The death anniversary of Kumaraswami Kamaraj falls on October 2, which is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri. All three symbolised simplicity, austerity, and integrity of the higher order.
Kamaraj was born on July 15, 1902, in a family struggling to make ends meet. His father died when he was only six years old. Kamaraj had to drop out of school as his mother could not afford to the fees. At the age of 12, Kamaraj joined his uncle’s clothing store as a salesman but the fledgling Indian nationalist movement attracted his attention.
The news of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Punjab on April 13, 1919 spread like wildfire throughout the country. Virudhnagar, the birthplace of Kamaraj, was no exception. The 16-year-old Kamaraj joined the Indian National Congress and engaged in organising meetings in Virudhnagar and neighbouring areas. He later went on to become the president of the party.
He participated in the non-cooperation movement in 1921, but his family did not support his involvement in politics, and sent him to Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram) to work in a timber shop owned by his uncle. But Kamaraj’s interest in politics did not wane and he joined the Vaikom Satyagraha in Travancore. He fought for the rights of the people belonging to the lower castes, who weren’t allowed to enter the streets near the temples.
After the success of the Vaikom Satyagraha in 1925, he returned to Virudhnagar, where he plunged full-time into the freedom struggle.
In 1923, Kamaraj met Sathyamurthy, who, along with C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), was among the tallest leaders of the Madras Presidency. The 20-year-old Kamaraj adopted Sathyamurthy as his political guru. This would pay him rich dividends in the future conflicts with Rajaji, who was the arch-rival of Sathyamurthy.
In 1930, Kamaraj took part in the Salt Satyagraha Movement and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment. By the time the Quit India Movement ended, Kamaraj had been to prison six times and had spent years in British jails.
In 1940, with the help of Sathyamurthy, he was elected as the president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, defeating his opponent, supported by Rajaji, by a narrow margin of 103 to 100 votes. He held this post till 1954.
This time, Rajaji – who was the sitting chief minister for the second time – had become unpopular, and Kamaraj, in a dexterous move, persuaded him to step down on health grounds. Then Kamaraj became the chief minister, defeating C. Subramanian, Rajaji’s candidate, by 93 to 41 votes.
The “golden age”
Kamaraj took over as chief minister of Madras on April 13, 1954. This was the beginning of what is described as the “golden age” in the history of post-independence Madras state (now Tamil Nadu). His first major reform was to provide free and compulsory primary education to all children in the rural areas. He also ensured that there was no village in the whole state that didn’t have at least one school and a teacher.
To encourage parents to send their children to school, he introduced the free midday meal scheme for both rural and urban children. This was indeed an innovative idea which was later improved upon by the MGR government. It later became a central scheme when Indira Gandhi came back to power in 1980.
Also read: What a First-Hand Experience of Midday Meals Taught a Chennai Man About Equality
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government further expanded this programme, which has now become a universally accepted scheme which no government can roll back. By harnessing irrigation power, Kamaraj turned a food-deficit state into a food-surplus state. But the best was yet to come.
Kamaraj appointed R. Venkataraman (later President of India), as his minister for industries and gave him a free hand to execute his vision of making Madras a top industrial state. Steel, power, cement, and chemical industries were developed throughout the state. The government ensured that all industries and plants were evenly distributed throughout the state and no region was offered any special treatment.
He ran a clean and honest government by setting a personal example. He expected his subordinates to follow his example. He himself drew inspiration from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who by the end of the 1950s had emerged on the world stage as the “moral leader of mankind”.
The ‘Kamaraj Plan’
By 1963, Kamaraj’s ninth year as chief minister, and Nehru’s 16th year as prime minister, the popularity of the grand old party had waned. In May 1963, the party lost three by-elections to the Lok Sabha. Three opposition stalwarts – Acharya Kripalani, Ram Manohar Lohia and Minoo Masani – were elected to parliament even though the Congress tried its best to defeat them.
It was at this point that Nehru called Kamaraj to Hyderabad to discuss a plan he had earlier submitted for reinvigorating the party. When Kamaraj submitted his proposal, he had only Madras in mind.
He resigned from the post of chief minister to focus on strengthening the party organisation in the state, and to counter the growing influence of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). But Nehru told him the strategy should apply to the whole of India and asked him to raise this issue at the next Congress Working Committee (CWC), which was to meet shortly.
Under the proposal, all Union ministers and chief ministers were expected to submit their resignations to the prime minister. Nehru christened the plan as the ‘Kamaraj Plan’ and accepted the resignations of six Union ministers and six chief ministers. Among the Union ministers who had resigned were Morarji Desai, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Jagjivan Ram. The chief ministers included Kamaraj (Madras), Biju Patnaik (Orissa [now Odisha]) and C.B. Gupta (Uttar Pradesh). Nehru also resigned but Kamaraj and the CWC refused to accept it.
Soon after the Kamaraj Plan came into effect, he was unanimously elected as the president of the Indian National Congress, even though then home minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was among the names that did the rounds.
Nehru died on May 27, 1964. It was natural that the Congress president, who had the experience of being an extremely successful chief minister for a decade, will be considered as a serious candidate. But in his typical style, Kamaraj set at rest all speculations about him: No English. No Hindi. How [could he become PM]?
Also read: As India Turns 75, Here’s 75 Debates for Argumentative Indians
Though there were other aspirants, too, the choice ultimately narrowed down to Morarji Desai, supported by the right-wing and leaders such as Jagjivan Ram, former INC president D. Sanjeevaya and Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik. But like the mythological Pandavas who had Krishna on their side, Shastri had the support of not only Kamaraj but also Indira Gandhi, who had declined to be in the contest as she was, within days of her father’s death, ’emotionally ill-prepared’.
In a matter of just two days, Kamaraj moved swiftly and met nearly 250 MPs and convinced them to support Shastri.
Desai was totally outmaneuvered and withdrew in favour of Shastri, who became the prime minister, but Desai chose to remain out of his cabinet.
The role of kingmaker
Kamaraj was destined to play the role of the kingmaker in less than two years. Shastri died at Tashkent on January 11, 1966 after signing a peace treaty with Pakistan following the India-Pakistan War in 1965, in which he led the nation successfully with his inspiring slogan of ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’. This time the contest was between Desai and Mrs. Gandhi. Despite appeals from many leaders, including Kamaraj, Desai refused to withdraw and forced a contest.
In the election to the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) that followed, Mrs. Gandhi, with the support of Kamaraj and others like Jagjivan Ram and Y.B. Chavan, won by a margin of 355-169 votes.
But the role of Kamaraj as kingmaker was still not over. In the 1967 elections, Congress’s tally in the Lok Sabha reduced considerably and it lost power in as many as eight states, including Kamaraj’s own home state of Tamil Nadu. To keep the Congress ship stable in view of its narrow majority, Kamaraj suggested to Mrs. Gandhi to appoint Desai as the deputy prime minister.
Mrs. Gandhi readily accepted the proposal but soon differences arose between her and the Kamaraj-led syndicate.
Following the Congress’s split in 1969, Kamaraj was a disillusioned person but managed to win his Lok Sabha seat from Nagercoil in alliance with Rajaji, his one-time foe. Soon he rebuilt relations with Mrs. Gandhi but his deteriorating health and the rise of MGR after the DMK split prevented Kamaraj from reviving the Congress in the state. He died on October 2, 1975 and was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1976 by the Indira Gandhi government. His statue on Krishna Menon Marg was unveiled in 1985 by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Praveen Davar is a former army officer, columnist, and author of Freedom Struggle and Beyond.
