C. Rajagopalachari
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
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C.
Rajagopalachari
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In
office
21 June 1948 – 26 January 1950 |
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Monarch
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Prime Minister
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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Position abolished
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In
office
10 April 1952 – 13 April 1954 |
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Governor
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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In
office
26 December 1950 – 25 October 1951 |
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Prime Minister
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Jawaharlal Nehru
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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In
office
15 August 1947 – 21 June 1948 |
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Premier
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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Kailash Nath Katju
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In
office
14 July 1937 – 9 October 1939 |
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Governor
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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Personal
details
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Born
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Political party
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Other political
affiliations |
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Spouse(s)
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Alamelu Mangamma (1897–1916)
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Profession
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Lawyer
Writer Statesman |
Religion
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Signature
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Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (10 December 1878 – 25 December 1972), informally
called Rajaji or C.R., was an Indian lawyer, independence
activist, politician, writer and statesman.
Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General
of India. He also served as leader of the Indian
National Congress, Premier
of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West
Bengal, Minister for Home Affairs of the
Indian Union and Chief
Minister of Madras state.
Rajagopalachari found the Swatantra Party and was one of the first recipients of India's highest
civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. He vehemently opposed the use of nuclear weapons and was a
proponent of world peace and disarmament. During his lifetime, he also acquired
the nickname 'Mango of Salem'.
Rajagopalachari was born in Thorapalli in the Salem district of Madras Presidency (which is now Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu) and
educated at Central College, Bangalore and Presidency
College, Madras. In 1900 he started a legal
practice that in time became prosperous. 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, 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 Premier of the Madras
Presidency and served until 1940, when he resigned due to Britain's declaration
of war on Germany. He later advocated cooperation 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 stood against the
Congress in the 1962, 1967 and 1972 elections. Rajagopalachari was instrumental
in setting up a united Anti-Congress front in Madras state under C. N. Annadurai, which swept the 1967 elections.
Rajagopalachari was an accomplished
writer who made lasting contributions to Indian
English literature and is also credited with
composition of the song Kurai Onrum Illai set to Carnatic music. He pioneered temperance and temple
entry movements in India and advocated Dalit
upliftment. He has been criticised for introducing the compulsory study of Hindi
and the controversial Madras Scheme of
Elementary Education in Madras State. Critics have often attributed his pre-eminence in politics
to his standing as a favourite of both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Rajagopalachari was described by Gandhi as the
"keeper of my conscience".
Early
life
Rajagopalachari was born to
Chakravarti Venkatarya Iyengar, munsiff of Thorapalli Village and Singaramma on 10 December 1878 into a devout Iyengar family of Thorapalli in the Madras Presidency. The couple already had two sons, Narasimhachari and
Srinivasa. According to popular folklore, while Rajagopalachari was a
child, an astrologer told his parents that he would have the "fortunes of
a king, a guru,
an exile and an outcaste. The people will worship him; they will also reject
him. He will sit on an emperor's throne; he will live in a poor man's
hut."
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 Government 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.
Rajagopalachari married Alamelu
Mangamma in 1897 and the couple had five children – three sons and two
daughters. Mangamma died in 1916 whereupon Rajagopalachari took sole
responsibility for the care of his children. His son C. R. 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.
Indian
Independence Movement
Rajagopalachari's interest in public
affairs and politics began when he commenced his legal practice in Salem
in 1900. Inspired by Indian independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the early 1900s, he later became a member of the Salem
municipality in 1911. In 1917, Rajagopalachari 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. Rajagopalachari joined the Indian
National Congress and participated as a delegate in
the 1906 Calcutta
session and the 1907 Surat session. 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.
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.
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.
Madras
Presidency 1937–39
The Indian National Congress first
came to power in the Madras Presidency (also called Madras Province by the British)
following the 1937 election
and except for a six-year period when Madras was under the Governor's direct
rule, ruled 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 also opened to the Dalits and
Shanars. Rajagopalachari also issued the Agricultural Debt Relief Act in March
1938 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. 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. His
opponents also attributed casteist motives to his government's implementation of Gandhi's Nai Talim
scheme into the education system.
Rajagopalachari's tenure as Chief
Minister 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. The unpopular law was eventually
repealed by the Governor of Madras on 21 February 1940. Despite its numerous shortcomings, Madras under
Rajagopalachari was still considered by political historians as the best
administered province in British India.
