C.R. Rajagopalachari

Rajagopalachari was considered one of the ablest statesmen in the national arena. Critics opine that he completely failed to gauge the thoughts and feelings of the masses – his introduction of Hindi and the Madras Scheme of Elementary Education have both been extensively criticised while his pacifist stance during the Quit India Movement and his "C. R. formula" angered the majority of his colleagues in the Indian National Congress. P. C. Alexander, a former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, once wrote:

Vasanthi Srinivasan, Gandhi's Conscience Keeper: C Rajagopalachari and Indian Politics (Permanent Black 2009)

On 21 August 1978, a portrait of Rajagopalachri is put in the Central Hall of Parliament House. The portrait of Rajagopalachri, painted by N. S. Subhakrishna, was unveiled by the then President of India, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy.

Rajagopalachari was born in the Thorapalli village of Hosur taluk in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu and was educated at Central College, Bangalore, and Presidency College, Madras. In 1900's he started legal practice at the Salem court. On entering politics, he became a member and later President of the Salem municipality. He joined the Indian National Congress and participated in the agitations against the Rowlatt Act, joining the Non-Cooperation movement, the Vaikom Satyagraha, and the Civil Disobedience movement. In 1930, Rajagopalachari risked imprisonment when he led the Vedaranyam Salt Satyagraha in response to the Dandi March. In 1937, Rajagopalachari was elected Prime minister of the Madras Presidency and served until 1940, when he resigned due to Britain's declaration of war on Germany. He later advocated co-operation over Britain's war effort and opposed the Quit India Movement. He favoured talks with both Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League and proposed what later came to be known as the C. R. formula. In 1946, Rajagopalachari was appointed Minister of Industry, Supply, Education and Finance in the Interim Government of India, and then as the Governor of West Bengal from 1947 to 1948, Governor-General of India from 1948 to 1950, Union Home Minister from 1951 to 1952 and as Chief Minister of Madras state from 1952 to 1954. In 1959, he resigned from the Indian National Congress and founded the Swatantra Party, which fought against the Congress in the 1962, 1967 and 1971 elections. Rajagopalachari was instrumental in setting up a united Anti-Congress front in Madras state under C. N. Annadurai, which swept the 1967 elections. He died on 25 December 1972 at age 94.

In 1971, Annadurai's successor M. Karunanidhi relaxed prohibition laws in Tamil Nadu due to the poor financial situation of the state. Rajagopalachari pleaded with him not to repeal prohibition but to no avail and as a result, the Swatantra Party withdrew its support for the state government and instead allied with the Congress, a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress led by Kamaraj.

The fourth elections to the Madras Legislative assembly were held in February 1967. At the age of 88, Rajagopalachari worked to forge a united opposition to the Indian National Congress through a tripartite alliance between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Swatantra Party and the Forward Bloc. The Congress party was defeated in Madras for the first time in 30 years and the coalition led by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam came to power. C. N. Annadurai served as Chief Minister from 6 March 1967 till his death on 3 February 1969. Rajagopalachari delivered a moving eulogy to Annadurai at his funeral.

Rajagopalachari was the pro-Brahminism nemesis of the anti-Brahminism movement constituting the Dravidian movement. He took stances that were pro-Sanskrit and pro-Hindi. Rajagopalachari found it difficult to fight against the masses' feeling because his imposition of Hindi during the Madras Anti-Hindi agitations of 1965. His attempts to heavily "Sanskritise" Tamil vocabulary through the inclusion of a large number of Sanskrit-derived words in his writings were not received well. He closed down six thousand schools, citing financial constraints, and introduced the Modified Scheme of Elementary education 1953 or Kula Kalvi Thittam that implied a caste-based education system which ultimately led to his resignation; this gave raise to Kamaraj, who opposed this policy and eventually opened 12000 schools.

