The seer catapulted to the national scene in the early 1960s when then RSS Sarsanghchalak M S Golwalkar and Swami Chinmayanand sought his advice for the establishment of Vishwa Hindu Parishad
UDUPI: Pejawar seer, who came from Udupi, a small town, made his way to the national scene over a half a century ago, became an icon of Hindu religion and played a significant role in all the major movements related to Hinduism.
The seer catapulted to the national scene in the early 1960s when then RSS Sarsanghchalak M S Golwalkar and Swami Chinmayanand sought his advice for the establishment of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Incidentally, he was the last founding member of VHP to pass away.
The first time he was known all over the country was in 1968 with his slogan at the regional conference of VHP held in Ujire of Dakshina Kannada. The slogan “All Hindus are brothers, my job is to protect Hindus and no Hindu should remain backward” reverberated across the country after it made to the cover pages of most of the newspapers across the country. “Because of this, the scope of his influence spread and also respect from people. It was because of this reason that though he wrote two letters to then PM Indira Gandhi condemning the imposition of national emergency, she did not dare to touch him,” said Vasudev Bhat, the seer’s disciple.
Unlike other seers, the Pejawar seer had the great ability to reach out to people without being confined to the restrictions followed by religious leaders. He played a major role in bringing different Hindu sects and also seers and religious leaders under one banner to fight for the protection of Hindu religion. Some of the major movements in which he was actively involved were related to cow protection, anti-conversion, protection of Rama Setu, Save Tirupati, Ram Janmabhoomi, eradicating untouchability etc.
Whenever he sensed threat to the Hindu culture, he was among the first to protest it besides guiding the community in the right direction. His words carried weight because of the huge respect he would command from his sea of followers.
