Nagpur: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue and the organisation's first spokesperson Madhav Govind Vaidya died here on Saturday after a brief illness, his family said. He was 97.
Vaidya, who had recovered from Coronavirus infection, died at a private hospital in Nagpur, his grandson Vishnu Vaidya told a national news agency. The last rites will be held on Sunday.
Vaidya, who became a volunteer of the RSS almost two decades years after the organisation was set up, had seen it all during his eight decade-old association with it: the three bans, isolation, internal conflicts over joining politics, ferment and resurgence, changing power equations with the BJP, and the latter's storming to power at the Centre in 2014.
A former chief editor of the city-based pro-RSS Marathi daily Tarun Bharat, Vaidya became a member of the RSS in 1943 while at the Morris College in Nagpur.
Born in Taroda tehsil in Wardha district, Vaidya was a gold medalist in his Master of Arts course and taught at the Hislop College in Nagpur from 1949 to 1966 while also being associated with the RSS.