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When Pandurang Athavale spoke about bhakti (belief in God) being a social force and an effective healer at a conference of philosophers in Japan in 1954, the participants were stunned. Coming as it did in the gloomy post-atom bomb era, the speech set everyone thinking. One American even invited him to the US to spread the philosophy, promising him great returns. But Athavale, better known as Shastri Dada, refused saying he had a more pressing agenda: he had to carry his message—largely derived from the Bhagwad Gita—to one lakh villages in India.

Last week, as over 10 lakh of his one crore followers from different parts of the world gathered on the banks of the Narmada at Kadod village in Bharuch district to celebrate his 80th birthday, Athavale knew his task was complete. Around 40,000 youth—clad in blue and white costumes with colourful balloons in hand—of the Swadhyaya Parivar, Athavale's movement, swayed in acknowledgement, their pyramid dance as well choreographed as their reformed lives.

Athavale's followers—they largely comprise the weaker sections like harijans, fishermen and the backward caste Vaghris—periodically donate a part of their income, however small, to those who are in greater need. The offerings are made through a series of voluntary schemes devised by Athavale.

Fishermen on the western coast, not just in Gujarat but also in pockets of neighbouring Goa and Maharashtra, swear by the philosophy. They recite the daily Trikaal Sandhya (a set of three mantras) and have given up liquor, a drastic change considering that many of them were hardcore drinkers, even addicts, till just a few years ago. Says one of them, Ganapatbhai Patel: "Today many of us recite Sanskrit shlokas better than pandits. Dada's teachings have freed us from vices. He has given us self-dignity."

Values Mean a Lot
When fishermen of a village near Valsad were once offered money by Sukurnarain Bakhia, a notorious smuggler, for the local Krishna temple, they flatly refused, saying it had been earned through dishonest means.

The fishermen did Athavale proud even last week: they used all their resources and put up a bridge over the river Narmada to facilitate those coming to Kadod for the anniversary celebrations. When the function was planned more than a year ago tenders were invited for the bridge. One, which came from a group of private engineers, was valued at Rs 1 crore. Another pegged the cost at Rs 40 lakh. Furious, the Swadhayi fishermen offered to build the bridge at no cost. And a few days before the function, they put up not one, but two makeshift boat bridges. As many as 225 boats were put together with metal sheets placed over them. The resultant bridges were strong enough to carry even four-wheelers.

It was in the early 1970s that Athavale first met the fishermen. In a decade's time they had become experts on Sanskriti (culture) and in the recitation of mantras. The next step for Dada was to inculcate in them a spirit of sacrifice. A novel scheme called the Matsyagadha project was devised for the purpose. Under this, fishermen take turns to spare one working day in a fortnight to catch fish using a boat that is revered as a temple. The proceeds from the sale of the fish are donated to the community.

Two other projects of the parivar are the Yogeshwarkrishi and Shreedarshanam . Under these, farmers till land together and use the returns for social service. While the first is on a small scale, the second involves farmers from around 20 or so villages.

Like the fishermen, diamond polishers and salt workers too have their own schemes to help those around them. Besides monetary donations, those Swadhayis coming from the upper classes are encouraged to regularly interact with people from the lower classes. This extends to even sharing meals.
"The Parivar is neither a movement nor a cult," explains Hasmukh Modi, an Ahmedabad-based management consultant and an old Swadhayi. "It's a living philosophy that has narrowed the gap between the low and the high classes by bringing about an attitudinal change."

It is this outlook that those like Modi hope will see them through even after Athavale, who is crippled by various surgeries and a failing memory, withdraws from the helm. His successor and daughter, Jayshree Didi, is largely seen as a good organiser, but lacking in spiritual depth. She is also accused of operating with a coterie which in turn has made her virtually unapproachable to the lower rung of swadhayis and mediapersons. Even last week, there were murmurs that the only ones who got to meet her were the NRI swadhayis who had come from the US, UK and other foreign countries.

But Modi dismisses such observations: "Didi is easily accessible. It is her emphasis on discipline that is being misconstrued." Athavale, he reminds those around him, had preached and practised character building, not character assassination.

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