Skip to main content

N.R.Thiagarajan (NRT): Freedom Fighter, Parliamentarian, MLA, MLC, CLP leader in Madras Assembly.


N.R. THIAGARAJAN (RAVILLA) (1913 - 1969) 

NRT was a freedom fighter, architect of development of Madurai, Parliamentarian, builder of the Congress Party and Man Friday of Sri. Kamaraj.  

He was born on 16th April 1913, as the fourth child of Rathnasamy Naidu and Venkatammal in Karisalpatti Village.  He had his education in his native village and he was drawn to national movement at a very young age.  He was the key organizer of civil disobedience movement and quit India movement in the Madurai district. He was imprisoned many times and spent about 51/4 years in Vellore, Alipuram and Tirunelveli prisons. He launched movements for boycott of foreign goods and promotion of swadeshi goods.

At the young age of fourteen N.R. Thiagarajan joined in National movement and Congress Party. He started his political carrier as the president of the village Congress Committee of his native village Lakshmipuram Pudupatty.  Latter he became Taluk Congress Committee secretary of Periyakulam.  In 1946 he became the president of Madurai District Congress Committee president. NRT was the key person of all the political activities of Madurai.  He was a very powerful orator and he could inspire thousands of youths in freedom movement and Congress party. He was responsible for building Congress from the Grassroots in Madurai District. 

He had close association with Periyar. He organized Temple entry of Harijan in many Temples of Periyakulam Taluk. NRT was a great social reformer and worked for the emancipation of Dalith and women. Sri. P. Kakan a great freedom fighter and minister from the Dalit Community was a close friend and Associate of N.R.T. 

After India’s independence he was elected as the first President of the prestigious Madurai District board in 1949.  He was the president from 1949 to 1954.  Madurai District was one of the biggest districts of Tamilnadu consisting of present Madurai, Theni and Dindugul Districts.  During this period he could develop a five year plan for the development of Madurai District.  His focus was on primary education, primary health, rural housing, linkage roads to rural areas, drinking  water supply, irrigation works for agricultural development and industrial development.  He laid the foundation for the industrialization of Madurai.  Then chief ministers of Tamilnadu Rajaji, Kamaraj and Kumarasami Raja gave whole hearted support for his efforts to develop Madurai region.  

As the president of the District he gave importance to education.  He had a vision to start schools colleges and an university in Madurai District.  As the District Board President he could start about 500 primary schools and 32 high schools in remote areas of Madurai District.  The first Rural Arts and Science College in a remote village of southern TamilNadu was started in Uthamapalayam because of his tireless efforts in 1956. He started about 16 primary health centers and maternity centers in Madurai District. 

Because of his initiatives industrial estates were started in Madurai,  Theni, Dindugul and Palani. Theni, his native town had very positive features for textile industry and cotton cultivation.  Because of his efforts, an irrigation scheme was implemented to irrigate above 12000 acres of dry land with Vaigai river water in Theni region.  It helped the farmers to cultivate cotton in large areas. He invited Sri Jawaharlal Nehru to inaugurate the first textile mill in Theni in the year 1962.  Because of NRTs efforts now the region has emerged as one of the textile hubs of south India. 

As the District Board President immediately after independence he took extraordinary efforts to provide transport facilities to the villages of Madurai district.  N.R.Thiagarajan was a great parliamentarian.  He served in the Assembly and Council of Madras Legislature.  He was known for his oratory skills in the legislature. He was the leader of the Congress Party in the Legislative Council of TamilNadu Assembly between 1964 to 1969.  He was the opposition party leader in the Legislative Council, when DMK came to power from 1967 to 1969.  He was an active member of the Madras Assembly between 1957 to 1962.  He asked the highest number of questions in the assembly and made assembly sessions very productive.  He was responsible for the establishment of university in Madurai and he actively worked for the selection of the site for the university and its inauguration.  The governor of TamilNadu nominated him as a member of the first senate of Madurai University. 

As the District Board President, he had a vision to build a dam in the vaigai river to develop agriculture in the dry regions of Madurai District.  He impressed Kamaraj on the benefits of constructing a dam in Vaigai river in Madurai District.  About 40000 Acres have got irrigation facilities from the Vaigai dam. In 1950’s there were no medical college in the state outside Chennai. As the president of the District Board he sent a proposal for starting a Government Medical College in Madurai and he allotted the District Board land to the construction of Madurai Medical College.  Now the Madurai Medical College has been upgraded in to an all India institute serving around 12 Districts of south Tamilnadu.

He had a close and special relationship with Sri. K. Kamaraj.  Like Kamaraj, NRT was also started as a humble grass root worker. NRT was the right hand of Kamaraj in politics and he could translate the ideas of Kamaraj in to reality.  NRT was the member of the TamilNadu Congress Working Committee for more than twenty years. As the president of District Panchayat he regularly visited hundreds of village panchayats and closely studied their issues and problems. Local Body leaders of Madurai District elected him to Legislative council of Madras as their representative in 1964. 