On 4 June 1959, shortly after the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress, Rajagopalachari, along with Murari Vaidya of the newly established Forum of Free Enterprise (FFE) and Minoo Masani, a classical liberal and critic of socialist Nehru, announced the formation of the new Swatantra Party at a meeting in Madras. Conceived by disgruntled heads of former princely states such as the Raja of Ramgarh, the Maharaja of Kalahandi and the Maharajadhiraja of Darbhanga, the party was conservative in character. Later, N. G. Ranga, K. M. Munshi, Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa and the Maharaja of Patiala joined the effort. Rajagopalachari, Masani and Ranga also tried but failed to involve Jayaprakash Narayan in the initiative.

Rajagopalachari tendered his official resignation from the Indian National Congress and along with a number of other dissidents organised the Congress Reform Committee (CRC) in January 1957. K. S. Venkatakrishna Reddiar was elected president and the party fielded candidates in 55 constituencies in the 1957 state assembly elections, to emerge as the second largest party in Madras state with 13 seats in the legislative assembly. The Congress Reform Committee also contested 12 Lok Sabha seats during the 1957 Indian elections. The committee became a fully-fledged political party and was renamed the Indian National Democratic Congress at a state conference held in Madurai on September 28–29, 1957.

While on a tour to the United States as a member of the Gandhi Peace Foundation delegation, in September 1962 Rajagopalachari visited American President John F. Kennedy at the White House. Rajagopalachari warned Kennedy of the dangers of embarking on an arms race, even one which the US could win. At the end of the meeting Kennedy remarked "This meeting had the most civilizing influence on me. Seldom have I heard a case presented with such precision, clarity and elegance of language". On 1 May 1955, Rajagopalachari appealed to the Government of India to cancel receipt of aid from America if the country continued with its nuclear tests.

Following his resignation as Chief Minister, Rajagopalachari took a temporary break from active politics and instead devoted his time to literary pursuits. He wrote a Tamil re-telling of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana which appeared as a serial in the Tamil magazine Kalki from 23 May 1954 to 6 November 1955. The episodes were later collected and published as Chakravarthi Thirumagan, a book which won Rajagopalachari the 1958 Sahitya Academy award in Tamil language. On Republic Day 1955, Rajagopalachari was honoured with India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

In the 1952 Madras elections, the Indian National Congress was reduced to a minority in the state assembly with a coalition led by the Communist Party of India winning most of the seats. Though he did not contest the election, Madras Governor Sri Prakasa appointed Rajagopalachari as Chief Minister by nomination as MLC without consulting either the Indian Prime Minister Nehru or the ministers in the Madras state cabinet. Rajagopalachari was then able to prove that he had a majority in the assembly by luring MLAs from opposition parties to join the Indian National Congress. Nehru was furious and wrote to Rajagopalachari saying "the one thing we must avoid giving is the impression that we stick to office and we want to keep others out at all costs." Rajagopalachari, however, refused to contest a by-election and remained as an unelected member of the legislative council.

By the end of 1951, the differences between Nehru and Rajagopalachari came to the fore. While Nehru perceived the Hindu Mahasabha to be the greatest threat to the nascent republic, Rajagopalachari held the opinion that the Communists posed the greatest danger. He also adamantly opposed Nehru's decision to commute the death sentences passed on those involved in the Telangana uprising and his strong pro-Soviet leanings. Tired of being persistently over-ruled by Nehru with regard to critical decisions, Rajagopalachari submitted his resignation on the "grounds of ill-health" and returned to Madras.

At Nehru's invitation, in 1950 Rajagopalachari joined the Union Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio where he served as a buffer between Nehru and Home Minister Sardar Patel and on occasion offered to mediate between the two. Following Patel's death on 15 December 1950, Rajagopalachari was finally made Home Affairs Minister and went on to serve for nearly 10 months. As had his predecessor, he warned Nehru about the expansionist designs of China and expressed regret over the Tibet problem. He also expressed concern over demands for new linguistically based states, arguing that they would generate differences amongst the people.

