Ajit ji – Turning Impossible to Productive

65 years ago, a young man of 23 years of age won a gold medal in Mechanical Engineering. He had a golden carpet laid before him to make a successful career. But the dreams of this young man were quite different. He wanted to serve society. Born in the Gundivandeyawar district of Karnataka to the gazette officer father Shri Bhrmhasuraiyya and mother Puttatayamma choose a different path altogether. Rather than joining some elicit company for the job, he went on to become a full-time Pracharak for RSS in 1957. We are talking about Shri Ajit ji Kumar, one of the most influential pracharaks of RSS.

Ajit ji established a unique model of Sewa in Bengaluru known as “Hindu Sewa Pratishthan”, where volunteers could be trained to become Sewa workers and even women can join in to devote their lives to this noble cause. To turn this idea into a running project, he chose 23 youth volunteers in 1980 and gave them training for 40 days. Later on for running various projects such as Nele, Arun, Prasanna Counseling Center, Sewamitra, and Supraja, all the volunteers were trained here. This idea has now become a huge scheme and in the last 42 years till 2022, more than 4000 volunteers were trained and 3500 of these volunteers were women. Some of them gave 3 years, some 10 while others gave their whole life to this act of Sewa.

Ajit ji did his engineering in Bengaluru and he was introduced to RSS while in his first year of college. This introduction to RSS turned his whole life around. After becoming a pracharak in 1957, he worked on various projects on different levels till the emergency. He also faced prison for 2 years during emergency. But, being a Sewa warrior as he was, he trained Yoga to fellow prisoners. Ajit ji is also given credit for including Yoga in the syllabus of Sangha education.  To do this, he learned Yoga from famous gurus of Yoga, Shri Pattabhi, and Shri Iyengar.

As per Sarkaryavah Shri Dattatreya Hasboleji, who also played an important role in deciding the syllabus of training at Hindu Sewa Pratishthan, Ajit ji was constantly worried about the ratio of those who need Sewa and Sewa warriors. Those who needed help were much more in number than those who could provide it. Ajit ji was also concerned that women who have a natural inclination towards Sewa could not actively participate in Sewa work. This worry gave him the idea of providing training to become a Sewa warrior. The training included lessons on morality, the glory of Indian culture, biographies of great men, and the need for Sewa and Yoga. After the training, the Sewa warriors would go to fields for 3 years to work in their desired sector of Sewa. After spending 3 years in the field of Sewa and providing services to the needy, most of these people chose to devote their entire life to the service of the needy.

Ms. Vanita Hegde, who took training in 1989, says, “Ajit ji was alive only for 9 years after the institution was established but he put all his energy to make this project successful. Vanita ji is also the coordinator now and tells us that Ajit ji would be present in person during the training. He had warm relations with all the trainees and he would also recognize who would be fit to serve in a certain field. He would also spend time with Sewa warriors in the field. Impressed by his natural affection and energetic thoughts, many young men and women were inspired to take the pledge of lifelong service. He believed that high morale persons should be created first, to provide proper service to society. The first director of Hindu Seva Pratishthan, Ajit ji communicated this sentiment to his colleagues as well.

All was going well when people were jolted by the sudden death of Ajit ji in a car accident during his visit from Keshav Krupa, Bengaluru to Tumkuru at 4 AM on 3rd December 1990. While giving a reverence speech to Ajit ji, Nanaji Deshmukh said that it was difficult for the whole nation to believe that a 16 year old girl can also become a Sewa warrior by filling out a form. But, Ajit ji turned an impossible idea into a successful project.