D Devaraj Urs

Early life

D. Devaraj Urs was born at Kallahalli in Hunsur Taluk, Mysore district, the then Kingdom of Mysore. His father, also named Devaraj Urs, was a land-owner and his mother, Devira Ammanni, was a pious and traditional lady. He had one brother, Kemparaje Urs. The family belonged to the aristocratic Arasu community, the nobility of Mysore Kingdom, and were very distant kin to the Wodeyar royal family.

Devaraj Urs was married to 11-year-old Chikkammanni (or Chikka Ammani), a girl from his own community and from a suitable family, in a match arranged by their parents when he was almost 15. The marriage proved to be harmonious and conventional. They had three daughters — Chandra Prabha, Nagrathna and Bharathi.

Devaraj Urs had his primary and high school education at the Urs Boarding School in Mysore, which had been set up by the Maharaja of Mysore expressly to provide suitable education to the sons of the Arasu community, to equip them for higher responsibilities in their adulthood. After passing school, Devaraj Urs studied at the Maharajas College in Mysore and took a BA Degree.

Politics

After completing his education, Urs returned to Kallahalli and engaged himself in agriculture, overseeing the extensive lands owned by his family. However, his innate leadership quality did not permit him to stay in the village and brought him to politics.

Urs entered politics in 1952 by contesting the first elections held in the country after it attained independence. At this time, the Maharaja was still the head of state in Mysore (until 1956), the state retained the same boundaries as before independence, and the Arasu community was entrenched in the countryside due to centuries of ties with village communities. Urs easily won a seat to the state legislature and served as a member of the legislative assembly for ten years (two successive terms). An Indian National Congress party leader from Mysore, Urs was a member of the intra-party "Syndicate" of powerful regional leaders. However, he was never as antagonistic towards Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as other leaders of the Syndicate, such as K. Kamaraj. When push came to shove, he chose to abandon the Syndicate and go with Indira Gandhi.

Urs had practically retired from politics when the first Congress split took place in 1969, and the Syndicate formed the Congress (O) (for "Organization") while Indira Gandhi formed the Congress (R). The Congress (O), under S. Nijalingappa, Veerendra Patil, Ramakrishna Hegde and Deve Gowda dominated Karnataka electorally and had a majority in the state assembly, but Urs declined an invitation to join it. Instead, he agreed to lead the Congress (R) in the state and helped win all the 27 seats at the 1971 Lok Sabha elections and majority in the 1972 legislative assembly elections. He joined what came to be known as the Indian National Congress (Urs) and was made the president of the party. Contesting the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, his party won just one seat. He quit the party to form the Karnataka Kranti Ranga in 1982, a few months before his death.

Dates in power

During the Fifth Assembly of Karnataka State, D. Devaraj Urs was the Chief Minister from 20-03-1972 to 31-12-1977. President's Rule was imposed from 31-12-1977 to 28-02-1978, following Mrs. Gandhi's fall. The Sixth Assembly lasted its five-year term, from 17 March 1978 to 8 June 1983. Devraj Urs was Chief Minister from 28-02-1978 to 07-01-1980, when he was ousted and succeeded by R. Gundu Rao.

Tenure

Devaraj Urs' tenure is particularly remembered for his reforms that targeted the depressed classes of Karnataka, namely the scheduled castes and the other backward castes.

In response to the prime minister's declaration that poverty was her first priority ("Garibi Hatao!") and her Twenty-Point Programme, Urs formed a state cabinet dominated by technocrats and academics. His first priority was land reform, and his slogan was "Land to the tiller"; under him a sustained effort was made to equalize the land distribution through much of the state. Karnataka, thus, other than the communist bastions of Kerala and West Bengal, has had one of the most successful land redistributions in the country. A side-effect of this was to break the hold of the previously dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga castes over local politics. He was helped in his endeavours by his colleagues Huchamasti Gowda, B Subbayya Shetty and others from his cabinet.

Other schemes included the building of shelters for migrant workers; the forgiveness of rural debt; and, in a populist masterstroke, a plan to have an electric bulb in every house. When R. K. Baliga, Founder of the Electronics City proposed the concept of developing the electronic city in the early 1970s it was met with skepticism but Devaraj Urs supported him and approved the project. This initial seed investment by the Karnataka State Government in 1976 laid the foundation for the Electronics City.

In 1980, however, he exited the Congress (I). He had quarrelled with Indira Gandhi, and was appearing before the Supreme Court in Karnataka vs. Union of India, and thus felt the time was right to cut his losses and leave the Congress. This was a miscalculation because although many legislators in Karnataka, Kerala and Goa went with him - such as A.K. Antony, Sharad Pawar, Priyaranjan Das Munshi and K.P. Unnikrishnan, Mrs. Gandhi swept back to power at the national level and the fledgling Congress (Urs) was routed. Urs subsequently joined the Janata Party, and his protégé Ramakrishna Hegde recaptured power in Karnataka from the Congress in 1984. The Congress (Urs) itself became Congress (S) in 1983.

Achievements

Urs espoused the causes of poor and ushered in a "silent social revolution" in Karnataka. He was the voice of the poor and stood for the cause of the downtrodden in society. Urs was elected continuously from Hunsur as an MLA for 28 years, from 1952 to 1980 and is one of the longest serving Chief Ministers of Karnataka.

Among the contributions of the late Chief Minister was the stress laid on the education of the people belonging to the backward classes and establishment of the backwards and minorities hostels for the students hailing from those sections of society. Absorbing 16,000 unemployed graduates in the stipendiary scheme whose services were confirmed later, abolition of carrying night soil by Dalits and bonded labour, renaming Mysore as Karnataka in 1973 were some landmark decisions taken by him.

D. Devaraj Urs is recognized as one of the most prominent social reformers in the State's history. His leadership in land reforms, ensuring that the cultivators became landowners, stands out as a model of social justice. This initiative significantly narrowed the gap between the affluent and the impoverished, effectively addressing social inequality.

Mysore district had the highest incidents of bonded labour in India during that time and the decision of the Urs Government to abolish it was remarkable. Urs must be remembered for his achievements in weaning away poor people from the clutches of the rich moneylenders. The deeds of the late Chief Minister in the irrigation sector too had helped the farmer community tremendously. The Kali project, one of them, was executed amidst opposition from several quarters. his measures brought several changes but his land reforms brought poverty to many families who were solely dependent on their small land holdings.