Social activist and Arya Samaj leader Swami Agnivesh passed away Friday at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in New Delhi. He was 80. Agnivesh had been suffering from liver cirrhosis and was put on ventilatory support on Tuesday due to multiple organ failure.
Followed by the news of his death, former CBI director M. Nageswara Rao posted disturbing tweets about Swami Agnivesh.
Rao took to Twitter and wrote, GOOD RIDDANCE @swamiagnivesh. You were an Anti-Hindu donning saffron clothes. You did enormous damage to Hinduism. I am ashamed that you were born as a Telugu Brahmin. మేక వన్నె పులి गोमुख व्याग्रं Lion in sheep clothes. My grievance against Yamaraj is why did he wait this long (sic)! He added, Correction: Read Wolf for Lion in the above tweet (sic).
As Rao posted this tweet, several people criticised him for his comments on the dead activist.
Here is an ex Police officer, who is directly celebrating a death of an activist and calling Anti - Hindu because he fought against BJP. Ex CJI nominated to BJP, ex IPS officer spreading Hatred are examples of Modi government destroying all the systems in this country (sic), commented one user.
Another one said, People like him, with venom in mind, are deliberately selected by Modi for higher posts so that both share the same mentality and hatred towards other people (sic).
Born into a Brahmin family in Andhra Pradesh, Swami Agnivesh came to be known for his campaign against bonded labour through his foundation Bandhua Mukti Morcha (Bonded Labor Liberation Front). His public work spurred him to enter active politics. He was elected to the Haryana Assembly in 1977 and was made education minister after two years. He, however, resigned from the post in protest against the Haryana government’s inaction against police who had opened fire at workers protesting bonded labour.
Swami Agnivesh also led several initiatives to foster peace and interfaith harmony in Kashmir at the height of militancy, his website notes. In 2010, he was tasked by the Congress government to open a dialogue with the Maoist leadership. A year later he was part of the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare. He was forced to split from the group after a video surfaced allegedly showing him speaking to a minister from the Congress government. It was around this time that Swami Agnivesh appeared on reality TV show Bigg Boss as a guest.
Swami Agnivesh, who was president of World Council of Arya Samaj till 2014, had also angered Hindu groups for his comments on Amarnath shrine in Jammu & Kashmir. Agnivesh, they alleged, insulted Lord Shiva by saying that the ice stalagmite doesn’t hold any religious significance.
In 2018, he was attacked by protesters allegedly belonging to the BJP’s youth wing in Jharkhand. Videos of the attack showed protesters asking Agnivesh to “go back” while calling him a “Pakistani agent”.