NEWS

PM pays tributes to C. Rajagopalachari on his Jayanti

ABOUT

• Popularly known Rajaji
• Born on December 10 in 1878 in Thorapalli village of Krishnagiri district, Tamil Nadu.
• Obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from Central College, Bangalore and law from Presidency College, Madras
• Formed the Tamil Scientific Terms Society In 1916, an organisation that translated scientific terms of chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy and biology into simple Tamil words
• Joined the Indian National Congress and acted as a legal advisor
• Defended Indian Independence activist, P. Varadarajulu Naidu against charges of sedition in 1917.
• Participated in Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement
• Jailed for two years in Vellore in 1920.
• Opened ashram to promote Gandhi’s principles of Hindu-Muslim harmony and the abolition of untouchability.
• Did Salt Styagraha at Vedaranyam, near Nagapattinam in the then Madras Presidency and broke the salt law.
• First Governor General of India
• Presided over first Conference of Governors was held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1949
• Functioned as the Prime Minister of Madras in preindipendent India
• Was Governor of West Bengal for a while
• Was Union Home Minister after Sardar Patel’s death
• Became the Chief Minister of Madras
• First one who received India’s highest civilian award the Bharat Ratna
• Became the Editor of Mahamta Gandhi’s newspaper, Young India
• Wrote a Tamil translation of the Ramayan, which was later published as Chakravarthi Thirumagan(The book won the Sahitya Akademi Award in Tamil language in the year 1958)
• Founded the Swatantra Party in 1959, which favoured classical liberal principles and free enterprise.It emerged as the biggest opposition party in India by 1967.It stood for the protection of the individual citizen against the increasing trespasses of the State. Issued the Temple Entry Authorization and Indemnity Act, under which Dalits and Shanars were allowed to enter temples
• Coined the expression “Permit-Licence Raj” to describe a dispensation more intrusively tyrannical than the one it had replaced: the British Raj. After the infamous 1955 Avadi session of the Congress party, the government of the day adopted “industrial licensing” as its stated policy.