VARAHAGIRI VENKATA GIRI

M. CHALAPATHI RAU

The ‘Ifs’ of history have fascinated imaginative historians. If Don John of Austria had lost at Lepanto. If Nepoleon had won at Waterloo. In either case history would have been different. If Giri had not won the Presidential election in August 1969, India’s history would have been different, a fragmentary story of and personal squabbles and intrigues. With Giri as President, history has been somewhat happy, the constitutional process have been smooth, and the social processes have been reaching the climax of a revolution. Under his benevolent eye, Indira Gandhi is making history. National integration is near complete. The constitution has become flexible and amenable to the wishes of the people. The democratic process has been stabilized. Bangla Desh has been liberated. Giri has been India’s rock of stability, protecting her parliamentary democracy as the Rock of Gibraltar protects the Mediterranean Sea.

Giri’s Presidential election campaign, in spite of its non-violent character, would read like a chapter from the Iliad or the Odyssey. He had been known for his stout heart and readiness to accept challenges; but from first to last he took grave risks and performed breath-taking feats. He was not vain enough to think that he must tenant Rashtrapati Bhavan. But the selection of Sanjeeva Reddy by a bare technical majority in the Congress Parliamentary Board was, he felt, a repudiation of the Congress heritage, an insult to the nation, and an insult to him. He did not conceal his contempt for intrigue; he did not hesitate to state his own qualifications. He gave up everything for the fight–Acting Presidentship, Vice-Presidentship, the comfort of Rashtrapati Bhavan and the perquisites of his office. He was once more a Satyagrahi, and his campaign was hectic, like Napoleon’s before Marengo or Austerlitz. No fight had been so honourable or clean. Apart from the convulsions in the Congress, other parties too were divided. A national consensus above party emerged. Giri was elected; when his election was challenged, he faced the proceedings bravely, and emerged a greater hero. What the people’s representatives had endorsed, the Supreme Court confirmed. He was the people’s President. It was a demonstration of the grandeur of the human spirit.

Varahagiri Venkata Giri came from a family of lawyers and legislators. From early years he showed leadership; at twelve, he was a pioneer of the library movement in the country. After passing Senior Cambridge, he was sent to Britain in 1913 to study law. He went to Ireland instead, attracted by the Irish struggle for freedom, and joined the Inns of Court and the National University of Ireland. He was secretary of the Indian Students’ Association of Dublin, which he organised. Gandhi’s Satyagraha struggle in South Africa aroused Giri’s interest and he prepared a pamphlet entitled ‘South African Horrors’, which narrated graphically the humiliation to which the Indians were subjected. When a consignment of copies of the pamphlet arrived in Bombay, it was declared to come within the provision of sections 124-A and 153 of the Indian Penal code, and Giri was threatened with prosecution.

Giri showed early his independence of outlook by disagreeing with Gandhi and impressing Gandhi with his high integrity, Gandhi persuaded Giri to join the Red Cross when both were in London after the outbreak of the 1914 war, but Giri was not averse to violence in overthrowing the British and believed that England’s difficulties were India’s opportunities; he, therefore, wrote to Gandhi that he was withdrawing from the Red Cross as he could not go against the dictates of his conscience; if the authorities in England wanted to know the reasons for his withdrawal, Gandhi was free to reveal the facts. Gandhi relieved him of his obligations. Giri was now in the post-Parnellite period, an Indian parallel to Michael Collins. When Ireland was placed under Martial Law, after the Easter Rebellion in 1916, a military warrant was issued against Giri, but no evidence of his complicity with the Sinn Fein could be found. He was externed and given notice to quit Britain in July, 1916. Giri imbibed not only the revolutionary spirit but revolutionary technique in Ireland. He had the spirit of a Danton ready to go to the gallows, though he was a young, handsome figure with a future.

The handsome young man in western clothes, with the determined face and broad shoulders had his share of imprisonment as a Satyagrahi in India. But he developed in two directions, a leader among trade union leaders and as a leader among political leaders, showing that the trade union movement like other movements was a part of the national movement then. Giri became the leader of railway men, led successful strikes, specially the Bengal-Nagpur Railway strike, and became twice president of the All-India Trade Union Congress. If the trade unions had taken his advice, the trade union movement would have remained united till today. He was for collection bargaining or arbitration but not for adjudication, which is common now; he believed in one industry, one union. Apart from his thinking on the trade union movement, he showed the value of his thinking by the success of the strikes he led. Jawaharlal Nehru said: “While Mr. Giri’s success in defeating the Raja of Bobbili was great, his (Giri’s) success in the B. N. Railway strike is greater.”

Giri’s contest against the powerful Raja of Bobbili, in which Jawaharlal took part, has come to be known as the Battle of Bobbili because of Giri’s success in an anti-Congress stronghold. Fresh from the battle, Giri was found to be of cabinet timbre. Under Rajaji he held a large number of important portfolios and did justice to all of them. After the Second World War, Giri was minister under Prakasam again. When the Prakasam ministry fell through manipulation, Giri stood manfully by Prakasam and went into the wilderness. Such loyalty has been rare in public life, anywhere, and nobody in India has equalled Giri’s record of loyalty. After a diplomatic spell in Ceylon as India’s High Commissioner, Giri was in the Central Cabinet. But when the Bank Award was not acceptable to Deshmukh and others of the Government, he resigned, and where others would succumb to Jawaharlal’s persuasion, Giri could not be persuaded. In resignation too, on policy and not personal grounds, Giri has a record without equal. It was grim irony that the Government had to follow Giri’s advice after he left. Resignation did not mean respite. Jawaharlal’s conscience was troubled and he was happy he could persuade Giri to accept Governorship of U.P. Giri was then Governor of Kerala and Mysore, where too he was popular, and then became Vice-President of the Union. As Chairman of the Council of States, he presided with stentorian dignity and authority.

It is little remembered that Giri was the pioneer of our planning. There were others who thought or talked of planning, but it was his initiative that led to the appointment by Subhas Chandra Bose as Congress President of the National Planning Committee under the chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru.

In appearance, Giri is affable, free, modest and communicative. He is not only a statesman but a gentleman. Age has not withered him; he is still ready to wrestle with problems or with persons. Behind the soft exterior is a core of granite. Intellect and instinct are one in him. He can be stern, unyielding, unforgiving. Rashtrapati Bhavan is open to the humblest. The President, a pioneer and a veteran, belongs to the people. He has been a wise guide and counseller to the Prime Minister. There are rarely parallels to such understanding and collaboration.

* Reprinted from All in All by M. Chalapathi Rau, and published by Vyasa Publications, Hyderabad, in 1972.

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