By the end of 1949, an assumption was made that Rajagopalachari, already governor-general, would continue as president. Backed by Nehru, Rajagopalachari wanted to stand for the presidential election but later withdrew, due to the opposition of a section of the Indian National Congress mostly made up of North Indians who were concerned about Rajagopalachari's non-participation during the Quit India Movement.

The Indian National Congress first came to power in the Madras Presidency (also called Madras Province by the British), following the Madras elections of 1937. Except for a six-year period when Madras was under the governor's direct rule, the Congress administered the presidency until India became independent on 15 August 1947. At the age of 59, Rajagopalachari won the Madras University seat and entered the Assembly as the first Premier of the Madras Presidency from the Congress party.

From 1946 to 1947, Rajagopalachari served as the Minister for Industry, Supply, Education, and Finance in the Interim Government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Following the end of the war in 1945, elections followed in the Madras Presidency in 1946. During the last years of the war, Kamaraj was requested by Nehru, PM; Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, Home Minister; and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad to make Rajaji the Premier of Madras Presidency. Kamaraj, President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, was forced to make [Tanguturi Prakasam] as Chief Ministerial candidate, by the elected members, to prevent Rajagopalachari from winning. However, Rajagopalachari did not contest the elections, and Prakasam was elected.

Rajaji was instrumental in initiating negotiations between Gandhi and Jinnah. In 1944, he proposed a solution to the Indian Constitutional tangle. In the same year, he proposed an "absolute majority" threshold of 55 per cent when deciding whether a district should become part of India or Pakistan, triggering a huge controversy among nationalists.

Rajagopalachari's tenure as Chief Minister of Madras is largely remembered for the compulsory introduction of Hindi in educational institutions, which made him highly unpopular. This measure sparked off widespread anti-Hindi protests, which led to violence in some places and the jailing of over 1,200 men, women and children who took part in the unrest. Two protesters, Thalamuthu Nadar and Natarasan, were killed during the protests. In 1940, Congress ministers resigned in protest over the declaration of war on Germany without their consent, leaving the governor to take over the reins of the administration. On 21 February 1940 the unpopular new law on the use of Hindi was quickly repealed by the Governor of Madras. Despite its numerous shortcomings, Madras under Rajagopalachari was still considered by political historians as the best administered province in British India.

Rajagopalachari issued the Temple Entry Authorization and Indemnity Act 1939, under which restrictions were removed on Dalits and Shanars entering Hindu temples. In the same year, the Meenakshi temple at Madurai was also opened to the Dalits and Shanars. In March 1938 Rajagopalachari introduced the Agricultural Debt Relief Act, to ease the burden of debt on the province's peasant population.

Disliked by Bengalis for his criticism of the Bengali revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose during the 1938 Tripuri Congress session, Rajagopalachari's appointment was unsuccessfully opposed by Bose's brother Sarat Chandra Bose. During his tenure as governor, Rajagopalachari's priorities were to deal with refugees and to bring peace and stability in the aftermath of the Calcutta riots. He declared his commitment to neutrality and justice at a meeting of Muslim businessmen: "Whatever may be my defects or lapses, let me assure you that I shall never disfigure my life with any deliberate acts of injustice to any community whatsoever." Rajagopalachari was also strongly opposed to proposals to include areas from Bihar and Odisha as part of the province of West Bengal. One such proposal by the editor of an important newspaper led to the reply:

In the early 1930s, Rajagopalachari emerged as one of the major leaders of the Tamil Nadu Congress. When Gandhi organised the Dandi march in 1930, Rajagopalachari broke the salt laws at Vedaranyam, near Nagapattinam, along with Indian independence activist Sardar Vedaratnam and was afterwards imprisoned by the British. He was subsequently elected President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee. Following enactment of the Government of India Act in 1935, Rajagopalachari was instrumental in getting the Indian National Congress to participate in the 1937 general elections.

