Rijiju shares PM Modi's tribute to Deendayal Upadhyay Jayanti
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
On the birth anniversary of the man who gave the BJP its ideological soul, Union Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday, 25 September 2026 shared Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words honouring Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay — a tribute anchored in one ancient Sanskrit invocation: charaiveti, charaiveti, charaiveti.
Quoting the Prime Minister, Rijiju wrote: 'Pandit Deendayal ji always gave us the message of charaiveti-charaiveti-charaiveti — through his words and through his life. He was himself a relentless traveller. To keep moving ceaselessly as a traveller of service — that is our purpose, and in this we draw immense inspiration from Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay ji.'
The man behind the mantra
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay — born 25 September 1916 — was the founding ideologue of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the precursor to the BJP, and the architect of Integral Humanism, a philosophy that placed the last, least, and lost citizen at the centre of politics. The charaiveti mantra, drawn from the Aitareya Brahmana of the Rigveda, translates simply as 'keep moving' — an exhortation to ceaseless effort and never stagnating. Modi's invocation of it frames Upadhyay not merely as a historical figure but as a living behavioural standard.
Schemes in his name, still running
Since 2014, the BJP-led government has institutionalised Upadhyay's philosophy of Antyodaya — serving the poorest of the poor — through flagship programmes. The Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, launched in 2015, electrified rural India's un-metered infrastructure. The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana targeted urban and rural poverty through skilling and self-help networks. Each scheme is, in a sense, a policy translation of the charaiveti impulse — the state, too, must keep moving toward the margins.
For the BJP, 25 September is more than a calendar date. It is an annual moment of ideological self-affirmation — senior leaders across every level of the organisation issue tributes, and central government events often mark the day with new announcements or scheme reviews. The pattern, consistent since the party's founding, reinforces Upadhyay's status as the BJP's philosophical north star.
In a party that governs by invoking its intellectual lineage as much as its electoral mandate, Modi's reminder that 'to keep moving as a traveller of service is our purpose' is both tribute and instruction — to cadre, to cabinet, and to country.