Shri Y. B. Chavan and some of his colleagues were students in Rajaram College and after their graduation in the Law College in Kolhapur in the last thirties. The Rajaram College for more than seventy years now has been the nursery of the backward classes. Thanks to the liberal educational policy of the successive Maharajas of Kolhapur the college and the large number of free hostels offered every facility to poor classes of students to pursue their higher education. The institution became particularly centre of variety of activities during the thirties and forties of this century, when the waves of successive national movements awakened the masses from their age-old lethargy. During the period the Rajaram College was flooded with students, hailing from the distant districts of Maharashtra. Most of them belonged to the families of farmers and wage-earners.
A large number of these students worked hard, desiring to acquire general culture rather than high meticulous scholarship. With wide interests and open minds they absorbed a variety of knowledge. There were many outstanding aesthetes and athletes among them. Shri Y. B. Chavan made the best use of the splendid library of the College, which was built up by the generous grants from the state-treasury. His reading was wide and catholic. Even the novels which he read were of a higher type, wherein the character-study rather than mere story-interest predominated.
His study of the British political history and political institutions, as well as the economic problems was as wide as it was purposive. The deep impression the study has left upon his mind can be well ascertained by his work in political sphere during the last twenty years or more. The small monograph, “On Compromise” by Lord Morley, which was one of his texts for the B. A. Examination, has left its deep impression upon his mind. The inevitability of gradualness in all social and political changes is the lesson he seems to have learned from Morley's philosophic discussions on all reforms. Politics is an art and not a science and a politician has to adapt his methods to suit to the material with which he has to work. That is why compromise has become an important watchword in the sphere of political activities. Shri Y. B. Chavan, who jumped into the national struggle in 1942, did so over the broad back of Karl Marx. Since then he has remained loyal to the party, which moves on the lines of evolutionary socialism, avoiding the extreme path of revolution and dictatorship.
“Now Maharashtrians will be required to make a direct leap into industry without the advantage of reaching it via the trade route. In view of this a new technique and new method may be needed. Briefly, an exceptional and tremendous effort is called for."
Shri Y. B. Chavan
