V. V. Giri
Varahagiri Venkata Giri, better known as V. V. Giri was an Indian statesman, activist, and diplomat who served as the president of India from 1969 to 1974. He previously served as the vice president of India from 1967 to 1969 and the minister of labour from 1952 to 1954.
Born in Berhampur to a Telugu Brahmin family, Giri completed his higher education at Khallikote College where he was elected to the student union, and was active in the freedom movement. He moved to Ireland in 1913 to study law at the University College Dublin and the Honourable Society of King's Inns, Dublin. He was called to the Irish Bar in June 1916 but he did not complete his studies for a BA in UCD. He enrolled at Madras High Court in 1916 upon returning to India. Giri became a member of the Indian National Congress and the Home Rule Movement. After abandoning his legal career as part of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, he was arrested for demonstrations in 1922. Giri was closely associated with the Indian labour movement, and was elected president of the All India Trade Union Congress in 1926.
Giri was elected a member of the Imperial Legislative Assembly in 1934, and became the minister for labour and industry in 1937 under C. Rajagopalachari. After the congress ministries resigned in protest at India being made to be a part of the Second World War in 1939, Giri returned to the Labour movement and was later arrested, spending 15 months in prison until 1941. He was arrested again after the launch of the Quit India Movement, and he was imprisoned for three years from 1942 to 1945. In the General Elections of 1946, Giri was elected to the Madras Legislative Assembly and became a minister again in charge of the labour portfolio under T. Prakasam. From 1947 to 1951, he served as India's first High Commissioner to Ceylon.
Giri was elected to the 1st Lok Sabha from Pathapatnam Lok Sabha Constituency in 1951. He served as the Union minister of labour in the Nehru government from 1952 until his resignation in 1954. He was defeated in the Pathapatnam constituency at the 1957 elections and was appointed the Governor of Uttar Pradesh in the same year. He then served as the Governor of Kerala from 1960 to 1965 and the Governor of Karnataka 1965 to 1967. Giri was elected vice president in the 1967 election. Following the death of president Zakir Husain, Giri became acting president in May 1969 before resigning in July to contest the subsequent presidential election as an independent candidate. His endorsement by prime minister Indira Gandhi helped his victory in the election, and Giri served as president of India from 1969 to 1974. Gandhi chose not renominate him in 1974. After the end of his full term, Giri was honoured by the Government of India with the Bharat Ratna in 1975. He died of a heart attack at the age of 85 in 1980.
Early life and family
V. V. Giri was born in Berhampur, Madras Presidency in a Telugu Brahmin family. His parents hailed from Chintalapudi village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh and shifted to Berhampur for their bright future. His father, V. V. Jogayya Pantulu, was a successful lawyer and political activist of the Indian National Congress who had been working at Berhampur. Giri's mother Subhadramma was active in the national movement in Berhampur during the Non Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements and was arrested for leading a strike for prohibition during the Civil Disobedience Movement.Giri was married to Saraswati Bai and the couple had 14 children.
Giri completed his initial primary education at Hillpatna Primary School, Berhampur and higher education at the Khallikote College, then affiliated with Madras University, in Chennai. V.V. Giri was also elected to the student union of Khallikote College for three consecutive times and highly active in freedom movement during his student days in Berhampur.
In 1913, he moved to Ireland to study law at University College Dublin and the Honourable Society of King's Inns, Dublin between 1913 and 1916. Giri was one among the first group of thirteen Indian students who sat the obligatory year long course at UCD in 1914–15. This was a requirement for being called to the Irish Bar through study at the King's Inns. In total, 50 Indian students studied at UCD between 1914 and 1917. Indian students preferred Ireland over England for their studies, as the Irish showed neither racial discrimination nor colour prejudice, likely due to their own historical experiences. Moreover, in 1912, the admission policies for Indians at the Inns of Court in London and other English institutions had become more rigid, which led many Indian students to choose Ireland due to its relaxed regulations.
Giri and a fellow law student also enrolled in the full bachelor of arts course in UCD. Giri studied English, where he was met Thomas MacDonagh, and Political Economy. His lecturer in political economy was the reformer and co-operativist Thomas A. Finlay SJ.
