DIRECTOR

A Scholar, great thinker and social worker, Sri.P.Parameswaran was born on 1927 at Cherthalai in Alappuzha district of Kerala State. After his schooling at this birthplace, he graduated from University College, Thiruvananthapuram with distinctions in BA (Hons.) in History.

Already a poet, writer and excellent orator from his college days, Sri.Parameswaran entered the realm of social work as a pracharak (organizer) of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Later on in 1957, he was entrusted with the task of building up the Bharatheeya Jan Sangh in Kerala as its State Organizing Secretary. In 1968, he became and All?India General Secretary and Later Vice? President of the Jana Sangh. He was imprisoned during the period of emergency in 1975/77.

In 1977,Sri. Parameswaran moved from Politics to the sphere of social thought and development. He was Director of the Deendayal Research Institute at New Delhi for four years. In 1982, he came back to his home state and gave shape to a new organization; Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram aimed at national reconstruction through study and research. It has its headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram and has units all over the state. Sri. P. Parameswaran is currently the Director of Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram. It functions also as a Centre for moulding public opinion in favour of national needs and concerns. He has also been associated with the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari, and has served in various capacities in the governing body of the Kendra. He is currently the all India President of Vivekananda Kendra.

Sri. P. Parameswaran has led a life wholly dedicated to social service, especially as a social philosopher and thinker. From early childhood, he had a great inclination towards the study of Hinduism. He was intimately connected with most of the Hindu social and cultural organizations. He took initiation from Sri. Ramakrishna Mission and was a close associate and disciple of Swami Agamananda social reformer and founder of Advaita Ashram at Kalady, the birth place of Adi Sankara. Well informed in the philosophy of Vedas, Upanishads, and Gita he has followed in detail the thoughts and writings of Western thinkers like Karl Marx and Arnold Toyanbee and the Indian seers like Swami Vivekananda, Sri. Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and Deendayal Upadhyaya.

He has been ceaselessly writing articles and books on social, cultural and religious themes. He is also a gifted orator, with a great command of words and a greater depth of insight. He has delivered lectures all over the country on national issues. He participated in the Centenary celebrations of Swami Vivekananda`s address at the World Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1993.

Sri. P. Parameswaran was awarded the Bhaiji Hanuman Prasad Poddar Award instituted by Bada Bazaar Library of Calcutta in 1997, in recognition of this effort in reaching the lofty principles of Hinduism to the common man.

He was appointed as the member of the Court (Senate) of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2000.

He was awarded the “Padma Sree” by the Government of India in 2004.

More over he is a winner of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for his book titled “ Disa Bhotathinte Darshanam”.

Sri. Parameswaran is looked upon as a saint in the Kerala social scene albeit without the saffron robe. In the eighties, he took the initiative to call for an end to the mindless political violence in Kerala and put forward the idea of Ideological debate in the place of armed conflict. This was widely welcomed by the wise men of Kerala and set the trend to end the bitter violence. He is an acclaimed scholar and propagandist of the vision of Swami Vivekananda and Sri, Aurobindo. His biography of Sri Narayana Guru is one of the well?written studies on the life and teaching of the reformer saint of Kerala. In 1998, as an answer to the rising crime rate, delinquency and other social evils in Kerala, Sri. Parameswaran proposed observation of a Gita decade. Popularising the Bhagavad-Gita as a comprehensive life science was his solution to the social problems of Kerala and the whole of India. This suggestion was well received by other social and religious leaders and organizations. By a joint effort of several social and religious organizations, a massive movement for spreading Gita awareness has started in Kerala. The recently conducted two?day Gita Sangamam at Trichur attracted around two thousand youths from all over Kerala. Eminent personalities like Dr. Padma Subramaniam, Justice Sukumaran etc. attended the function, which was formally inaugurated by Sri. Ananda Kumar, Union Minister for Culture, Youth Affairs and Sports. The programme of conducting one Gita Shibir in each panchayat of Kerala is on. The International Seminar Bhagavad-Gita Gita and Modern problems held at Thiruvananthapuram from 7th to 4th December 2000, in which 1500 youths, scholars and saints from all over India and abroad including Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi, Union HRD Minister and his Holiness The Dalai Lama participated, was a high watermark of the Gita Movement organized by the Gita Swadhaya Samithi under the able guidance of Sri. P.Parameswaran. It is an on going movement with active participation of the youth from the universities and also from every walk of life.