A Salute to Achyut Yagnik, the One-Man Storehouse of Knowledge on Gujarat https://thewire.in/society/a-salute-to-achyut-yagnik-the-one-man-storehouse-of-knowledge-on-gujarat
He was always “Achyut Bhai”, always available for a spot of conversation, or a dialogue if you preferred, or a declamation if you had the discipline of patience. Either way, it was always a rewarding encounter.
(SETU – Centre for Social Knowledge and Action) resembled an ashram in its bare austerity but suggested the ambience of a coffee house, where over many cups of syrupy tea – and the smoke of his never-extinguished cigarette – the visiting interlocutor could get tutored into the nuances of the latest developments, be it the Navnirman Movement, the anti-reservations riots of 1981, the 1985-86 communal flare-up, the anti-Narmada dam movement, the 1990-92 Ayodhya violence, or the horrible, horrible 2002 carnage.
Achyut Bhai himself personified the very idea of a robust civil society – keeping a firm distance from the wielders of power in Gandhinagar yet willing to engage with “authority” on behalf of the poor and the underprivileged. He was available to any NGO, any movement, any group wanting to correct this or that economic injustice in any part of Gujarat