Hi all
We Indians would not have been enjoying the food sufficiciency, but for Bharat Ratnat Shri C Subramanian, a great visionary leader, whose Centenary is being celebrated now. He passed away on 7th November 1998 at his 90th age. (I wanted to write about him last month. Since there is a function on 5th Dec at Chennai, i am coinciding with the function.) Series of events are happening to honour him at Chennai and Delhi. Dr Abdul Kalam is participating one of the events in Jan 2010 and Dr Manmohan Singh is joining in another event at Delhi.
Mr C Subramanian (popularly known as CS), joined Indian freedom struggle and was imprisoned. Shri Rajaji, the first Governor General of Independent India was his mentor in his legal profession and freedom struggle. When, he was the education minister in Tamilnadu under Shri Kamaraj, he brought in lot of education reforms immediatley after Independence and has made Tamilnadu to stand out even today. His model was copied by other states also. In 1950s, when he was the Minister, he acquired more than 5000 acres of land for the Government overnight. Today, many great Institutions of Central and State Government, including Tidel Park and IIT are situated in this land adding value.
Then Shri Jawalharlal Nehru invited him to join his cabinet at Delhi. After the demise of Nehru, he was invited by Shri Lalbahadur Sastri and then Smt Indira Gandhi to join the cabinet. He has handled many important portfolios like Heavy Industries, Mines, Technology, Space, Finace and also Agriculture. He made a mark in all the fields.
When he was the Agricultural Minister, India was suffering from great famine. He is the architect of Indian Green Revolution. He brought in lot of National and International Scientists to make this Green Revolution success. He was personally monitoring the entire country himself. Within one year, he was able to increase the food production enormously.
Though many others working in his team got the credit for the Green Revolution, in his own style, he did not aspire for any publicity for himself. Govt. of India honoured him with Bharat Ratna for his contribution in 1998, two years before his death.
Though, he was the most influential Cabinet Minister under three Prime Ministers and enjoying practically (not officially) No 2 position, he never brought to light his family members. Nobody, including media did not know his family members. (Compare with the present day politicians, whose great grand child is also popular).
After Action 2020 meeting with Dr Abdul Kalam in August 2008, he wanted our team to get connected with Mr Rajsekar, Mg. Trustee of National Agro Foundation, who is involved in Second Green Revolution. Dr Kalam himself is associated with NAF. When Mr Rajsekar and myself contacted over mobile, the first question i asked him was "How are you connected with Mr CS?". He replied, "I am his only son". That was the level of statesmanship provided by Shri CS. He kept his personal life and political life separate. Now Mr Rajsekar is our member and also one of the patrons of Action 2020 team.
Sadly, neither the Government of Tamilnadu or the Central Government have officially celebrated his Centenary. Fortunately, some of the great admirers of Mr CS and former officials, who worked with him are now organising the functions in his hounour and to make others to know about his great contribution to the society.
He kept himself about religion and caste. Though he was a Congress Minister, leaders of all parties had great admirations for him. While the Governments celebrate less significant leaders with some caste or religion background, visionary leaders like Mr CS may not be helpful to mobilise vote bank. That is why the Governments are not serious.
Indian Vision Group and Action 2020 team proudly salutes such great founders of Modern India.
Members can write about such great visionary leaders of their states, who toiled for creating modern India.
Srinivasan
Moderator
91766 5 0273
0 comments:
Post a Comment