Man who is reviving the NAXALS

Swapnil Tewari : The man who reformed the lives of Naxalites, rescued troubled families, gave a marketing platform to endangered artisans and brought people from the brink of suicide.

His larger-than-life story will leave you more spellbound than any Bollywood movie script! 

Born as a dyslexic child, he had a difficult childhood. But things got worse when his father died in a car accident. Swapnil was just 13 and when he became suicidal and almost popped his mother’s sleeping pills.

“As I was about to take those pills, a thought struck me. I realised that all my heartbeats, my body parts – everything is alive. And they want me to live. Since that day, I decided to give a chance to happiness,” he recalls.

After finishing his graduation and MBA, Swapnil shifted from BOI to RBI. Having an urge to do something better with his life, Swapnil started a socio-creative venture for tribal artisans.

But a phone call completely changed his life. He called an artisan one day and the man’s daughter picked up his call and said, “Daddy is dead.” Before Swapnil could process this, the girl further added, “The Pradhan of the village takes mummy every night to his house and leaves her back in the morning. She keeps crying all day.” -

This is when he quit his job and went to Madhubani to locate the family. He brought them to Delhi having spent his savings and faced unspeakable trouble. He helped the family sustain by asking them to make art of Madhubani and helped them to market the paintings.

He started a company called Naked Colours in 2011 to support the struggling endangered tribal artisans of India and give them their share of credit.

He was just 23 when he first went to a Naxalite area as he was determined to bring a change in their community.

When he entered the Naxalite area, he was kidnapped and tortured for several days.

“Those guys would torture me for several hours and then go out. And while I was still there, I would teach their kids and spread awareness about hygiene among the ladies. I think they gradually started accepting me. They realised they have captivated a wrong man and finally freed me,” he recalls.

Swapnil came back to Delhi and started working on his new idea for women safety – The Pink Whistle Project. He has designed a whistle called Shakti which can be worn as a bracelet. In times of danger, one can press a button on the whistle, a 2 inch knife comes out of it which is sufficient to wound the attacker.

At 25, Swapnil was the youngest Social Entrepreneur in the world to be featured in Forbes magazine’s Changemaker list. He is currently working with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for AIDS prevention. His invention is an oral external contraceptive for HIV & STD prevention, and has reached Phase 2 of the challenge.