‘The Dnyaneshwari is a manual to survive with dignity and pride’

Sanjay Raut

|Politicians & Literature|

Sanjay Raut | 51 | Maharashtra
Rajya Sabha MP, Shiv Sena

THE ONE BOOK that has inspired me as an individual as well as a politician is the Dnyaneshwari, Sant Dnyaneshwar’s 13th century commentary in Marathi on the Bhagvad Gita. It’s an attempt at making the knowledge from the text accessible to the people, who had less command over or access to Sanskrit. It is a manual to survive in this world with dignity and pride. Love, relations, politics and human values; Dnyaneshwari gives us all that in a single package. It has had a profound impact on the minds and lives of people, and is regularly cited, read in homes and temples alike

I also like to read about the lives of people who made a difference to this world, such as Nelson Mandela, Hitler, Gandhi and Shripad Dange, among others. I read about the history of our world, about revolutions that took human civilisation forward, about innovations that will shape our future. Acharya Prahlad Keshav Atre, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Mahasweta Devi and Javed Akhtar are my favourite writers, who are capable of bringing about the winds of change. They have made a difference to many lives, not least mine.