Mumbai, Oct 26: Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani will attend the funeral of founder of Swadhyaya Parivar, social thinker and philosopher, Pandurang Shastri Athavale, who passed away at his residence on Saturday following a heart attack.
Athavale, 84, who received the Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership in 1996 and the 1.2 million dollar Templeton award in 1997, is survived by his wife and daughter. Founder of the 'Swadhyaya movement,' the movement to discover inner-self, Athavale is revered in Maharashtra and Gujarat as a modern day thinker and a social reformer. Athavale, also a recipient of Padma Vibhushan, strived throughout his life to fight inequality, casteism in the society and vices among the cultivating and fishermen communities in the two states. The Swadhyaya movement has a following among millions of people from weaker sections in the two states, like Harijans, fishermen and the backward caste Vaghris.
Bureau Report