An accomplished writer both in his mother tongue Tamil as well as English, Rajagopalachari was the founder of the Salem Literary Society and regularly participated in its meetings. In 1922, he published Siraiyil Tavam (Meditation in jail), a day-to-day account of his first imprisonment by the British from 21 December 1921 to 20 March 1922.

After Mahatma Gandhi joined the Indian independence movement in 1919, Rajagopalachari became one of his followers. He participated in the Non-Cooperation movement and gave up his law practice. In 1921, he was elected to the Congress Working Committee and served as the General Secretary of the party before making his first major breakthrough as a leader during the 1922 Indian National Congress session at Gaya when he strongly opposed collaboration with the colonial administration and participation in the diarchial legislatures established by the Government of India Act 1919. While Gandhi was in prison, Rajagopalachari led the group of "No-Changers", individuals against contesting elections for the Imperial Legislative Council and other provincial legislative councils, in opposition to the "Pro-changers" who advocated council entry. When the motion was put to the vote, the "No-changers" won by 1,748 to 890 votes resulting in the resignation of important Congress leaders including Pandit Motilal Nehru and C. R. Das, the President of the Indian National Congress. When the Indian National Congress split in 1923, Rajagopalachari was a member of the Civil Disobedience Enquiry Committee. He was also involved in the Vaikom Satyagraha movement against untouchability during 1924–25.

Rajagopalachari started the Tamil Scientific Terms Society in 1916, a group that coined new words in Tamil for terms connected to botany, chemistry, physics, astronomy and mathematics. At about the same time, he called for Tamil to be introduced as the medium of instruction in schools.

Rajagopalachari's interest in public affairs and politics began when he commenced his legal practice in Salem in 1900. At the age of 28, he joined the Indian National Congress and participated as a delegate in the 1906 Calcutta session. Inspired by Indian independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak, he later became a member of the Salem municipality in 1911. In 1917, he was elected Chairman of the municipality and served from 1917 to 1919 during which time he was responsible for the election of the first Dalit member of the Salem municipality. In 1917, he defended Indian independence activist P. Varadarajulu Naidu against charges of sedition and two years later participated in the agitations against the Rowlatt Act. Rajagopalachari was a close friend of the founder of Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company V. O. Chidambaram Pillai as well as greatly admired by Indian independence activists Annie Besant and C. Vijayaraghavachariar.

Rajagopalachari married Alamelu Mangalamma in 1897 and the couple had five children, three sons: C. R. Narasimhan, C. R. Krishnaswamy, and C. R. Ramaswami, and two daughters: Lakshmi Gandhi (née Rajagopalachari) and Namagiri Ammal C. R. . Mangamma died in 1916 whereupon Rajagopalachari took sole responsibility for the care of his children. His son Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari Narasimhan was elected to the Lok Sabha from Krishnagiri in the 1952 and 1957 elections and served as a member of parliament for Krishnagiri from 1952 to 1962. He later wrote a biography of his father. Rajagopalachari's daughter Lakshmi married Devdas Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi while his grandsons include biographer Rajmohan Gandhi, philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi and former governor of West Bengal Gopalkrishna Gandhi. His great-grandson, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari Kesavan, is a spokesperson of the Congress Party and Trustee of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee.

A weak and sickly child, Rajagopalachari was a constant worry to his parents who feared that he might not live long. As a young child, he was admitted to a village school in Thorapalli then at the age of five moved with his family to Hosur where Rajagopalachari enrolled at Hosur R.V.Government Boys Hr sec School. He passed his matriculation examinations in 1891 and graduated in arts from Central College, Bangalore in 1894. Rajagopalachari also studied law at the Presidency College, Madras, from where he graduated in 1897.

C. R. Rajagopalachari was born on December 10, 1878 in Salem, Madras Presidency, British India as Chakravarthy Rajagopalachari.