NRT was a great Gandhian and he was actively involved in Gandhian movement.  He was the President of Madurai District  Bhoodhan Movement and helped Acharya Vinobha to collect 4,000 acres of land for Bhoodham.  He personally participated in the Pathayathra of Vinobha.  He also donated his personal land for bhoodhan.

NRT tirelessly worked for the people and the nation up to his last day.  He died in the year 1969 at the young age of 56.  He is still remember for his contribution for the development of Madurai, Dindugul and Theni Districts. 

N.R.Thiagarajan was a model for other members in the House, and he fully used the legislature to bring new projects for his constituency. The Tamilnadu government honored him by naming the Theni District hospital as 'N.R.Thiyagarajan Memorial District Hospital'. He developed a modern housing project under Theni cooperative housing society, which was inaugurated by Sri.Rajagopalchri former Governor General of India. It is named as NRT Nagar and is still one of the best housing projects in Tamilnadu.

Thiagarajan had two daughters and two sons. He died on 27 April 1969 in Madurai. A memorial to him is maintained in NRT Nagr Theni. His son Dr.N.R.T.Rajkumar is a medical practitioner and served as the Governor of Rotary District, and was also an active member of Indian National Congress.[citation needed] His son N.R.T.Rajkumar and Thiagarajan's grandson, Dr.T.R.Thiygarajan, run NRT Multi-specialty Hospital in Theni which provides affordable medical care to the community. His granddaughter Dr.R.Gomthi Ambika is serving the rural community as a medical practitioner.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kamma Cine Heroes

1) N.T.Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni  11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni  37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana 39) Akkineni Naga Chaitanya 40) Nani (Ghanta Naveen Kum...
7 comments
Read more

Kamma Movie Directors

List of Kamma Movie Ditrectors 1) Gudavalli Ramabrahmam 2) Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasad (LV Prasad) 3) Kovelamudi Bapayya 4) Veeramachineni Madhusudhana Rao 5) Kovelamudi S.Prakasa Rao 6) Kolli Pratyagatma 7) G.Sambasiva Rao 8) Tammareddy Krishnamurthy 9) Mannava Balayya 10) Tatineni Prakasa Rao 11) Tatineni Rama Rao 12) Tatineni Prasad 13) Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao 14) Gutta Ramineedu 15) Kolli Hemambaradhara Rao  16) Uppalapati Visveswara Rao 17) Tripuraneni Maharadhi 18) Tripuraneni Gopichand 19) Tottempudi Krishna 20) Madala Ranga Rao 21) Siva Nageswara Rao 22) Uppalapati Narayana Rao 23) P.Sarat 24) A.Mohan Gandhi 25) Bezawada Gopal 26) T.Kranthi Kumar 27) Maganti Vijaya Bapineedu 28) Tammareddy Bharadwaj 29) Akkineni Kutumba Rao 30) K.Vasu 31) Edara VV Satyanarayana 32) Muppalaneni Siva 33) Yalamanchili VS Chowdary 34) Theja Jasti 35) Sreenu Vytla 36) Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli 37) Vemulapalli Srikanth 38) AS Ravikumar Chowdary 39)...
8 comments
Read more

A road named after Veerasamy Naidu in Singapore

Veerasamy Road - Little India/ Singapore Veerasamy Road was renamed twice in its history; it was originally called Inche Lane, and was renamed Jalan Tambah in 1910. In 1927, the road was renamed again as Veerasamy Road, in honour of Dr N. Veerasamy Naidu (1865-1926), one of Singapore’s first Indian doctors and a leader in the local Indian community. Dr N Veerasamy Naidu was born in 1864. He was the son of Narayanasamy Naidu and Ramanuja Ammal. He learned Tamil from the age of four from his grandfather, Kuppusamy Naidu. He studied English at the Raffles School in Singapore and first worked at the lawyer’s office of Mr Cook. Unsatisfied in his job and drawn to the study of medicinal herbs, he decided to pursue an education in medical science and eventually worked in a hospital owned by Govindasamy Naidu. He set up his own clinic called Indian Dispensary in Rochor Road and derived effective scientific and traditional treatments for a variety of new diseases. He was the Presid...
10 comments
Read more

Dhivya Suryadevara in the list of Fortune's "40 Under 40"

Fortune announced its newest class of "40 Under 40" of the most influential young people in business (there's not a single repeat from last year).  Five of the 40 personalities picked in Fortune’s '40 Under 40' 2015 list of the most influential young people in business, are of Indian origin. Although none of them is part of the bustling Indian startup ecosystem or business arena, two of them have made their mark in the American market as entrepreneurs. These include - Dhivya Suryadevara (GM Asset Management). Dhivya Suryadevara , who is the highest ranked among the Indian origin pack at number 4, is vice-president of finance and treasurer, GM besides being CEO of GM Asset Management. The Harvard grad was CIO of General Motors (GM) Asset Management since 2013 and became its CEO in early 2014 where she manages $80 billion in assets across the automaker’s retirement plans. The 36-year-old, who hails from Chennai, joined the automaker, once the world's lar...
Post a Comment
Read more

