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Keeping Vibrant The Spirit Of Freedom > Page1
The Spirit of freedom Dr. Hedgewar had embodied in himself and had infused in the Swayamsevaks has continued to blaze radiantly. Several have been the occasions when this quality has come to the fore-both when the British were ruling and after they left.
By the early forties, the war took an adverse turn for the British. Shri Guruji had just assumed the leadership of Sangh. The heavy burden of building up the organisation fell upon him. The urgent and paramount task of mobilising and training the Hindu youth brooked no delay. His hurricane tours over large parts of the country began. His clarion call rang forth to the heroic children of Bharat. Life's fulfilment lay, he would exhort, in offering one's whole being at the altar of Motherland in the full bloom of one's youth. The message went home. Hundreds of young Swayamsevaks gave up their studies, left their hearths and homes and began spreading the message of national emancipation through Sangh.
The launching of the 1942 'Quit India' agitation by the Congress proved more like a sporadic outburst than as an organised and well-planned rebellion. There was no prior consultation by the Congress with other organised, patriotic groups like the Sangh. Nevertheless, several Sangh workers took active part in it. They played a notable role in Chimur in the famous Ashti Chimur rebellion in Vidarbha. The British fury in suppressing it was unparalleled. The putting out of action of the Delhi Muzaffarnagar railway line was the handiwork of young men from Delhi, mostly Swayamsevaks. While Nana Patil of Patri Sarkar fame in Maharashtra was sheltered by Pandit S. D. Satwalekar, the celebrated Vedic scholar and Sanghachalak of Aundh, Sane Guruji, an underground Socialist leader, was under the protective wings of Pune Sanghachalak Bhausaheb Deshmukh. Inside the capital Delhi itself, Jayaprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali took asylum with Lala Hansraj Gupta, the Delhi and Punjab Sanghachalak.
Author : H.V. Seshadri
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