his contribution to the cause.
I still recall Akshay’s pain and anguish when he spoke in a seminar organised by the Milli Jamiat Ulama e Hind in late eighties, a faction of Jamiat Ulama led by Late Syed Ahmed Hashmi, about breaking his month-long fast at the Congress headquarters in Lucknow to demand the restoration of Babri Masjid to Muslims in Ayodhya, in September 1950, after the assurance of speedy “restoration of the Babri Mosque to Muslims of Faizabad” by none other than the then Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh province, Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who later became Prime Minister of India.
He regretted that had he not broken the fast, he would not have lived to see the day when the Masjid was unlocked for the regular puja by the Faizabad court.
He was the first visionary leader of India who visualised that the whole conspiracy to put idols of Ram Lalla in the Babri Mosque would snowball into a major confrontation between the Hindus and the Muslims and would shake the very foundations of the secular fabric of the nation.
It was not easy for anyone to raise voice of dissent against the majoritarianism and demand justice for Muslims in the vicious atmosphere, just after two years of the partition of India. He was a courageous leader of his time who was endowed with extraordinary vision and broadmindedness. As General Secretary of Congress Party of District Faizabad, he had informed Constable Mata Prasad, District Magistrate of Faizabad, and the then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru about the conspiracy to install the idols in Babri Masjid.
Akshay Brahamachari not only took stand against the majoritarian mentality but had resorted to hunger strike in Faizabad way back in January 1950 for the restoration of Babri Masjid, and the removal of the idols from the Mosque. One should not forget that in spite of being an important office bearer of the ruling Congress Party, Akshay Brahamachari was the first known face of the “Movement for the restoration of Babri Masjid” to Muslims.
He was the lone torch bearer of justice, as none of his colleagues in District Unit of the Congress Party was willing to support his stand. After his hunger strike in Lucknow, the Congress considered him a liability and he was removed from the post of General Secretary. His house was ransacked and attacked not once but thrice. But all that did not deter him from taking stand for justice.
He exchanged letters on the issue with different leaders and in one his letters sent to Lal Bahadur Shastri, Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh province in 1950, he wrote, “It (the dispute) is yet a historical question. But even after the question is decided on historical data, the problem as to what should be done with such places has to be decided on the basis of fundamental principles.”
If he had not taken a stand for justice, he might have gone up on the ladder of success in his political life but he chose the path dictated by his conscience and that made him politically unsuccessful.
With his death on April 28, 2010, the country has lost another Gandhian leader, the secular movement lost a strong pillar and it marks end of a chapter in the struggle for justice.
[The writer is Member, National Integration Council, and Secretary, South Asian Council for Minorities]