The Khadilkar Formula

If anything can be a healthy multiple personality disorder, it would be his. A freedom fighter, a social activist, union minister and a Lok Sabha deputy speaker, he was unbelievably an ‘all in one!

Image Source: Lok Sabha

Raghunath Keshav Khadilkar was born in Naringa, Maharashtra. To be more specific, at Devgad taluka of Ratnagiri district, on December 15, 1905. Ashok Rao and Rekha were his parents, whom he lost at an early age. As he was growing up, austerities and deprivations kept coming his way. But a holy spirit like his kept on crossing all kinds of hurdles with his persuasion and dauntlessness.

He studied at Fergusson College (Pune) and attained a B. A. degree. From ILS Law College (Pune), he completed LLB. He was an active zealot and a social activist. And as it was the fate of all revolutionaries, he too was arrested quite a number of times, especially from 1930 to 1945, for his demonstrations and participation in the freedom struggle. He grasped to be an essential character in the sphere of India’s politics. The Congress Socialist Party received the fortune of getting him as one of the founding members in 1934. In 1936, his name was elected as a member of the Party’s National Executive.

Raghunath Keshav Khadilkar was married to Dr Chapala R. Khadilkar, a woman who was the personification of ‘empowerment’. Dr Chapala R. Khadilkar, an eminent gynaecologist of Pune, supported many fighters of the Freedom Movement. She constructed a maternity hospital in Pune as well.

From 1945 to 1950, he served as one of the chairs of Pune Municipality. He was afterwards called by Pune University Court to become a member, which mounted on an opportunity of serving in the executive committee of the Indian Council of Worldly Affairs of Pune.

In 1948, he bid adieu to Congress and shaped the All India Peasants’ And Workers’ Party. Some of his colleagues helped him immensely in his initiative. He was an envoy at the Asian Peace Conference, China (1952) and at the World Agricultural and Forestry Workers Conference of Vienna (1953). In 1953, he was voted as the general secretary of All India Peasants’ and Workers’ Party. He plunged in his zeal to form the All India Mazdoor Kisan Party in 1955. It was a culmination of 7 leftist organizations. Khadilkar was the Secretary Convener of its central committee. He was also a part of the Estimates Committee, devised to look over the expenditure and put the fund within government ministries in proper use from 1957 to 1958.

As a representative of the Mazdoor Kisan Party, he was voted by Ahmednagar as a member of the second Lok Sabha in 1957. Khadilkar stepped into Congress once again after the coalition of Mazdoor Kisan Party and Congress in 1962. In 1962 and 1967, he was victorious from Khed, Maharashtra, in the third and fourth Lok Sabha elections as a Congress candidate.

He was the deputy speaker of Lok Sabha from 1967 to 1969 and a minister of supply from 1969 to 1971. He won consecutive elections might make him the luckiest man of India. He championed the fifth Lok Sabha election from Baramati of Pune in 1971. It led him to be seated as the Union minister of labour and rehabilitation.

He was the deputy speaker of Lok Sabha from 1967 to 1969 and a minister of supply from 1969 to 1971. He won consecutive elections might make him the luckiest man of India. He championed the fifth Lok Sabha election from Baramati of Pune in 1971. It led him to be seated as the Union minister of labour and rehabilitation.

Khadilkar discovered a term, a formula “to raise the minimum bonus payable to the workers from the prevailing 4% to 8.33% (1/12th of the salary)”. It was endorsed as Khadilkar Formula by the Bonus Review Committee in 1971. The Government of India issued it under the Payment of Bonus Act (1972).

We all know how we wait for receiving a fair and handsome bonus, especially during Diwali, and how much we get pissed if it gets replaced by a packet of soan papdi. The Khadilkar Formula helped the workers with one month’s salary as a bonus in festivities and households.

Khadilkar represented our country in France, the UK, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Switzerland, the USA, USSR, Japan, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, Middle Eastern countries, etc. He took a keen interest in topics concerning international affairs, socioeconomic development, specifically in Asia and Africa’s underdeveloped areas.

The man, who spent his life working for the welfare of the needy, took shelter in books after his retirement. He was an avid reader. Khadilkar, himself composed Nava Cheechya Nirmitichi Roop Rekha, a book on the various developments of China after freedom. His memoir, Gele Te Diwas (Gone Are The Days), was written in Marathi. The book is an album of his life events, containing memorable photographs of his political life and personal and a few handwritten letters from past Prime Ministers of India. His granddaughter, Anjali Gupta, translated it into English. He passed away at the age of 73, on March 8, 1979.