Ashok Kumar Sahu

Ashok Kumar Sahu is a social worker from Kanpur who has spent two decades bringing Vipassana, the ancient Indian meditation practice, to people in Uttar Pradesh. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2021 in the field of medicine, from Uttar Pradesh ^[1].

Finding Vipassana

Sahu was born in Kanpur on 29 March 1952 into a family of modest means ^[2]. He came to Vipassana in 1999, during a period of stress in his own life, and learned it from S. N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin ^[2]. He then set out to make it available to many more people ^[2].

Two centres

In 2003 he founded the Dhamma Lakkhana centre in Lucknow ^[2]. In 2010 he opened a second, Dhamma Kalyana, the Kanpur International Vipassana Centre, on the banks of the Ganga at Dhori Ghat village ^[2]. It offers free residential courses of ten and twenty days, three-day courses for students and teenagers, and teaching in 47 foreign languages for visitors from abroad; around 5,000 people attend every year ^[2]. More than 50,000 people have been guided through the two centres ^[2].

Sahu runs the centres himself and has put his own time and money into them ^[2]. In 2019 President Ram Nath Kovind opened a new men’s hostel at Dhamma Kalyana, and during the Covid-19 pandemic the centres gave frontline workers free food and lodging ^[2].

Beyond meditation

He has worked to develop Dhori Ghat village, supports girls’ and women’s education in rural Uttar Pradesh, and helps poor families with medical emergencies ^[2]. A campaigner against dowry, he has paid for the weddings of about 100 couples from poor families at community marriage events ^[2].

For 40 years he has funded and run the Jai Hind Vyamshala, one of Kanpur’s oldest wrestling akhadas, which holds a yearly dangal and monthly community meals ^[2].