Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue P. Parameswaran, who breathed his last at Ottappalam in Palakkad early on Sunday, had set in motion the ideology of integral humanism in the 50s when the intellectual and political space in the State was dominated by the Communist Party of India and the Congress.
The 93-year-old was widely influenced by the political philosophy propounded by Deendayal Upadhyaya of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the forerunner of the BJP.
Often referred to as ‘Parameswarji’, he was a non-conformist philosopher, possibly in his own right. He was a social activist, yet not a political celebrity in the broadest sense. He stayed away from electoral politics.
Parameswaran was honoured with Padma Vibhushan in 2018 and Padma Shri in 2004. He wrote with confidence and eagerness of a pundit taking on the likes of EMS Namboodiripad, M.N. Govindan Nair and N.E. Balaram.
Cultural nationalism
His ideas were solely based on cultural nationalism and spiritualism that knowingly or unknowingly touched the conservative psyche of Keralites even as his adversaries accused him of fostering the Hindutva element. But he rallied against them with his epigrammatic force of arguments.
Parameswaran was born to Parameswaran Ilayathu and Savithri Antharjanam at Thamarasseriyil Illam, Kayipuram, in Muhamma in Alappuzha in 1927. He graduated from University College, Thiruvananthapuram.
His contact with M.S. Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, led to his becoming a pracharak. Later, he became the organising secretary of the BJS and later on the all-India secretary and vice-president. He was imprisoned during the Emergency in 1975-77.
In 1982, he returned to Kerala and gave shape to the Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram.
As an RSS pracharak, he remained a bachelor all his life.
CM condoles death
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan condoled the death of Parameswaran. Mr. Vijayan remembered Parameswaran as a theoretician who dedicated his entire life to further his political beliefs.