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Pandit Rishi Dev: The fighter and social activist


Born in May 1917 in village Zainapora, Tehsil and District Shopian,Late Pandit Rishi Dev started his political life early in his late teens. His sensitivity prompted him to react to major social and political happenings during the tumultuous period that filled his full span of life, the 20th Century. The events and happenings through which Pandit Rishi Dev went through during his cataclysmic years were, the anti monarchy movement in early thirties, national freedom struggle, the Naya Kashmir agenda, Kashmir peasantry movement, the end of Dogra rule, Accession of state, etc. He was a super activist in all these struggles and naturally has become a part of our contemporary history. As a social reformer to the core, he was initially attracted towards the Arya Samaj ,an organization founded to reform the complexities in Hindu Samaj. It was his untiring zeal and zest that enabled him to set up 33 Arya Samaj units in South Kashmir despite stiff resistance from the conservative Hindu brethren, he solemnized umpteen widow marriages paving the way for the happy and peaceful living by the otherwise forlorn and stigmatized Hindu widows. Pandit Rishi Dev strongly stood for democracy, secularism and egalitarianism.The Naya Kashmir manifesto setting forth new political , economic and social parameters of Kashmir society was a drug that intoxicated him. Like his other comrades, he swore by Naya Kashmir and nursed the dream of prosperous Kashmir based on equality and non discrimination in terms of faith ,caste, color and ethnicity. He will be remembered for his contribution to Kashmir society where he spearheaded for abolishing landlordism and cancellation on debts of common Kashmiris and as an arbitrator in the debt cancellation board freed many debt ridden peasants and commoners from the clutches of fleecing money lenders. The veteran freedom fighter was awarded Tamra Patra by the Government of India for his contribution to freedom struggle .He was jailed a number of times for his active participation in the Quit Kashmir movement. As a political leader of Jammu and Kashmir for a period of well over 70 years, he is remembered for his dedication and honesty. Though not being an established writer, he constrained by the ever degraded environs around, penned down his memoirs in the shape of a book titled "Zakhmoon Ki Zubani" later translated into English as "Contemporary Kashmir politics" encompassing very significant happenings that spread around his social and political career and conclusions theoreon. These memoirs have been largely hailed as authentic and bold. Pandit Rishi Dev breathed his last at Jammu on 21st October 2009, at the age of 92 leaving a void difficult to be filled up.