Noted Gandhian litterateur, Padmashri Dr Giriraj Kishore, had pledged his body for medical research. Accordingly, after his demise on Sunday 9th February, at the age of 83, his body was donated to the local GSVM Medical College at Kanpur.
Body donation has been the brainchild of Manoj Sengar who began the Yug Dadeechi Deh Daan Abhiyaan (Body Donation Movement) in Kanpur 17 years ago. It is named after Maharishi Dadeechi. According to Hindu mythology, during the Tretha Yug, there was a fierce battle between the forces of evil and good. The Maharishi sacrificed his life, and with his bones a weapon, Vajra, was made, that destroyed the forces of evil.
Sengar said that he got the inspiration for this movement when Dr K.C. Arya’s body was donated on 20th January 2003. He was the husband of Lt Manvati Arya of the Azad Hind Fauj of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Lt Arya also died recently at the age of 99 and her body too was donated. Her senior colleague, Padmavibhushan Dr Lakshmi Sehgal, head of Bose’s Rani Laxmibai Regiment, had also donated her body in like manner a few years earlier.
Sengar stated that Kishore’s was the 226th such body donation. When he started this movement there were no cadavers available for medical research in the anatomy departments of medical colleges, and they had to resort to virtual or plastic models for study. The citizens of Kanpur responded generously to Sengar’s appeal, so much so that cadavers have now been sent to neighbouring medical colleges in U.P. as well. This writer and his wife have also pledged their bodies in like manner.
It may be recalled that when modern medical research was evolving in the West, Dr Henry Gray actually dissected his own mother’s body, as cadavers were not available. He is now known as the father of anatomy with his classic book “Gray’s Anatomy” published in 1858. It was illustrated (no photographs then) by Henry Vandyke Carter.
Dr Kishore, a former Deputy Registrar of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, was passionate about Hindi, and even crossed swords with the administration over the promotion of the language. Besides literature, he was known for his Gandhian research, and later for his civic activism. He was the patron of the Kanpur Nagrik Manch (Citizens’ Forum). His best known works are “Pahle Girmitiya” and “Baa”. Girmitiya is a colloquial distortion of the English word “Agreement”, and referred to the indentured labour (people of the Agreement) that the British took from the Gangetic plains to work in the sugarcane fields in far off countries like South Africa, the West Indies and the Fiji Islands. With a financial grant from then U.P. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, he could go to those distant lands to record for posterity the travels and travails of the people of the Agreement.
His research also drew him closer to Kasturba Gandhi, the devoted wife of the Mahatma. The novel “Baa” is centred on her. Dr Giriraj was conferred the Padmashri for his contribution to Hindi literature by President APJ Abdul Kalam in 2007. He was also the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, among others. He leaves behind his grieving wife Meera, daughters Jaya and Shiva and son Aneesh.
Though born in Muzzaffarnagar in western U.P. he had made Kanpur his home. He never used his caste name, and nobody dared ask him! The city feels orphaned at his passing on.
FEBRUARY 2020
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