Integral Humanism, the guiding philosophy of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was first presented by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya in the form of four lectures delivered in Bombay on April 22-25, 1965

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya was born on Sept. 25, 1916, in a village Nagla Chandrabhan, Near Mathur in Uttar Pradesh. He passed his Matriculation standing first class, first in the Ajmer Board Examinations, winning two gold medals. He again won two gold medals in Intermediate examination securing first rank. He did his B.A. in mathematics in first class.

Panditji joined the RSS in 1937 as one of the first few Swayamsevaks and rose to be its Joint Provincial Pracharak.

He joined the Jana Sangh in 1952 and was appointed its General Secretary, which post he retained till he became the President of the Party in 1967. After the death of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookherji he shouldered the responsibility of building up the party and he achieved a remarkable success in this onerous task.

Pandit Upadhyaya edited PANCHJANYA (Weekly) and SWADESH (Daily) from Lucknow. He has also written a drama CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA in Hindi, and later wrote a Hindi biography of SHANKARACHARYA. He translated Marathi biography of Dr. Hedgewar, the founder of RSS.

His death in tragic circumstances on Feb. 11, 1968 is an irreplaceable loss to the country.

I am asked to present my thoughts on the subject of “Integral Humanism” in a series of talks beginning this evening. Last January at Vijayavada, Bharatiya Jana Sangh adopted the statement of “Principles & Policies” in which ‘Integral Humanism’ has also been accepted. There has been scattered discussions here and there on the subject. It is necessary that we consider Integral Humanism in all its aspects. So long as the country was under the yoke of the British rule, all the movements and policies in the country had one principal ‘aim to drive out the foreign rulers and to achieve independence’. But what would be the face of the new Bharat after independence? In which direction were we to advance? These questions were precisely thought out. It would not be correct to say that no thought was devoted to these aspects. There were people who even at that time had considered these questions. Gandhiji himself had set out his idea of the independent Bharat in his book “Hind Swaraj”. Prior to this Lokmanya Tilak discussed the philosophical basis of the rejuvenation of Bharat in his book ‘Gita Rahasya’. He gave a comparative discussion of various schools of thought current all over the world at that time.

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