ABSTRACT
C.Rajagopalachari popularly known as Rajaji, the first and only Indian to be the Governor – General of India was an ardent patriot a pioneer and young social reformer, incisive thinker, profound scholar, and author. He was also an Indian lawyer, independence activist, politician and writer. He was the first and last Indian Governor General of India after Lord Mountbatten left India in 1948. Rajaji was also an eminent statesman and able administrator. Rajaji graced his office with simplicity, dignity and elegance. Rajaji had the distinction of becoming premier of Madras Presidency. During his two years in office, Rajaji brought about several pioneering social and administrative reforms.
Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari was born on 10th December 1878, in Thorappalli village in Hosur taluk in Salem district of the Madras Presidency. Rajaji was the third and last child of Singaramma and Chakravarthi Venkataraya, munsiff  the village. Rajaji’s interest in public affairs and politics began when he commmenced his legal practice in Salem in the year 1900. In the early 1900s, he was inspired by Indian radical Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Rajaji became a member of the Salem municipality in 1911. In 1917, Rajaji was elected Chairman of the municipality and served from 1917 to 1919. As Chairman of the Salem municipality, he was responsible for the election of the first Dalit member of the Salem municipality. Rajaji joined the Indian National Congress and participated as a delegate in the 1906 Calcutta session and the 1907 Surat session. In 1908, he defended Indian freedom fighter P. Varadarajulu Naidu from the charges of sedition levelled against him. He participated in the agitations against the Rowlatt Act in 1919.Rajaji was a close friend of V. O. Chidambaram Pillai. He was also highly admired by Indian independence activists Annie Besant and C. Vijayaraghavachariar.  He was the one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress during the pre-independence era. Although Sardar Patel was the initial choice but on the insistence of the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, he was made the Governor General.

Rajaji held many other positions like: Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, Minister of the Home Affairs of the Indian Union and Chief Minister of the Madras State. Out of all the things that Rajagopalachari did to serve the country, pre and post independence, he is most remembered for the work that he did in Madras while he was the Chief Minister of the state from 1952–54. He passed the legislation to create Andhra state, put an end to sugar rationing, and introduced the ‘Modified System of Elementary Education’. He was one of the first recipients of India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. As Chief Minister of Madras, he was responsible for Madras-Temple Entry Act in 1939. During his tenure of his office, he pledged strongly for the social and economic reforms of Indian Society, especially the removal of untouchability. Rajaji was the hero of the Gaya Congress. It was added to his name as a mark of respect. He became the Municipal Chairman in Salem in 1917. Then he persuaded for admitting dalit students for the first time in Government schools. Rajaji paid their historic March from Trichy with hundred followers. Their March was non-violent. All of them were imprisoned, the followers lost their Government jobs, during salt satygraha movement in Tamil Nadu. The Indian National Congress first came to power in the Madras Presidency, 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. Rajagopalachari was the first Premier of the Madras Presidency from the Congress party. 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.  He also introduced prohibition, along with a sales tax to compensate for the loss of government revenue that resulted from the ban on alcohol. All the members of the Congress Party appreciated the measure of Rajaji. They came forward to co-operate with the Government and make the policy a complete success. As a result of the revenue decline resulting from prohibition, the Provincial Government shut down hundreds of government-run primary schools, a decision that Rajagopalachari’s political opponents alleged deprived many low-caste and Dalit students of their education  During Rajagopalachari’s tenure as Chief Minister, a powerful movement for a separate Andhra State, comprising the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras State, gained a foothold. On 19 October 1952, an Indian independence activist and social worker from Madras named Potti Sriramulu embarked on a hunger strike reiterating the demands of the separatists and calling for the inclusion of Madras city within the proposed state. Rajagopalachari remained unmoved by Sriramulu’s action and refused to intervene. After fasting for days, Sriramulu eventually died on 15 December 1952, triggering riots in Madras city and the Telugu-speaking districts of the state. Initially, both Rajagopalachari and Prime Minister Nehru were against the creation of linguistically demarcated states but as the law and order situation in the state deteriorated, both were forced to accept the demands. Andhra State was thus created on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras, with its capital at Kurnool. However, the boundaries of the new state were determined by a commission which decided against the inclusion of Madras city.

Though the commission’s report suggested the option of having Madras as the temporary capital of Andhra State to allow smooth partitioning of the assets and the secretariat, Rajagopalachari refused to allow Andhra State to have Madras even for a day.  On 31 May 1952, Rajagopalachari put an end to sugar rationing and followed up by abolishing control over food supplies on 5 June 1952. He also introduced measures to regulate the running of universities in the state. In 1953, he introduced a new education scheme known as the “Modified System of Elementary Education”, which reduced schooling for elementary school students to three hours per day with students expected to learn the family vocation at home during the remainder of the day. The plan came in for sharp criticism and evoked strong protests from the Dravidian parties. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam dubbed the scheme Kula Kalvi Thittam or Hereditary Education Policy and attempted to organise massive demonstrations outside Rajagopalachari’s house on 13 and 14 July 1953. The rising unpopularity of his government forced K.Kamaraj to withdraw his support for Rajagopalachari and on 26th March 1954, he resigned as President of the Madras Legislature Congress Party there by precipitating new elections. During the subsequent poll held on 31 March 1954, Rajagopalachari fielded C. Subramaniam against Kamaraj. But Subramaniam could garner only 41 votes to Kamaraj’s 93 and lost the elections. Rajagopalachari eventually resigned as Chief Minister on 13 April 1954, attributing the decision to poor health. 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.

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.  He played a pivotal role in the conclusion of the Poona Pact between B.R.Ambedkar and the Indian National Congress and spearheaded the Mahabal Temple Entry program in 1938. He was a staunch advocate of prohibition and was elected Secretary of the Prohibition League of India in 1930. On assuming the premiership of the Madras Presidency, he introduced prohibition throughout the province. Rajaji, the staunchest supporter of Gandhiji in his fight against drink, realized the havoc played by this evil. Further improvement of the moral, social and economic life of the people, Rajaji decided to introduce the prohibition bill. Rajagopalachari was also an active member of the All India Spinners Association and a strong opponent of “linguistic states”, which he felt would bring anarchy to India.  Although his popularity at the regional level fluctuated greatly, it is believed that Rajagopalachari was able to exercise his stranglehold over provincial politics mainly because he was favoured by national leaders such as Gandhi, Patel and Nehru. Critics feel that when the President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee K. Kamaraj and a majority of the provincial leaders turned against him in the 1940s, Rajagopalachari clung on to a position of influence in regional politics through support from his colleagues at the centre.  Rajagopalachari was always an archetypal Tamil Brahmin nemesis of the Dravidian movement. Deeply religious, a pious Hindu and a follower of the Vedas and Upanishads, he was accused of being pro-Sanskrit and pro-Hindi, a stigma which Rajagopalachari found difficult to erase despite his vehement protests against the imposition of Hindi during the Madras Anti-Hindi agitations of 1965. The social reforms would make proper shape and development of the society. It leads social, political, economical, cultural and public welfare developments where a richer contented life could be possible for all the people in Tamilnadu.

– R.Padmaja

Part-Time Research Scholar, Department of History & Research Centre,  S.T.Hindu College College, Nagercoil, Kanyakumari District.

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