Second
World War
At the outbreak of the Second World War Rajagopalachari immediately resigned as Premier along with
other members of his cabinet in protest at the declaration of war by the Viceroy of India. Rajagopalachari was arrested in December 1940 in
accordance with the Defence of India rules and sentenced to one-year in prison. However, subsequently, Rajagopalachari differed in
opposition to the British war effort. He also opposed the Quit India Movement and instead advocated dialogue with the British. He reasoned that passivity and neutrality would be harmful
to India's interests at a time when the country was threatened with invasion. He also advocated dialogue with the Muslim League, which was demanding the partition of India. He subsequently resigned from the party and the assembly
following differences over resolutions passed by the Madras Congress
legislative party and disagreements with the leader of the Madras provincial
Congress K. Kamaraj.
Following the end of the war in
1945, elections followed in the Madras Presidency in 1946. Kamaraj,
President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee backed Tanguturi Prakasam as Chief Ministerial candidate to prevent Rajagopalachari
from winning. However, he did not contest the elections and Prakasam was
elected.
During the last years of the war,
Rajagopalachari 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.
From 1946 to 1947, Rajagopalachari
served as the Minister for Industry, Supply, Education and Finance in the
Interim Government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru.
Governor
of West Bengal 1947–1948
When India attained independence on
15 August 1947, the British province of Bengal was divided into two, with West Bengal becoming part of India and East Bengal part of Pakistan.
Supported by Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajagopalachari was appointed first Governor of West
Bengal.
Disliked by Bengalis for his
criticism of Bengali revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose during the 1938 Tripuri Congress session Rajagopalachari's appointment was unsuccessfully opposed by
Subhas'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:
"I see that you are not able to
restrain the policy of agitation over inter-provincial boundaries. It is easy
to yield to current pressure of opinion and it is difficult to impose on
enthusiastic people any policy of restraint. But I earnestly plead that we
should do all we can to prevent ill-will from hardening into a chronic
disorder. We have enough ill-will and prejudice to cope with. Must we hasten to
create further fissiparous forces?"
Despite the general attitude of the
Bengalis, Rajagopalachari was highly regarded and respected by Chief Minister Prafulla Chandra
Ghosh and the state cabinet.
Governor-General
of India 1948–1950
From 10 until 24 November 1947,
Rajagopalachari served as Acting Governor-General
of India in the absence of the
Governor-General Lord Mountbatten, who was on leave in England to attend the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Mountbatten's nephew Prince Philip. Rajagopalachari led a very simple life in the viceregal
palace, washing his own clothes and polishing his own shoes. Impressed with his abilities, Mountbatten made
Rajagopalachari his second choice to succeed him after Vallabhbhai Patel, when he was to leave India in June 1948. Rajagopalachari was eventually chosen as the Governor-General
when Nehru disagreed with Mountbatten's first choice, as did Patel himself. He was initially hesitant but accepted when Nehru wrote to
him, "I hope you will not disappoint us. We want you to help us in many
ways. The burden on some of us is more than we can carry." Rajagopalachari then served as Governor-General of India
from June 1948 until 26 January 1950, and was not only the last
Governor-General of India, but the only Indian national ever to hold the
office.
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.
In
Nehru's Cabinet
At Nehru's invitation, in 1950
Rajagopalachari joined the Union Cabinet as Minister without Porfolio 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.[citation
needed] He also expressed concern over demands for new
linguistically based states, arguing that they would generate differences
amongst the people.
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 Telengana uprising and his strong pro-Soviet leanings. Tired of being persistently overruled by Nehru with regard
to critical decisions, Rajagopalachari submitted his resignation on the
"grounds of ill-health" and returned to Madras.
Madras
State 1952–1954
Template:Rajagopalachari
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 participate, Madras governor Sri Prakasa appointed Rajagopalachari Chief Minister after nominating
him to the Madras
Legislative Council 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 an as unelected member of the legislative council.
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[citation needed] and
followed up by abolishing control over food supplies on 5 June 1952.[citation needed] He also
introduced measures to regulate the running of universities in the state.[citation needed] 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 26 March 1954, he resigned
as President of the Madras Legislature Congress Party thereby precipitating new
elections.[citation needed] 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.
Split
from Congress – parting of ways
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.
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.
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.
