Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya as I Knew Him …Memoirs of a Civil Servant By J. C. Pant Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya As I Knew Him …............................An interesting story of how a biographical piece on the Guru who demanded “the full report” every time the shishya met him, became in addition……..gradually an autobiographical account of the disciple. Do all genuine biographies have an element of the author’s autobiography? By J. C. Pant Published and Distributed by REACHA http://www.reacha.org If you like this book and would care to contribute to REACHA's work for child development, education, environment protection, and eco-restoration - please consider ordering a hard cover copy of this book from: http://www.reacha.org/pandit-sriram-sharma-acharya-as-i-knew-him Published: August 15th 2013 ISBN: 978-81-910318-1-2 Disclaimer The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not represent those of any other individual or organization. This Book is dedicated to REACHA Gurudakshina To GURUDEV Table of Contents Foreword................................................................................................................................1 From The Author....................................................................................................................3 Chapter I – The First Encounter ............................................................................................8 Chapter II – A Peep into the Indian Society of the Day ......................................................26 Chapter III – The Persona of Gurudev.................................................................................38 Chapter IV – Face to Face with Education..........................................................................61 Chapter V – Passing away of Babuji & Taking Leave of Gurudev ......................................78 Chapter VI – Passing Away of Gurudev & Krishi Bhavan ..................................................90 Chapter VII – Shanti Kunj After Gurudev & Passing Away of Mataji.................................110 Chapter VIII – Beginnings of Dadagiri & Retirement ........................................................134 Chapter IX – The Years Before I Met Gurudev .................................................................163 Appendix............................................................................................................................204 (i) REACHA’S Strategy for Social Change....................................................................204 (ii) MANAV BHARATI – down the memory lane............................................................209 (iii) The Parsi Community Of India.................................................................................212 (iv) Celebrating the Girl Child Also ...............................................................................220 (v) Education for the future............................................................................................227 (vi) Letters of Shri Sudarshan Agarwal & Comments of a few friends .........................230 About the Author................................................................................................................238 Foreword Sudarshan Agarwal Former Governor, Uttarakhand & Sikkim Mentor, Him Jyoti School I write these few lines with unpretentious humility about this book of great depth and vision on Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya, an enlightened spiritual soul, who devoted his entire life in the moral, social and spiritual upliftment of the people of India. But more than a biography of Pandit Sriram Sharma, it is an autobiography of Shri Jagdish Chandra Pant, the writer of the book, a bureaucrat of exemplary moral standard, who is equally a great spiritual soul completely dedicated to bring about fundamental social change in the country in a most non-violent manner through the power of love and compassion, hard work and personal example. Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya was his Guru and a divine presence in him and also the guiding spirit in his life. Shri Pant as a civil servant served the country in different capacities and used his each and every assignment to serve the country and its people and bring about creative change in the society. The book presents very interestingly, on the one side, the philosophy of life of his Guru, Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya, a holy person of prophetic dimensions and explores the hand that guided, encouraged and protected the writer at every critical juncture of his life and describes in detail the overflowing compassion which was the most prominent streak in the personality of Acharya ji. Religion for Acharya ji was one of the basic inner urges of every human being and a force for bringing peace and tranquility to every sphere of life. Renunciation was not giving up or leaving the mundane world but was transcendence of earlier attractions in life. Hardships for one self and comforts for others was a true sign of simplicity and self-abnegation was what he advocated. Acharya ji believed that poverty is our ornament; it is wretchedness which is our enemy. He was against vulgar display of wealth. On the other side it is a life story of an upright civil servant with high moral commitment and devotion, who worked ceaselessly for the sake of public good with exceptional spiritual zeal. All his governmental and non-governmental projects were planned and executed within the 1 parameters of the Constitution of our country primarily for social and spiritual awareness of the people and for their welfare and also for inculcating values of Indian heritage and peaceful coexistence among people of different regions, castes and creeds. He took pains to describe the story of progressive mis-governance in India which, according to him, is of our own making and failure. But Shri Pant is a man full of optimism whose life mission is to find a way to success through all failures and obstacles. This could be possible because of his spiritual strength and moral integrity and faith in hard work or the theory of Karma and the divine guidance of his Guru, Shri Acharya ji. This is a book worth reading by every public servant, social activist and conscientious citizen of India. August 29, 2009 Sudarshan Agarwal 2 From The Author I had never entertained any idea about writing an autobiography even when a few friends prodded me to do so. I always felt it would be too much of an ego trip and hardly worthy of attention and certainly not worth the trouble. Meeting Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya on March 6, 1979 accidentally changed my life completely and led to a great deal of a sense of fulfillment within me, and I came to adopt Yug Nirman as my life’s goal, something which Gurudev as I called him, had bequeathed unto me. Yug Nirman implied “euq”; esa nsoRo dk mn; ,oa /kjrh ij LoxZ dk vorj.k” – expressed in roman script “manushya main devatva ka udaya aivam dharti par swarg ka avataran” ie, meaning “Igniting the spark of the Divine within humans and the descent of the Suprament on