‘Samyukta Maharashtra movement united all opponents against the Congress’

Even as age catches up with her, Shirish Pai, 81, recalls every moment of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement. Being the daughter of PK, aka Acharya Atre, who was one of the pioneers of the movement, Pai also had a role to play in the struggle. After Atre was arrested in January 1956 for writing against Morarji Desai, Pai ran his weekly — Navyug — for five months. Had she not taken charge of Navyug, which ignited a fighting spirit among Maharashtrians, the movement would have lost its charm.

In Novermber 1955, at a rally on Girgaum Chowpatty, the then chief minister of Bombay province Morarji Desai and senior Congress leader SK Patil said Bombay should be made a Union territory. Atre, who wanted the city to be the capital of Maharashtra, was furious over a comment made by Patil, who said: “Maharashtra will not get Bombay (now Mumbai) till the Sun and the Moon exist.” Atre retaliated with an article titled ‘Janatecha Kasai, Morarji Desai’ (Morarji Desai is the people’s slaughterer). “He was arrested for writing the article on January 26, 1956. He ordered me to continue running Navyug and handed over the responsibility of writing editorials to Anant Kanekar, who was as fiery as my father,” said Pai.

However, Atre refused to lie low and continued writing his editorials for Navyug from inside Arthur Road Jail. “I would meet him in jail once every week under the pretext of giving him tiffin. He would write the editorial and keep the paper in the empty tiffin box, which I would publish in that week’s issue. People were surprised over the fiery editorials appearing in Navyug even though Atre was in jail,” Pai said.

She also underlined Atre’s role in the movement, which finally helped Maharashtra achieve statehood. “He shaped the movement along with Senapati Bapat and Prabodhankar Thackeray. After he won the 1957 Lok Sabha election from Girgaum by a huge margin, he spent all his time for the movement. He traveled across the state and delivered speeches, but all that happened with money from his own pocket. He delivered about 15 speeches a day and ignited anger among the common people against the policies of the Congress. Navyug was at its peak during this period. People would paste Navyug on trees,” she said.

People even started inviting Atre for lectures and most of the times they would raise funds for the movement through his speeches. “They used to give him a bag after every speech. Most times the bag contained a chit that said: ‘We are unable to give you the cheque but next time we will certainly give it.’ He never had problems with that. One thing he liked was the gift he received from them — the pedhas. It was his favourite sweet,” said Pai.
Pai, who fondly called her father Pappa, said Atre realised Navyug was not enough to spread the movement and so he took a loan from the Bank of Maharashtra and started a daily, Maratha. “Pappa made (Jawaharlal) Nehru’s life miserable through his articles. Wherever Nehru went, he was greeted with black flags and wasn’t allowed to give his speeches,” said Pai.

“Indira Gandhi and Yashwantrao Chavan soon realised that if Bombay is not given to Maharashtra, the Congress would lose its base in the state. They convinced Nehru to announce the formation of Maharashtra with Bombay as its capital.”