In his short essay "Our
Democracy", Rajagopalachari explained the necessity for a right-wing
alternative to the Congress by saying:
since... the Congress Party has
swung to the Left, what is wanted is not an ultra or outer-Left [viz. the CPI
or the Praja Socialist Party, PSP], but a strong and articulate Right
Rajagopalachari also insisted that
the opposition must:
operate not privately and behind the
closed doors of the party meeting, but openly and periodically through the
electorate.
He outlined the goals of the
Swatantra Party through twenty one "fundamental principles" in the
foundation document. The party stood for equality and opposed government control
over the private sector. Rajagopalachari sharply criticised the bureaucracy and
coined the term "license-permit Raj" to describe Nehru's elaborate system of permissions
and licenses required for an individual to set up a private enterprise.
Rajagopalachari's personality became a rallying point for the party.
Rajagopalachari's efforts to build
an anti-Congress front led to a patch up with his former adversary C. N. Annadurai of the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Annadurai grew close
to Rajagopalachari and sought an alliance with the Swatantra Party for the 1962 Madras legislative assembly elections. Although there were occasional electoral pacts between the
Swatantra Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Rajagopalachari
remained non-committal on a formal tie-up with the DMK due to its existing
alliance with Communists whom he dreaded. The Swatantra Party contested 94 seats in the Madras state
assembly elections and won six as well as won 18 parliamentary seats in the 1962
Lok Sabha elections.
India's use of
military force against Portugal
to capture the Portuguese enclave of Goa was criticised by Rajagopalachari who said of the operation and subsequent acts of
international diplomacy, "India has totally lost the moral power to raise
her voice against the use of military power."
1965
Anti-Hindi agitations in Madras
Main article: Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu
On 26 January 1950, the Government
of India adopted Hindi as the official language of the country, but because of
objections in non-Hindi-speaking areas, it introduced a provision tentatively
making English the second official language on a par with Hindi for a
stipulated fifteen-year period in order to facilitate a switch to Hindi in
non-Hindi speaking states. From 26 January 1965 onwards, Hindi was to become
the sole official language of the Indian Union and people in non-Hindi speaking
regions were compelled to learn Hindi. This led to vehement opposition and just
before Republic Day, severe anti-Hindi protests
broke out in Madras State. Rajagopalachari had earlier been sharply critical of
the recommendations made by the Official Languages Commission in 1957. On 28 January 1956, Rajagopalachari signed a resolution along
with Annadurai and Periyar endorsing the continuation of English as the
official language. At an All-India Language Conference held on 8 March 1958,
he declared: "Hindi is as much foreign to non-Hindi speaking people as
English [is] to the protagonists of Hindi". When the Anti-Hindi agitations broke out in 1965,
Rajagopalachari completely reversed his 1938 support for the introduction of
Hindi and took a strongly anti-Hindi stand in support of the protests, On 17 January 1965, he convened the Madras state Anti-Hindi
conference in Tiruchirapalli. angrily declaring that Part XVII of the Constitution of
India which declared that Hindi was the official language should "be
heaved and thrown into the Arabian Sea."
1967
elections
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.
The Swatantra party also did well in
elections in other states and to the Lok Sabha, the directly elected lower house of the Parliament of India. It won 45 Lok Sabha seats in the 1967 general elections
and emerged as the single largest opposition party. The principal opposition
party in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, it also formed a coalition
government in Odisha and had a
significant presence in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.
Later
years and death
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 (O), a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress led by
Kamaraj.
In January 1971, a three-party
anti-Congress coalition was established by the Congress (O), Jan Sangh
and the Samyukta
Socialist Party then on 8 January, the national executive of the Swatantra
Party took the unanimous decision to join the coalition. The dissident parties formed an alliance called the
National Democratic Front and fought against the Indian National Congress led
by Indira Gandhi in the 1971
Indian general elections. However, the alliance fared badly. The Swatantra Party's tally was reduced to 8 seats from 23
in the 1967 elections. The decline of the Swatantra Party was also visible in the 1971 Tamil Nadu Legislative assembly elections in which it won just 19 seats down from 27 in the 1967
elections.
By November 1972, Rajagopalachari's
health had begun to decline and on 17 December the same year, a week after his 94th
birthday, he was admitted to the Government Hospital, Madras suffering from uraemia,
dehydration and a urinary infection. In the hospital, he was visited by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi,
V. R.
Nedunchezhiyan, V. V. Giri, Periyar and other state and national leaders. Rajagopalachari's condition deteriorated in the following
days as he frequently lost consciousness and he died at 5:44 pm on 25
December 1972 at the age of 94. His son, C. R. Narasimhan, was at his bedside at the time of his death reading him
verses from a Hindu holy book.
