Sharma : Was there any eminent local politician there?
Chavan : Yes, there were quite a few of them. G. S. Alteker, who later on became Member of Parliament, is still living. Batane, a local merchant, was a very brave and patriotic man. Gokhale, who is now nearly in his eigthies, was a graduate. He never took a job and devoted his life to public service. But the most important influence to which I would like to refer to, when I was groiwng, was that of Satyashodhak movement on my family.
Sharma : That was a very powerful movement.
Chavan : That was a very powerful movement in the rural areas, amongst the non-brahmins of those days. My elder brother, Ganpatrao, was quite an enthusiastic worker in that movement. Naturally, I was very much influenced by the great Jyotiba Phule. I came to know about him and respected him from quite an early age. I must say that I had heard his name even before I had heard the names of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi. This was the type of influence that Jyotiba Phule had there.
But, later on. I become more interested in reading historical novels and newspapers. Then I understood that I was not much interested in what I was hearing in my house. I wanted to know something more about what was happening outside. And the most powerful influence on me came, when Jatindranath Das was on fast and I was reading about him in the papers. He was dying every day – a slow death and when ultimately he died, it has a tremendous impact on me. I thought that there was something very high in life, for which one could sacrifice one's life. And what was that ? one must try to find it out. who were the people who were trying for it? That was why I got attracted towards a wider national and patriotic movement. I tried to read about Tilak, G. G. Agarkar and G. K. Gokhale.
I jointed the school named after Lokamany Tilak in my hometown where I read a lot about Lokmanya Tilak. And once you get into this thing, then you get a little more brodden. I starte going to the library, cultivating new types of friends, began new types of associations and came completely under that influence. I thought that Jyotiba Phule's movement ws certainly progressive. but the politics in that movement was rather sectarain. It was called non-Brahmin movement. It ceased to attract me.
