Exactly eighty years prior to that, Swatantryaveer Savarkar had organized on the river bank near Lakadi Pool of Pune a gathering where foreign clothes were put to fire. Lokmanya Tilak had presided over that occasion. To commemorate that event Patitpavan Sanghatana, one of the social organizations in Pune, had been organizing a similar event to symbolically burn foreign clothes. That year SS also joined hands with that organization. That was the first time SS had organized any event in partnership with any other organization. Earlier, well-known Socialist leader Nanasaheb Goray was to light the fire but because some persons believed that Patitpavan Sanghatana was communal, he declined to come at the last minute. In his absence leader of Vethbigar Mukti (Bandhuva Mukti) Morcha in Delhi, Swami Agnivesh lit the fire. Sopanrao Deshmukh, President of Patitpavan Sanghatana, Swami Agnivesh, Vijay Jawandhiya and Sharad Joshi spoke at the meeting, which followed the burning. That was one of the very few public programmes organized by SS in Pune city. Another imaginative event was the meeting organized on 12 December, the anniversary of well-known freedom fighter Babu Genu Syed. On that day, in 1929, demonstrations were going on in front of Mulji Jetha Market of Bombay to protest against the transport of foreign cloth. Demonstrators wanted to stop the trucks carrying foreign clothes coming out of the market. Babu Genu was son of a farmer from a village called Mahalunge-Padval in Pune district. He worked in a Bombay textile mill and was one of the demonstrators. When a truck came out from the market loaded with foreign cloth, Babu Genu moved forward across the road and threw himself in front of the truck forcing it to stop. A white soldier was sitting next to the truck driver and ordered the truck driver to keep moving the truck forward. The truck driver refused. The angry soldier pushed him down, sat himself in the driver’s seat and simply drove the truck over the body of Babu Genu. He of course died instantly and is regarded as the first martyr in the freedom struggle When White Gold Turned Red
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