Contributions
to literature and music
See also: Works of Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari
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.
In 1951, he wrote an abridged
retelling of the Mahabharata in English, followed by one of the Ramayana in 1957. Earlier, in 1961, he had translated Kambar's
Tamil Ramayana into English. In 1965, he translated the Thirukkural into English and also wrote books on the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads in English as well as works on Socrates,
and Marcus Aurelius in Tamil. Rajagopalachari often regarded his literary works as the
best service he had rendered to the people. In 1958, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi
Award for works in the Tamil
language for his retelling of the Ramayana
– Chakravarti Thirumagan. He was also one of the founders of the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, an organisation dedicated to the
promotion of education and Indian culture. In 1959 the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan published his book:
"Hinduism: Doctrine and Way of Life".
Apart from his literary works,
Rajagopalachari also composed a devotional song Kurai Onrum Illai devoted to Lord Venkateshwara, a song set to music and a regular at Carnatic
concerts. Rajagopalachari composed a benediction hymn sung by M. S. Subbulakshmi at the United Nations General Assembly in 1967.
Legacy
In 1954, during U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon's nineteen country Asian tour, he was lectured by
Rajagopalachari on the consuming emotional quality of nuclear weapons. The pair discussed spiritual life, particularly
reincarnation and predestination. Nixon wrote three pages of notes recording
Rajagopalachari's words, claiming in his memoirs thirty-six years later that
the afternoon "had such a dramatic effect on me that I used many of his
thoughts in my speeches over the next several years."
While on a tour to the United States
of America 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.
E. M. S.
Namboodiripad, a prominent Communist Party
leader, once remarked that Rajagopalachari was the Congress leader he respected
the most despite the fact he was also someone with whom he had the most
differences. Of Rajagopalachari, Periyar, one of his foremost political
rivals remarked "he was a leader unique and unequalled, who lived and
worked for high ideals". On his death, condolences poured in from all corners of the
country. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India commented:
Mr. Rajagopalachari was one of the
makers of new India, a sincere patriot, a man whose penetrating intellect and
moral sense added depth to national affairs. His analysis, his anticipation,
his administrative acumen and his courage to steer an unpopular course if he
felt the need, marked him as a statesman and made an impact on the national
history at several crucial junctures. He had held the highest positions and
lent distinction to every office.
—Swarajya, 27 January 1973
Regarded as a pioneer of social
reform, Rajagopalachari issued temple entry proclamations in the
Madras Presidency and worked towards the upliftment of Dalits. 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. where it remained in vogue until its removal by M.
Karunanidhi over thirty years later. 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.
He is also remembered for his
literary contributions, some of which are considered modern-day classics. He
frequently wrote articles for Kalki and his own journal Swarajya, of which Philip Spratt was editor.
Richard
Casey, Governor of Bengal from 1944 to
1946, regarded Rajagopalachari as the wisest man in India. The best possible tribute to Rajagopalachari was from
Mahatma Gandhi who referred to him as the "keeper of my conscience". Today, his private papers are part of the Archives at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, at Teen Murti House, Delhi.
Criticism
Even though Rajagopalachari was
considered one of the most able statesmen in the national arena, his provincial
and later his state administrations are seen as having fared badly. 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:
The most conspicuous case of constitutional impropriety by
the Governor in the exercise of discretion to choose the Chief Minister, took
place in 1952 when the then Governor of Madras, Sri Prakasa, invited
Rajagopalachari to form the government in the composite State
Referring to Rajagopalachari, Sarojini Naidu, who was never on good terms with him, remarked that 'the
Madras fox was a dry logical Adi Shankaracharya while Nehru was the noble, compassionate Buddha'.
Although his popularity at the
regional level fluctuated greatly, it is believed that[who?] 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. He was also accused of attempting to heavily sanskritise
Tamil vocabulary through the inclusion of a large number of Sanskrit words in
his writings. His vocational education policy was seen as an attempt to
reinforce the Varnashrama dharma of the caste system, while his Indian nationalist and anti-secessionist
leanings formed the inspiration for Periyar's coining of the term
"Brahmin-Bania combine".[clarification needed]
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