Source: TW
The Swami, The Spy Authored by Barun Ghosh (@barunghosh)
Most of us have enjoyed the spy thrillers of the Cold War period like the James Bond stories. While Ian Fleming was giving shape to Bond, an Indian Swami travelled across the remote Himalayas regions conducting real-life espionage. Barun Ghosh writes on his remarkable life.
Born in 1896 in a small village of the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, Pranavananda was named Kanakadandi Venkata Somayajulu (KVS). After completing his schooling, he attended the Dayanand Anglo Vedic College in Lahore (now known as Government Islamia College).
After college, KVS worked at the Railway Accountant’s Office in Lahore until September 1920, when he joined Mahatma Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement. He remained an active worker of the Congress party in his native West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh until 1926.
Then KVS’ life took a turn for the spiritual. He became a follower of Swami Jnanananda, an exponent of yogic philosophy as well as one of India’s foremost nuclear physicists of the era. At Rishikesh, inspired by his guru, KVS took the name Brahmachari Pranavananda.
Jnanananda had spent a few years in the remote Himalayas as a renunciate and following his footsteps, Pranavananda made his first journey via Kashmir and on horseback to the Kailash Mansarovar region in 1928. This trip became his yearly ritual from 1935 onwards till 1950.
During his trips he compiled extensive records of the region covering subjects as diverse as mineralogy, geology, climate, ornithology etc. He also made a seminal contribution to hydrography of the region.
Pranavananda established that the rivers Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnal had different origin points, which until then were believed to originate from the Mansarovar Lake near Mount Kailash. His findings were incorporated in all maps from 1941 onwards by Survey of India.
He wrote 3 books on the region; Our Kailasa Yatra (1932), New light on the sources of the four great rivers of the Holy Kailas and Mansarovar (1939) & The sources of the Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnali (1939) and was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Once India gained her independence the new state recognized Pranavananda’s activism during the Non-Cooperation movement and his seminal research in the upper Himalayan regions, and made him a recipient of the Freedom Fighters pension.
Swami Pranavananda continued visiting the Kailash Mansarovar region between 1950 and 1954 while this region came under the occupation of the PLA of Communist China led by Mao when he is believed to have been doubling as a secret agent.
Apart from providing valuable data about the Chinese military presence in this remote region, it is said that he also collected about 4,000 pages of information about espionage activities of Pakistan and Christian Mission Agents affiliated to Western powers.
The region around Mount Kailash was also notoriously infested with highway robbers targeting pilgrims. He always had a 0.25 bore revolver strapped on to scare them away. Later he acquired a 0.30 Mauser pistol which he donated to the Defense Fund during the 1962 war with China.
His spying career supposedly came to an end in 1955 when he was exposed to Chinese intelligence. He decided to start living in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand and was awarded India’s fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri in 1976.
In 1980 he moved back to his native Andhra Pradesh and built a small temple on a piece of land he had inherited in his village. He died at the age of 93 in Hyderabad in 1989. Unfortunately today his great contributions are somewhat forgotten in the annals of history. Source:
The author came to know about Swami Pranavananda when he chanced upon an exhibition dedicated to the Kailash Mansarovar region running at the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
The Long Quest for the Elusive Source of the by John Keay, https://openthemagazine.com/essay/the-long-quest-for-the-elusive-source-of-the-satluj-at-kailash-manasarovar/; http://www.marcovasta.net/libreria/LibreriaSingola.asp?id=310