Bengaluru: Alur Venkata Rao is widely credited as the man who brought together Kannada-speaking people into a “unified Karnataka” though there are many who believe that his contribution has been overstated.
The lawyer, historian, writer and journalist was, however, at the vanguard of the movement that sought to unite Kannada-speaking regions of the country.
On his 56th death anniversary, which was on 25 February, ThePrint looks back at the life of the man who earned the title of Kannada Kulapurohita (High Priest of the Kannada family) for his efforts.
The movement to unite Kannada-speaking regions
Rao was born at Alur in Vijayapura, which is in present day north Karnataka, in 1880. His father worked as a senior accounts officer in the revenue department. After his initial schooling in his hometown, Rao proceeded to Pune (called Poona during the colonial times) to pursue Bachelors in Arts and obtain a law degree.
Poona was then the hub of political activity, anchored by freedom fighters such as Lokamanya Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
Tilak’s Shivaji Utsav and Ganesh Utsav highly influenced Rao, who grew close to the leader, and also Gokhale. Senapati Bapat and V.D. Savarkar were Rao’s contemporaries in college.
While at Ferguson College in Pune, Rao, already an active student organiser, decided to start a Karnataka Sangha. This idea was initially met with stiff resistance by the college authorities but Rao managed to get a grant of Rs 50 to buy Kannada books for the college library.
One thing that struck Rao was the pride and passion Maharashtrians had for their language and culture. He felt this could be developed among Kannadigas.
At the time, those speaking Kannada were spread across five different provinces — the present-day north Karnataka districts were part of the Bombay Presidency, the Mysore State largely covered the Cauvery Delta, the southern districts were part of the Madras Presidency while the modern-day districts of Bidar, Kalburgi and Raichur fell under the Hyderabad Nizam. Kodagu, however, was an independent country.
To unite the Kannada speakers, Rao launched the Karnataka Ekikarana (unification) movement in the late 1800s.
“He was a revolutionary journalist, historian and writer,” said political commentator M.K. Bhaskar Rao. “In the late 1800’s, Alur Rao’s effort to give Kannada and Karnataka its present status came at a time when people and states were unifying on the basis of their mother tongue. There was a need for a leader who would help bring Kannadigas together. Alur Rao filled that vacuum.”
Also read: Why minister C.T. Ravi wanted casinos in Karnataka but took a U-turn on the proposal
Events that shaped Rao
Two important events inspired Rao’s efforts to unite the Kannada-speaking people.
In May 1905, Rao visited Anegundi, the first capital of the Vijayanagara dynasty. The ruins pained him but also provided him with the sense of a “glorious past”.
“He thought to himself… what a beautiful land, what beautiful history. He worried how the Vijayanagara empire was in a state of decrepit. Realising that Kannadigas were ignorant of their glorious past and they lacked the pride for their language and culture, he decided to fight for what it deserved,” C.K. Rame Gowda, former secretary of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat, told ThePrint.
A few months later, the vigorous protests launched by Bengalis against the partition of Bengal further influenced his thoughts. He wondered why Kannadigas did not get together and fight for a unified Karnataka.
Rao believed that he needed to influence young minds and wrote a book targetting high school students titled Kannadigara Bhramanirasana (The Disillusionment of Kannadigas) in 1909 in collaboration with Nargundkar Ramarao.
“In this book he speaks of how Kannadigas lived, the history of wars and battles fought, how far the dynasties were spread under the reign of Pulakeshi,” Gowda said. “Kannadigas had then not bothered about those aspects.”
Rao also tried to prove that the Kanheri caves in Maharashtra were built by Kannadigas. This, he hoped, would further Kannadiga pride and identity.
“What set patriot Rao apart from his contemporaries was his demand for a ‘separate state for Karnataka’, unlike other presidencies where the demand was for freedom to become separate nations,” said Bhaskar Rao.
Also read: How Karnataka Police nabbed Ravi Pujari, ‘Hindu don’ facing 200 cases, in Senegal
The language movement
In 1904, Rao started the Karnataka Itihasa Samshodhana Mandali to research Kannadiga history. He laboured for 13 years and the end result was his monumental work, Karnataka Gathavaibhava, which was published in 1917.
In 1915, he founded the Kannada Sahitya Parishat to promote the language.
Putting his law degree to use, Rao also worked as a pleader but his passion for Kannada and reviving the language got the better of him and he left his legal practice.
In 1920, he joined the freedom struggle and after a couple of years started the magazine ‘Jaya Karnataka’, a publication aimed at instilling ideas of how to build a unified Karnataka.
Harish Ramaswamy, professor at Karnatak University in Dharwad and an author, said Rao was the first person to pass a resolution at the Karnataka Sahitya Parishat for the unification of the people of across the region.
“He was the face of the Kannada Ekikarana movement,” Ramaswamy said. “To this day we see the influence of Marathi in the day-to-day language people use in northern Karnataka. He was able to influence people despite their heavy language influences.”
In 1956, when Karnataka was formally carved out as a state, Rao headed straight to Hampi, the place that inspired him to fight for a separate state and offered prayers at the famous Bhuvaneshwari and Virupaksha temples built by the famous Vijayanagara empire.
He also sent a formal request to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru seeking the addition of “Karnataka” in the national anthem.
Rao passed away on 25 February 1964, at the age of 84, a year after he was honoured for his contributions at the eighth statehood day celebrations in Bengaluru.
Also read: How a once alcoholic auto driver, father of 4, became first Muslim pontiff of Lingayat mutt
‘Got more credit than he deserved’
There is, however, a section that believes not just Alur Venkata Rao but there were several others who equally contributed towards the formation and unification of Karnataka state.
“Though not a professional historian, Venkata Rao wrote and chronicled Karnataka’s political history through his book Karnataka Gathavaibhava, which helped in creating a political imagination for people and activists who also played a big role in working towards the unification,” said social historian and political commentator Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi.
“However, one cannot give credit to just one person for the unification of Karnataka as there were many diverse forces and individuals who worked on the project to unify the state,” Sobhi added. “There was Dr P.G. Halakatti who through his journal called Karnataka wrote on socio-economic inequalities that persisted in the various regions of Karnataka. Hardikar Manjappa, another scholar popularly called Karnataka’s Gandhi, also made a significant contribution towards the state’s unification, so crediting just one person is not right.”
Noted historian Vikram Sampath said modern day Karnataka still has to learn from Alur’s principles.
“Alur’s love for language and his principles become important today as regions are still seen jostling for regional supremacy,” he said. “He fought for an integrated Karnataka but the integration has taken place in borders but not in emotions. When we achieve emotional integration, it would be seen as the next step to fortifying Alur’s vision.”
Also read: ‘The de facto CM’ — Yediyurappa backing son Vijayendra sparks dissent in Karnataka BJP