Tribute to Bhaiji

Bhai Vaidya (left) with Joshy Jacob and veteran Socialist P. Viswambharan in Kerala on May 4, 2003.
(Image: Aby John Vannilam, MAVELI RAJYAM (CC BY-SA 2.5 IN)

By Joshy Jacob,
Samajwadi Janaparishad National Executive Member and former National President.

My heartfelt condolences on the sad demise of Com Bhai Vaidya.
He joined the socialist movement while a student. He joined the quit India struggle and participated the Goa liberation struggle and tortured and imprisoned. He got physical handicap by the police torture.

He was a close follower of Maharashtra veteran socialist leader S M Joshi. When S M Joshi decided to split from P.S.P. and merge with socialist party led by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia to form the Samyukta Socialist Party (S.S.P.) he also stood with S.S.P. stream.
When the nation was so moved by the student and youth agitation under the leadership of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan Bhaji was the Mayor of the Pine municipal corporation. That time he organised a civic reception to Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan the first such reception in the nation.
He was imprisoned during the emergency when democracy and liberty of the people were oppressed.
Never he compromised with the rulers to be released on the dark days of India.
His colleagues in the jail are including Deoras the then RSS chief apart from tall opposition leaders. He used to tell that at that time Devaras had agreed to open the RSS to people from all faith to make it a real nation building organisation. That would have been changing its communalist ethos and face. But the RSS had arrived at a compromise with the despot ruler Indira Gandhi and got out of the jail. Then all such promises were gone oblivion.
After the emergency in 1977 general election at the centre the Indira Gandhi regime was thrown out by the common people. Then in Maharashtra assembly elections sharad pawar came out from Congress and the Janata Party made an alliance with his party under the banner of PDF. Pawar became the Chief Minister and the second rank Home Ministership was conferred to Bhaiji.
While he was the Home Minister of he traveled not on state car but rode on his scooter. The present rulers barring no party can imagine such way of living.
Once one man secretly came to meet him to gain some illegal thing with lot of money. He called the police and that person was got arrested.
Later he was a staunch supporter of Chandra Shekhar in Janata party. He became national general secretary of that Janata party. He was the main organiser of the Bharat Yates of Chandra Shekhar. He walked down the entire distance from Kanyakumari to Delhi. He was the general secretary in charge of Kerala when there was dispute on the question of ministership in the 1987 Kerala L.D.F. government and the political drama followed. When Syed Shahabuddin got elected to Rajya Sabha from Bihar with the electoral manipulations by Chandra Shekhar aide and mining mafia Suraj Deo Singh, he was the gen. Sec.
Later on he realised the limitations of all the established political parties.
He began to organise the socialists out side such parties and inside them. Under the banner of S M Joshi memorial Forum held several meetings.
While the process of formation of the alternative political party by various people's movements under the leadership of late Kishen Pattnayak was began. The Maharashtra socialists who wanted to form a party came together to form the Socialist Front. The socialist front had began dialogue with us. I also could participate their state conference in May 1993.
Finally it was decided to come together to form a sampark Samiti and then formed the party organising committee.
After discussions and dialogue and joint agitational programme it was decided to form the party Samajwadi Janaparishad on 1st January 1995 at the three day foundation conference held at Thane.

Jugal Kishore Raibir was elected as the president and Bhaiji was elected to the post of General Secretary. I was along with Dr. Swati, Adv. Nisha Shivurkar, Yogendra Yadav and Vishwanath Bagi were elected to the post of secretaries. Our top most leader was Kishen Pattnayak, but he was one of the Vice Presidents along with Prof. Keshav Rao Jadhav and Prof. Vinod Prasad Singh. Gajanan Khatu was the Treasurer.

He was a good General Secretary for the party. He used to travel the length and breadth of the nation in that task. He served for two terms and thereafter became the vice president of the Janaparishad. When he was gone out of completing the two term general secretary post I was asked to offer a vote of thanks to Bhaiji in the National Conference held at Varanasi.

Then he became inactive and undergone a heart surgery.
He also share the traditional socialist views but courageous enough to take a position to discard the established political parties to experiment with the new political path propounded by Samajwadi Janaparishad.
I got many chances to interact and associate closely with him. Meetings, travel, stay together, meeting at his home, discussing political ideologies and he attended my wedding held at my village koodalloor. He was so considerate and loved me. I too loved him very much despite different political perception.

The most memorable occasion with him was when we were arrested at the Enron Satyagraha under the banner of Samajwadi Janaparishad at Guhagar in Konkan we the eighty-two satyagrahis were presented to the Chiplun court Bahiji only spoke for and on behalf of us. We were punished for four or five days as we submitted that we were not prepared to remit the fine amount and prefer to jail as satyagrahis. We were put in the historical Yerawada jail in Pune. There the former home minister of Maharashtra. Bhai Vaidya and we other comrades 82year old comrade from Bihar and small kid around one year old and mother with their leader Ex MLA Shiv Pujan Singh including men and women were in the jail. Bhaji also every morning took bath in common space with we others and washed his cloths.

He was an idealist political leader, non corrupt and dedicated socialist. Above all he was a loving person for me. His contributions will be remembered and inspired the coming generations. His sad demise is a great loss.
We all are expressing our deep condolences to Dr Abhijit, his Sister and other family members.

Joshy Jacob
Tue, 3 Apr 2018