Hyderabad: Renowned Social Activist, Arya Samaj Stalwart and former politician Swamy Agnivesh (80) passed away at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in Delhi on Friday. He was suffering from liver cirrhosis.

Swami Agnivesh will be remembered for most as his role as the face of the movement against bonded labour. He founded the “Bandhua Mukti Morcha (Bonded Labour Liberation Front)” in 1981 which continues to raise the issues surrounding bonded labour in India. He was the Chairman of the Morcha. In his life span he became from lawyer to politician.

Swami Agnivesh was thrice elected as Chairperson of the UN Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. Swami Agnivesh got recognition for his work in the form of several national and international awards, including the Anti- Slavery International Award (1990) in London, the Freedom and Human Rights Award (1994) Berne, the Rajiv Gandhi Award for Communal Harmony and the Right Livelihood Award (2004) from Sweden.

Swami Agnivesh was born in September 21^st, 1939, in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh. His original name is Vepa Shyam Rao. He obtained degrees in Law and Commerce, became lecturer in Management at the reputed St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata and for a while practiced law. In his student days, he gravitated towards the Arya Samaj and began a life-long relationship with it.

He joined political and social activism leaving Kolkata for Haryana. He became full time worker at the Arya Samaj in 1968, and two years later embraced Sanyas and became Swamy Agnivesh. He founded a political party, the Arya Sabha. His political life started with the struggle for Haryana’s fair share as it was emerging as a state separated from Punjab. A few years later he joined the call against the Indira Gandhi Government and had to go underground when Emergency was declared in 1975.

After the 1977 elections, Agnivesh was elected to Haryana Assembly, and became the Educational Minister in Bhajan Lal’s cabinet. However, within four months, he took on his own Government as he protested police firing in the Faridabad industrial township in an incident while killed 10 workers. He demanded a judicial enquiry and was asked to resign.