Mr. Y. B. Chavan A Tribute
R. Rangarajan
(Chief of Bureau, Andhra Jyoti)
To think of Mr. Y. B. Chavan is to recapture the Nehru ear, a golden chapter in free India' history. Named by Gandhiji himself as his successor, Pandit Nehru had inspired the younger generation during the days of the freedom struggle to great heights of excellence and endeavour. After independence, Nehru also became the builder of modern India along the path of democratic socialism. Mr. Chavan was one of the post-independence Congress leaders who had fully imbided Nehru's ideas of socialistic reconstruction of the Indian economy. Chavan was also a Gandhian in the sense that he was wedded to Spartan simplicity. He believed in a life style necessary for total identification with the common man. At the same time, he was a modernist in that he realised the value of applying science and technology to rebuild the age-old feudal economy of India. He also inherited the virtues of Sardar Patel, hailed as the Bismarck of India, who brought about the integration of 600 and odd princely States with the rest of the country. Mr. Chavan believed in down-to earth pragmatism like the Sardar and in hard work and strong discipline in building the Congress organisation. To sum up, Mr. Chavan represented an ensemble of the quintessence of Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar Patel.
Chavan started his political career as an apprentice of Mr. Morarji Desai, then heading the bilingual Bombay State with Vidarbha. With his help, he got the better or senior leaders like Bahusaheb Hirey. But his depth of intellect and breadth of vision manifested themselves only after he assumed the stewardship of bigger bilingual Bombay encomposing Gujarat, Maharashtra and Vidarbha. a thorough democrat who always had his pulse on the people's mood, it did not take him long to realise that the set-up he was heading had lost the confidence of the people. After losing three successive by-elections to the State Legislature, Mr. Chavan moved post-haste for the creation of a unibilingual State of Maharashtra. This led to some strain temporarily between him and his mentor, Mr. Morarji Desai. But Mr. Chavan believed in the maxim of "the voice of the people is the voice of God". Future historians would certainly recall the timely contribution he made in freeing his people from the psychological suffocation of being dominated by other powerful linguistic groups in what was their own homeland - Gujaratis, Marwadis, Parsis and the like. The inclusion of Bombay City within Maharashtra on payment of Rs.43 crores of compensation to Gujarat over a ten-year period was also a big feather in Chavan's cap.
Chavan knew no respite from then on and toiled and moiled for the amelioration of the lot of his people. The co-operativisation, if I may use the word, of large areas of the State economy - agricultural operations, agro-based industries and other processing activities - he brought about mark him out as an unrivalled social engineer of the Nehru ear. Chavan was a great dreamer and great builder. He also drew inspiration from yet another stalwart, - Mr. M. N. Roy - who had renounced his faith in Communism and became an advocate of full participatory democracy. It would be no unmerited eulogy to say that during his region, the people of Maharashtra rose in stature and the State became the beaconlight of progress for the rest of India.