Tamil by roots, Punjabi by nature: How Jan Sangh's A Vishwanathan, a man with roots to a village near Kaveri river, won elections twice from Ludhiana seats
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Ludhiana: The political chorus these days has been assuming a hatred-laced regionalist fervour, but there was a time when Ludhiana West assembly segment was represented by a man who traced his roots to a village in Tamil Nadu, located on the southern bank of Kaveri.
A bypoll is scheduled to be held in Ludhiana West on Thursday. When A Vishwanathan was elected MLA on a Bharatiya Jan Sangh (precursor of Bharatiya Janata Party) ticket from Ludhiana South in 1967 and on a Janata Party ticket from Ludhiana West in 1977, the city was almost exclusively inhabited by Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs. His election was not just by chance or through parachuting tricks that parties employ these days.
Vishwanathan had chosen to spend all his professional and political life in Ludhiana, where he worked as lawyer and assumed a leading role in the political activities of Bharatiya Jan Sangh (precursor of Bharatiya Janata Party) and served as its president for Ludhiana district. During the emergency, Vishwanathan spent 19 months in jail for opposing the clampdown. He was a fluent Punjabi speaker, who quit professorship of economics and emerged as an eminent lawyer.
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"Such was the impact of his personality and socio-political work he had done that when I campaigned in Ludhiana West in 2007, while contesting assembly elections on a SAD-BJP ticket, BJP's old guards would cry while recalling his commitments and contributions. This was long after he died. It shows how deeply people of Ludhiana West respected him," recalled former Ludhiana West MLA Harish Rai Dhanda.
In 1967 elections, the first to be held after the reorganisation of Punjab, Vishwanathan won the election from Ludhiana South on the BJS symbol.
By 1977, the Ludhiana West seat was carved out following delimitation. That year, he won by trouncing the popular Congress leader Joginder Pal Pandey and secured over 51 % votes. In 1977, he contested elections on the symbol of Janata Party, the conglomerate of major anti-Congress political parties, after emergency was lifted in 1977.
But how did a Tamil man, whose family hailed from Palamaneri village of Thanjavur district, came to Ludhiana? The story dates to pre-Partition years.
"It all started with my great-grandfather, who, during the British period, moved to Dehradun to serve as headmaster in Col Brown Cambridge School, along with his family. My grandfather was born in Delhi. Later, my grandfather A Vishwanathan and his two sisters shifted to Jalandhar to attain higher education.
He studied at DAV, Jalandhar, from 1946 to 1951 and settled in Ludhiana to practise law. One of his sisters became the principal of Kanya Maha Vidyalya, Jalandhar," said Chandigarh-based lawyer R Kartikeya, Vishwanathan's grandson, who still manages the law firm with the same name that was once launched by Vishwanathan in 1950s in Ludhiana.
Kartikeya said his grandfather embraced Punjabi culture by heart. "Although he was fluent in several Indian and foreign languages, he felt if one wanted to live and work among Punjabis, they should embrace Punjabi as their mother tongue. That was his commitment towards Punjabis," said Kartikeya.
The citation of 'Roll of Honour of the Highest Order', conferred upon Vishwanathan by DAV College, Jalandhar, offered insight into his academic and political achievements.
It mentions that after enrolling in the college in 1946, he first studied BSs (non-medical) and then earned MA (Economics). He even served as a professor of economics after his post-graduate degree. "Ever since his early childhood, Prof Vishwanathan had been closely associated with RSS and held many important offices in the organisation.
He is an able organizer and founder member of Bharatiya Jan Sangh. He had been the president of the district unit of BJS. He was instrumental in arousing public opinion against the emergency," reads the citation.
Vishwanathan passed away at PGIMER, Chandigarh, in 1980 after suffering a heart attack. He was in his 70s at the time.
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