During the First World War, Giri travelled from Dublin to London and met Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi wanted Giri to join the Imperial war effort as a Red Cross Volunteer. Giri initially acceded to Gandhi's request but later regretted his decision. According to one of Giri's biographers, "Gandhiji with his characteristic magnanimity relieved Giri of the obligation to join the Red Cross and did not breathe a word about it to anyone.”
Giri was active in both Indian and Irish politics during his studies. In My Life and Times, Giri recalled that, coming directly from India with a burning zeal for independence, he felt an instant kinship with the Irish nationalist cause. While in Dublin, he joined a secret outfit known as the “Anarchical Society,” which, according to him, advocated the use of violence and bloodshed as a means to secure peace. There, he also acquired knowledge of incendiary methods and bomb-making techniques intended to support India’s liberation movement. Along with fellow Indian students he produced a pamphlet documenting the abuse of Indians in South Africa. The pamphlet was intercepted by Indian Political Intelligence and resulted in increased police scrutiny of Giri and his fellow students in Dublin. Meanwhile, anonymous articles were written by Indian students for the newspaper of the Irish Volunteers and in The National Student, a UCD student magazine.
He was suspected of association with prominent ring leaders in the 1916 Rising including James Connolly, Pádraig H. Pearse and the young Éamon de Valera. Giri was called to the Irish Bar on 21 June 1916 but he did not complete his studies for BA in UCD. Indian students were subjected to police raids following the 1916 Rising and Giri recounts how he was served with one month's notice to leave Ireland on 1 June 1916.
Career
Upon returning to India in 1916 Giri enrolled at the Madras High Court. He also became a member of the Congress party, attended its Lucknow session and joined the Home Rule Movement of Annie Besant. Giri abandoned a flourishing legal career in response to Mahatma Gandhi's call for a Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920. In 1922, he was arrested for the first time for demonstrating against the sale of liquor shops.Role in the labour movement
Giri was closely associated with the labour and trade union movement in India throughout his career. Giri was a founding member of the All India Railwaymen's Federation which was formed in 1923 and served as its general secretary for over a decade. He was elected president of the All India Trade Union Congress for the first time in 1926. Giri also founded the Bengal Nagpur Railway Association and in 1928 led the workers of the Bengal Nagpur Railway in a non violent strike for the rights of retrenched workers. The strike succeeded in forcing the British Indian government and the management of the railway company to concede the workers' demands and is regarded as a milestone in the labour movement in India. In 1929, the Indian Trade Union Federation was formed by Giri, N. M. Joshi and others with Giri as the president. The split with the AITUC came about over the issue of cooperating with the Royal Commission on Labour. Giri and the ITUF leadership of liberals decided to cooperate with the commission while the AITUC decided to boycott it. The ITUF merged with the AITUC in 1939 and Giri became president of the AITUC for a second time in 1942.Giri was the Workers' Delegate of the Indian delegation at the International Labour Conference of the ILO in 1927. At the Second Round Table Conference, Giri was present as a representative of the industrial workers of India. Giri worked towards getting the trade unions to support the freedom movement in India and was twice president of the AITUC which was closely allied with the Indian National Congress.
Electoral career in British India
Giri became a member of the Imperial Legislative Assembly in 1934. He remained its member until 1937 and emerged a spokesman for matters of labour and trade unions in the Assembly.In the General Elections of 1936, Giri defeated the Raja of Bobbili to become a member of the Madras Legislative Assembly. Between 1937 and 1939, he was Minister for Labour and Industry in the Congress government headed by C Rajagopalachari. Giri was appointed Governor of the National Planning Committee of the Indian National Congress in 1938. In 1939, the Congress ministries resigned in protest against the British decision to make India a party in the Second World War. Having returned to the labour movement, Giri was arrested and spent 15 months in prison until March 1941.
Following the launch of the Quit India Movement, Giri was imprisoned again by the colonial government in 1942. He remained in prison when the AITUC met in Nagpur in 1943 where he was the president elect. Giri served his sentence in the Vellore and Amaravathi prisons. Giri remained in prison for three years, his longest sentence, until his release in 1945.
In the General Elections of 1946, Giri was reelected to the Madras Legislative Assembly and became a minister again in charge of the labour portfolio under T. Prakasam.