G.D.Naidu, first generation Kamma Industrialist

G. D. Naidu (Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu) was an Indian Inventor and engineer who is sometimes referred as the Edison of India. He is credited in manufacturing the first electric motor in India. His contributions were primarily industrial and span the fields of electrical, mechanical, agricultural (Hybrid cultivation) and automobile engineering. First of all he is a scientist but he studied up to only third standard. Naidu was born on March 23rd , 1893 , in Kalangal, near Coimbatore. He began his transport business in 1920 , with the purchase of a passenger auto-coach. He drove it for the service between Pollachi and Palani. In a few years, his United Motor Service (UMS) owned the most efficient fleet of public transport vehicles in the country. In 1937, the first motor to be produced in India, was brought out from G D Naidu's UMS factory. He invented an electric razor - Rasant - that gave users far more shaves than other existing options, in the international market. Among his ot...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nadendla Manohar elected speaker of Andhra Pradesh Assembly

HYDERABAD — Nadendla Manohar , who got elevated from the post of Deputy Speakear, polled 158 votes while K E Krishnamurthy, the candidate put up by the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) secured 90 votes in the 294-member House. Vijayalakshmi, Jagan’s mother and the lone legislator representing YSR Congress Party, abstained from the House. Legislators belonging to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), BJP, CPI and Lok Satta abstained from voting as they did not want to be seen as favouring either the ruling party or the main opposition.
Post a Comment
Read more

THE MAN AND HIS LEGACY A portrait of PSG Govindasamy Naidu

Great legacies have mostly had humble beginnings. But, they have all been ignited by a grand dream. One such simple dream that has enriched generations in this entire region is the legacy of the PSG family and its institutions. Coimbatore today is known nationally for its industries and educational institutions, which were founded and patronised by its enterprising people. If one were to go into the past to study the origin of the early industries and educational institutions, the PSG legacy will weave a beautiful story. The founder The P.S.G. family, belonging to the Kammavar sect of the Naidu community, traces its history to Periya Veedu Venkatarama Naidu in the later part of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th centuries. The letter `P' in P.S.G. is derived from Periya Veedu, `S' after Sama Naidu, the third son of Venkatarama Naidu, and `G' after Govindadamy Naidu, the second son of Sama Naidu. The Origin of the family could be traced to its forbear Sri Venkatarama Nai...
Post a Comment
Read more

List of Kamma Cine Heroes (Updated)

List of Kamma Movie stars: 1) Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni (Mutyalamuggu fame) 11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni 37) Myneni Sarvanand  38) Daggubati Rana...
Post a Comment
Read more

List of 30 Kamma Billionaires and rankings

The IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021 shows that India has more than 1,000 individuals who have a net worth of  ₹ 1,000 crore or more across 119 cities. The cumulative wealth in the country has gone up by 51 per cent, while the average wealth has also increased by 25 per cent, the report by Hurun India said. 30 Kamma business and industrialists finds place in the list from AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. 14. Murali Divi Rs76,000 crores Divis Laboratories 179. Venkateswarlu Jasti 9,600 crores Suven Pharma  190. Veeraiah Chowdary Nannapaneni 9,100 crores NATCO Laboratories  209. Chava Satyanarayana 8,400 crores Laurus Labs 264. Satya Nadella 6,200 crores Microsoft 368. Mandava PrabhakaraRao 4,300 crores Nuziveedu seeds 377. Ella KrishnaMurthy 4,100 crores Bharat Biotech 384. Doppalapudi Bhaktavatsala Rao 4000 crores Privi Speciality Chemicals 398. Galla Ramachandra Naidu  3,900 crores Amara Raja Batteries  398. Chinta VisveswaraRao 3,900 crores...
1 comment
Read more

Kamma IPS officers (Updated)

Kamma IPS officers (Past and Present) 1. Pendurthi S.Ramamohana Rao 2. Kommareddi Ramamohana Rao 3. K.V.Appa Rao 4. P.D.Koteswara Rao 5. Chirumamilla Venkata Narasaiah 6. Prattipati Gowtham Kumar 7. Mandava Lakshmi Narayana 8. K.Sadasiva Rao 9. Yendluri Anil Kumar 10. P.S.Prasad 11. C.R.Naidu 12. N.V.Surendra Babu 13. Jasti Venkata Ramudu 14. Boyapati Dinakar Prasad 15. Chadalawada Umesh Chandra 16. Maganti Kantha Rao 17. Goduguluri Srinivasa Rao 18. Ammineni. R. Srinivasa Rao 19. Kode Durga Prasad 20. Mannam Malakondaiah 21. Aluri Venkateswara rao 22. P. Appa Rao 23. Mandava VishnuVardhan Rao 24. Alluri Srinivas (DIG-CRPF) 25. Muvva Chandra Sekhar 26. M.Punna Rao 27. Athota Malakondaiah 28. Thummala Vikram 29. E.Damodar 30. Parvathaneni Sai Prasad 31. Chitturi Prasad 32. Kalluri Siva Rama Prasad 33. Dr.K Ramachandra Rao (IGP - Karnataka) 34. M.V.Rao 35. Kondaveeti Rajendra Kumar 36. Pullela Murali Mohana Rao ...
1 comment
Read more