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        Sri S. Sampathkumar, Senior Advocate in the Madras High Court, President of the South Madras unit of the R.S.S. and State Working President of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad passed away on 7 January, 2007 in Chennai. He had just completed 80 years. He left behind his wife, one son and two daughters.

        Sri Sampathkumar joined the RSS in 1946 and for over 61 years he dedicated himself to the great ideals of the RSS as defined by its founder Dr. Hedgewar and his successor Sri Guruji Golwalkar. He was passionately committed to the noble cause of promotion of Hindu unity and Hindu solidarity in Tamilnadu. He was a front rank firebrand crusader for the cause of bringing about a new Hindu renaissance in Tamilnadu.

Sri S. Sampathkumar (1927 - 2007)

Though I had the good fortune of knowing him officially as a senior advocate of the Madras High Court for more than 15 years, I got the opportunity to know him closely as a personal friend only in the last two years of his life. When I met him in 2005 at his residence along with my friend Sri K R Motilal, another senior Member of the RSS in Tamilnadu from 1946 and a colleague of Sri S. Sampathkumar, Sampathkumarji told me that Sri Guruji had stayed in his house in Chrompet on a few occasions in the 1950s. When I asked him as to what motivated him to join the R.S.S. at a very young age, he quoted the following words of Dr. Hedgewar that inspired him to take the fateful decision: 'The Hindu culture is the life-breath of Hindustan. It is therefore clear that if Hindustan is to be protected, we should first nourish the Hindu culture. If the Hindu culture perishes in Hindustan itself, and if the Hindu society ceases to exist, it will hardly be appropriate to refer to the mere geographical entity that remains as Hindustan. Mere geographical lumps do not make a nation.' I could see the lump in Sampathkumar's heart even as he uttered these words.        He also recalled the first meeting he had with Sri Guruji Golwalkar as a newly joined Swayamsevak in 1949. Sri Guruji gave him this message: 'Wherever and in whatever position you are, do not forget that you are a Swayamsevak. Always and everywhere consider yourself as a 'Sangh Pracharak', devoted to carrying the message of Sangh'.

       Sri Sampathkumar was an exemplary Swayamsevak in every sense of the word for more than 60 years. Whenever the brutal might of the Government of India and the State Government was let loose against the R.S.S. and its Swayamsevaks, which was often marked by illegal detention and foisting of fictitious cases upon innocent Swayamsevaks, Sri Sampathkumar always defended them heroically in several Courts of Law and got them either released or acquitted very honourably. He was a Notary Public. He was an authority on Hindu Law and used to deliver lectures on Hindu Law at the Law College, Chennai.

        As many of the leading advocates in UP or Delhi were reluctant to argue on behalf of the Hindus in the Rama Janma Bhoomi case, Sri Sampathkumar boldly came forward to argue the case in the High Court in Uttar Pradesh against all odds. Last year when I was with him at his residence, he showed me innumerable files connected with the case and he said that he had prepared detailed and extensive notes running to over 1000 pages to personally argue the case in the High Court Bench in Lucknow. When I asked him as to why he had prepared over 1000 pages of notes, he told me: 'It is the duty of a Senior Counsel like me to assist the Judge by simplification and concentration and not to advance a multitude of ingenious arguments in the hope that out of ten bad points the Judge will be capable of fashioning a winner. I do not believe in letting loose aimless torrents of words, written and oral, which are oppressive and which the Judge must examine in an attempt to eliminate everything which is not relevant, helpful and persuasive... ... I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence and integrity of the Indian Bar, without which, impartial justice, the most valuable part of the Indian Constitution, can have no existence. Our judicial process is intended to guarantee not rights that are theoretical or illusory but rights that are practical and effective. This is particularly so of the right of access to the court in view of the prominent place held in a democratic society by the right to a fair trial.'

        Sri Sampathkumar was loved, revered and respected by all the Swayamsevaks in South India. He was a very effective speaker in both Tamil and English. A great lover of books, he had a big personal library. As a great Rama Baktha, his lively conversation was always marked by frequent references to the exemplary conduct, character and personality of Lord Rama. As a very senior Swayamsevak, he always threw the weight of his influence on the side of the good, the true and the beautiful. His example, his words, and his ideals will continue to inspire all the Swayamsevaks of the RSS for ever and ever.

        The most appropriate tribute to the revered memory of Sri Sampathkumar can only be paid in the words of the great English Poet John Milton:

        Grace was in all his steps

        Heaven in his eyes

        In Every gesture, dignity and love.