Earth”; and I felt that I and my entire family would strive to bring this about, within our own life times if possible, and through succeeding generations and our later lives, God willing. This resolve took the shape of founding a voluntary agency REACHA standing for Research and Extension Association for Conservation, Horticulture & Agro-forestry in New Delhi in March,1992 and dedicating our house at Dehradun – “Shraddha Kunj” to evolve into “REACHA PRAGYA SANSTHAN” “_pk izKk laLFkku” in good time, a name given by Shail ji of Shanti Kunj. In the year 2007 while I was in the process of winding up my work as Chairman, Administrative Reforms Commission of Uttarakhand, an idea occurred to me that I must tell the whole world in the English language about Gurudev as I saw him and knew him and as I thought he really was, because his life had an eternal message for all, which had fulfilled my life and had made it worth living to the full. There was plenty of material on him in Hindi in addition to his voluminous writings and his authoritative biography by Dr. Pranav Pandya, reading which was mostly confined to the parijans of the Mission. My wife Abha and our sons Lalit and Nikhil too wanted me to come out with my experiences with Gurudev for they too were wonder-struck with the essential persona of Acharyasri. That is how this book was born, and lo and behold, the thumbnail of a biographical sketch of Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya gradually became a narration of how he demanded “the full report” whenever I met him as well as how he had influenced me and what he made of me. I later felt that 3 this was, perhaps Gurudev’s way of prodding me on to write my autobiography, knowing full well that I would never dream of doing so, left to myself. He may have felt that such an account had some message of worth for other seekers of truth and may be who knows, for other civil servants who too may be seekers of truth and may feel for India the same way as I do. It must however, be borne in mind that this is an autobiography with a difference, in as much as through it I am only attempting to narrate those parts of my life, which I am able to interpret as having been influenced by Acharyasri or those events which had a bearing with some extraordinary experience that could be related, may be to his influence before I met him in March 1979. I must thank Abha who was patient enough to read through what I was scribbling from time to time and was discreetly making her own suggestions to fill in the gaps in my memory as she was part of a great deal of the events covered in this book. I was also seeking her views and opinions on many a matters relating to the interpretation I was giving to many of the events relating to Acharyasri. I have tried to be as objective as it is possible in trying to interpret my relationship with Acharyasri who was not open to any questioning of a personal category. Chapter I was read with interest by Shri Sushil Chandra Dobhal, Nikhil and Ruchi and I am thankful to them for they all seemed to encourage me to go on and thus, half reluctant and half enthused I plodded on with the manuscript for over a year. Ruchi even felt that she often experiences a similar dilemma in going about her job as a Senior Manager in Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) referring to some of my observations in the book. Shri Kapil Kumar Parasher, who was with me in the Administrative Reform Commission’s work from June 2006 to December 2007, was good enough to convert my scribbled manuscript into a computer printout and I cannot be thankful enough to him. The first draft of the book was read by Abha, Lalit, Nikhil, Vibha and Ruchi and I am grateful to them for their valuable feedback. Nikhil was instrumental in preparing the numerous copies of the first draft manuscript with spiral binding, which were circulated to my close friends for their comments and suggestions. The final page-making and press-markings were enthusiastically done by Lalit in spite of his myriad engagements and the colour, black and white pictures were taken by him from existing photographs and paintings with great precision. Ruchi and Vibha were gracious enough to scan all the pages of the book for a spell-check. I bless them all from the bottom of my heart. 4 My eternal thanks are to Dr. Sohan Lal Seth, my erstwhile colleague in Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi who carefully read the first draft of the book and gave me his valuable and unusually perceptive insights on Indian history, which greatly helped me to correct my own perspective of the same. That there was much more in common between us, than what met the eye in Krishi Bhawan would become clearer to the reader, as I proceed with my story in these pages. While I had begun the enterprise of writing this book with the intention of highlighting the true picture of Gurudev as I perceived it, I did begin to have grave doubts about getting it published since I realized that it was also becoming an ego trip which I have always abhorred. When I voiced these doubts to Dr. Seth, he was categorical in his emphasis that I must get the book published. He felt that the non-conformists in the governmental system today were on the verge of extinction and direly need to know that it is possible to succeed in their careers, without compromising on their oath to the Indian Constitution. This has definitely emboldened my initial resolve to publish the book as soon as it is completed. I thank Dr.Seth also for a very valuable piece of advice regarding the use of italics and bold prints. I have used bold italics for unfamiliar words in the English language but now becoming common in Indian English as well as the spoken Hindi sentences, normally written in Dev Nagari script and repeated in Roman script in the book. The uncommon Sanskrit words too have been italicized in bold. Bold print only has been used for elaborating the meaning of the Hindi sentences or Sanskrit phrases and also some key ideas. The use of italics gets reduced gradually after Chapter III. Dr. Seth wished that I should record my conclusions in life for the facility of posterity somewhere in the book, preferably towards the end. I was very hesitant to do so initially, but on second thoughts I have now included them in the concluding pages of Chapter VIII relating to secular aspects and in the concluding pages of Chapter IX relating to spiritual aspects. I must thank Shri Nirmal Kumar IAS (Retd.) himself, a writer of repute both in Hindi and English, who gave me valuable tips in writing a book of this kind and also gave his valuable and generous comments which find place at the end of the book. His comments reflect his deep understanding of the travails of a fellow civil servant as well as matters spiritual of which he himself is an acknowledged master. I am thankful to Nikhil for his perceptive comments on Shri Nirmal Kumar’s comments. I am also thankful to Professor Dr. DC Thapliyal, formerly Professor & Head Department of VPH, GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar and retired Registrar of the newly set up Doon University in Dehradun for his generous and unusually perceptive comments as a 5