Nearly 80 to 90 per cent of those who had participated were from my class. Hence when he came to our class I told him that I was one of those boys. He asked me who were the others, but I refused to divulge their names. He then asked me to come out of the class and took me with him to find out how far the school authorities were behind it. I assured him that they had nothing to do with our activities and that we were doing things by ourselves. I thought that Narullah would rusticate me. But, on the contrary, he let me go with the advice that I should not bring the school into trouble by holding such activities within its precincts." Such advice, however, could have had no effect on Yeshwantrao who enjoyed picketing liquor-shops and organizing boycott of foreign goods. The greater the risk the more he enjoyed it.
Leader of Youth
Because of all these traits Yeshwantrao was respected by his compatriots; and being friendly by nature he was adored by the younger group. In consequence, his popularity increased and soon engulfed the whole of Karad. The authorities became alarmed and even before he was sixteen he was put in prison. Yeshwantrao recalls: "I was in prison for a few weeks only. Our batch included the sons of some local pleaders. Their fathers started defending their sons' cases. As a result I also had to remain an under-trial prisoner for some time. But soon thereafter the Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed and the cases against all of us were withdrawn." To his mother these developments came as a great shock. She wanted Yeshwantrao to study and obtain some Government job. To quote Yeshwantrao, "Particularly as my elder brother was a Government servant she was anxious that I must follow his example. My brother naturally disfavoured my activities. Mother had some argument with him; but I explained to her that I was not doing anything wrong. I gave her the examples of Shivaji, Tilak and other leaders. She softened and realised that there was something in what I said. She, therefore, told my brother that what I was doing cannot be a bad thing."
In 1932 Yeshwantrao courted his second arrest at the hands of the British. That was due to the sudden starting of the 1932 Movement. He had become by then a confirmed agitator with a sense of triumph. He was one of the most popular men in Karad and round about, and hence people started inviting him to neighbouring villages to address political gatherings. Therefore, as soon as the movement began the authorities arrested him. About it Yeshwantrao writes: "They found a bulletin on my person and they prosecuted me. I pleaded guilty and I was sentenced to eighteen months' rigorous imprisonment. I was lodged in a camp jail at Yeravada near Poona. I remember I was in that jail for a few months, and then along with others I was transferred to another jail. That jail became a sort of a community centre, as good as a university. There were people from Bombay, Poona and several other parts of Maharashtramen like S. M. Joshi, P. S. Patwardhan, and even leaders from Gujarat and Karnatak. It was there that I came in contact with S. M. Joshi for the first time. He was a known leader of the Youth Movement. All of us used to gather together, have discussions and even hold lectures. There used to be some sort of a study circle, and we managed to build up a library of good books and secretly circulated them among the inmates. I remember how people from Bombay supplied us a large number of books. These helped us greatly in understanding the political problems."