Born in British Punjab in 1934, Kanshi Ram achieved so much respect and success both in civil society and in the political circle that his name still echoes pan India, every now and then, even after 16 years of his demise in 2006.
He is not only considered a great politician but a great social reformer as well. In his lifetime, he established organisations like DS4, BAMCEF and BSP. And he got tremendous success everywhere.
But all this did not happen overnight for him. He worked hard. He roamed one village to another on his bicycle met the poor, oppressed, illiterate and underprivileged. He helped them understand the principle of justice, social equality and made them realise the power of their vote.
Kanshi Ram’s Pen
There is a very famous story about him. Wherever he would go, he would carry a pen and show it to his audience. He would tell them to look at the pen. How a pen, which is 85% ink and 15% cap, is used for writing. The actual purpose of writing is served by the 85% portion of the pen, but the 15% cap overpowers its capability to write by covering it from the top.
The message he conveyed was that 85% of the underprivileged, the Bahujans according to him, were being overpowered by the 15% of people sitting in power across all the sectors in India.
He would ask his audience to realise that they are the 85% and they have the real power to vote, to change the government, which would work for their welfare.
He would also show the pen vertically and say to the audience how the current system was acting as a wall for the 85%. And then he would make the pen horizontal and tell them how he wanted the society, state for them. This horizontal pen meant that all Bahujans would have equal opportunities without any hindrance, any wall.
The interesting part here is that he never used that pen for writing, yet he conveyed a message which can take up volumes of pages if written. It was the need of the hour to show the people, who were illiterate, less fortunate, to convey the message in a way they could understand. This was the genius of Kanshi Ram.
But only a genius, who knows his society, their problems and ways to solve them can use such a simple yet powerful way to convey his message to his audience. And he was that genius. For me, this would always be “The Curious Case of Kanshi Ram’s Kalam”.