SECTION 6. A RARE NATIONAL LEADER 

A Rare National Leader (Vasant Sathe)

Nineteen Eighty-Five is the Silver Jubilee Year of the State of Maharashtra and while we were holding celebrations in Maharashtra and outside, the one person we missed was Yashwantrao Chavan who had unfortunately passed away only a few months before.  In mid 50's it is difficult indeed to recall the turmoil that had overtaken Western India because of the agitation for a Sanyukt Maharashtra.  Almost all major political parties were vertically split on the issue.  Sentiments ran high clouding reason and the ultimate objective before the nation.  It was indeed difficult to be guided by principles because it was emotion which had become the guiding factor.

In the midst of all this turmoil and unrest, one man - only one man - stood like a rock and had the courage to declare that if the choice was between Sanyukt Maharashtra and Jawahar Lal Nehru, he would unhesitatingly follow Panditji.  This did not mean that he was less committed than anybody else to the cause of Sanyukt Maharashtra.  He believed in it ardently but wanted the new State to be born not as the child of disruption and unrest but as a child born of love and affection with goodwill from everyone.  He suffered lot of humiliation at the hands of people who were in a hurry.  He faced all that and ultimately when he succeeded, he was acclaimed even by his bitterest critics as the maj who had brought the 'Mangalkalash' of Sanyukt Maharashtra.

The task before him, as the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra and as Congress leader, was much more difficult than was his task as the Chief Minister of bilingual Bombay.  The Congress organisation was in shambles.  The party had suffered heavily in Western Maharashtra and Bombay during the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections in 1957.  The administration had also suffered.  Development had taken the back place.  But much worse were the wounds caused by almost three years of incessant agitation.  It needed the healing touch of a physician to heal these wounds and it needed all the skills of a maste craftsman to put the economy, industry and agriculture of the State back on the rails.

The success that he achieved in all these tasks was remarkable indeed.  Persons who had left the Congress organisation during the Sanyukt Maharashtra agitation were brought back.  The co-operative movement was strengthened as a major tool of socio-economic transformation of rural areas.  Industry was assured that it would get the necessary opportunity to prosper, labour was promised a fair deal.  Vidarbha and Marathwada which had apprehensions about their development found that the young Chief Minister was keen and committed to the development of whole of Maharashtra.  With his dynamism and pragmatic approach he laid the solid foundation of agricultural and industrial revolution in Maharashtra.  He accorded the highest priority to economic planning with emphasis on labour intensive techniques of production and development of small scale cottage and agro-based industries.

Yashwantrao Chavan was a keen student of Political Science, History, Literature and Fine Arts.  It was this grounding which helped him to understand and analyse political, administrative and other issues, in their proper perspective.