Dr. Madhav Shrihari Aney

Yavatmal in Maharashtra in the plains of Central India dates back historically to when it was part of Berar province Days here are searingly hot and nights stifling except during the winter months’ In rural Wani, in this windswept cotton, jowar and wheat fields was born Dr. Madhav Srihari Aney on 29th August 1880.

As a young man, he met Lokmanya Tilak in 1902 at Morris College, Nagpur and was greatly influenced by his nationalist thought which proved decisive in Aney’s evolution. By 1910, he started his practice as a lawyer in the court at Yavatmal, but the transition into Loknayak Bapuji Aney had begun. His fierce anti British writings in ‘Harikishor’ resulted in prosecution by the Crown and consequent suspension of his Sanad to practice law for one year. That year was well spent accompanying Lokmanya Tilak on his Vidarbha campaigns.

In 1918 Bapuji Aney joined Home Rule League. In 1921, he was elected President of the Vidarbha Pradesh Congress Committee. As an active leader of the mass based Civil Disobedience movement, he was punished yet again with cancellation of his Sanad to practice law. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1923. In 1924, he became Member of the Congress Committee.

An erudite scholar and a man of letters, he established the Vidarbha Sahitya Sangh Sammelan at Gwalior in 1928. In 1938, he was appointed Vice Chancellor, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune.

From 1928 to 1929 he served as the Secretary of the Nehru Committee. Inspired by the Salt Satyagraha, he became part of the freedom struggle by resigning his membership of the Legislative Assembly. His role in the non co-operation movement is best exemplified by the wide spread Jungle Satyagraha, started at Pusad in July 1930. He courted arrest and underwent six months imprisonment. Thereafter he was known as ‘Loknayak”.

In 1930 Loknayak Aney joined Mahatma Gandhi in the Quit India Movement. In 1931 he became Member of the Congress Working Committee and in 1933 was elected President of the Indian National Congress. In 1941, he became Member of the Viceroy’s Council, but resigned in 1942 in protest when the Viceroy did not respond to the Mahatma’s fast unto death.

From 1943 to 1947, Loknayak Aney was India’s High Commissioner to Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka. In 1948 he became a Member of the Constituent Assembly, representing the Princess of Central India and worked on the framing of the Constitution. In 1948 he was appointed Governor of Bihar.

While bedridden from 1954 to 1960 due to a serious ailment, he appeared before the First States Reorganization Commission, popularly called the Justice Fazal Ali Commission, and pleaded the case for separate statehood for Vidarbha. The Justice Fazal Ali Commission was pleased to recommend statehood for Vidarbha, despite which, the area was merged in the then State of Bombay.

Loknayak Aney was elected to the Parliament from Nagpur in the year 1959. He was a Member of the Lok sabha from 1959 to 1966.

On 26.1.1968, the day he died, he was awarded the ‘Padma Vibhushan’.

Bapuji Aney was posthumously awarded the Sahitya Academy Award for ‘Tilak Yashmov’ his epic poem in Sanskrit on the life of his beloved Lokmanya Tilak, in his lifetime he also founded the Marathi Language Newspaper “Lokmat’, Which is today one of the leading newspapers of Maharashtra.

Indian Post is happy to issue a commemorative postage stamp on “Dr. M.S. Aney”.