"The much-despised peasants are our true bread-givers [annadata], not those who consider themselves special and look down upon the people who live in toil and poverty as lowly beings" ~ thus roared Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi's pen in 1915 (1/n) 
A year later, he met Gandhiji and plunged headlong into the nationalist movement. Gandhiji's first Satyagraha in Champaran, 1917 begun after Vidyarthi started reporting on the plight of the indigo peasants in that area (2/n)
By then a full time INC member, Vidyarthi led the 1st textile workers' strike in Kanpur in 1917/18 and was jailed shortly after for championing the cause of the farm community of Rae Bareilly (3/n)
Despite being an INC member, Vidyarthi became close to Bhagat Singh & other revolutionaries. Singh regularly contributed articles to Vidyarthi's daily "Pratap." Vidyarthi also helped Ashfaqullah Khan financially when he was on the run after Kakori (4/n)
Vidyarthi met Singh & Batukeswar Dutt in prison and reported extensively on the 63-day hunger strike in Lahore jail. Like Bhagat Singh, he held the values of communal harmony very dear and was harsh on proponents of communal divide (5/n)
Just three days after the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his associates, riots had broken out in Kanpur. Unmindful of his own safety, Vidyarthi was out on the streets, trying to prevent mobs from slaughtering each other. He went missing (6/n)
His badly knifed body was found in a garbage heap few days later. Writing in "Young India", Gandhiji said, "The death of (Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi) was one to be envied by us all. His blood is the cement that will ultimately bind the two communities..(7/n)
...No pact will bind our hearts. But heroism such as Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi showed is bound in the end to melt the stoniest hearts, melt them into one....." Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi was born #OTD in 1890 (8/n)
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