Ramaswamy Venkataraman

Ramaswamy Venkataraman (, 4 December 1910 – 27 January 2009) was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist and politician who served as a Union Minister and as the eighth president of India.

Venkataraman was born in Rajamadam village in Tanjore district, Madras Presidency.

He studied law and practised in the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court of India.

In his young age, he was an activist of the Indian independence movement and participated in the Quit India Movement.

He was appointed as the member of the Constituent Assembly and the provisional cabinet.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha four times and served as Union Finance Minister and Defence Minister.

Venkataraman was enrolled in the Madras High Court in 1935 and in the Supreme Court in 1951.

While practising law, Venkataraman was drawn into the movement for India's freedom from Britain's colonial subjugation.

His active participation in the Indian National Congress's celebrated resistance to the British Government, the Quit India Movement of 1942, resulted in his detention for two years under the Defence of India Rules.

Venkataraman's interest in the law continued during this period.

In 1946, when the transfer of power from British to Indian hands was imminent, the Government of India included him in the panel of lawyers sent to Malaya and Singapore to defend Indian nationals charged with offences of collaboration during the Japanese occupation of those two places.

In the years 1947 to 1950, Venkataraman served as Secretary of the Madras Provincial Bar Federation.

Law and trade activity led to Venkataraman's increasing association with politics.

He was a member of constituent assembly that drafted India's constitution.

In 1950, he was elected to free India's Provisional Parliament (1950–1952) and to the First Parliament (1952–1957).

During his term of legislative activity, Venkataraman attended the 1952 Session of the Metal Trades Committee of International Labour Organisation as a workers' delegate.

He was a member of the Indian Parliamentary Delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in New Zealand.

Venkataraman was also Secretary to the Congress Parliamentary Party in 1953–1954.

Venkatraman was reelected to Parliament from Thanjavur in the general election of 1957 with an improved majority of 37,000 votes.

He however resigned the seat and joined the Madras government at the invitation of its Chief Minister, K. Kamaraj.

Venkataraman was sworn in as Minister for Industries on 26 April 1957 and was allotted several ministries including those of Labour and Co-operation, Commercial Taxes and Nationalised Transport, Textiles, Mines and Minerals and Companies and was elected to the Madras Legislative Council in the biennial elections conducted in March 1958.

In the assembly election of 1962, the Congress Party under K. Kamaraj was returned to power.

Venkataraman was retained as minister in charge of the same ministries during the Kamaraj Ministry which lasted 2nd October 1963 and under Chief Minister M. Bhaktavatsalam who succeeded Kamaraj.

Venkataraman himself was sworn-in as Minister in the Bhaktavatsalam Ministry only on 23 October, 1963, as he was in New York to attend the session of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal.

Venkataraman was reelected to the Council in the biennial elections of March 1964 and remained the leader of the house in the Council until after the assembly elections of 1967.

As Minister of Industries, Venkataraman proved to be an able administrator who ushered in a period of industrial development in Madras.

He championed the idea of industrial estates, the first of which was established at Guindy, and succeeded in getting investments in major public sector undertakings such as the Integral Coach Factory, Neyveli Lignite Corporation and the Heavy Vehicles Factory.

Venkataraman persuaded the TVS Group to set up a factory at Padi and several other private companies including Ashok Leyland, Hindustan Motors and Enfield established their automobile factories in Madras during this time.

Tamil Nadu’s industrialization has been widely credited to steps initiated during Venkataraman’s decade as the state’s industries minister and he has been described as the “father of industrialization” in Tamil Nadu.

In 1967, Venkataraman contested the parliamentary election from Thanjavur but lost to the D.S. Gopalar of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

In the assembly election of 1967, the Congress was routed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

C. N. Annadurai, the DMK’s leader in the Council became Chief Minister and Venkataraman the leader of the opposition in the Council until his resignation from the Council in August 1967.

Venkataraman was appointed a member of the Planning Commission in July, 1967 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and held charge of industry, labour, power, transport, communications and railways.

In 1970, the Commission on Major Ports headed by Venkataraman submitted its report to the Government.

In 1984, he was elected as the seventh vice president of India and in 1987, he became the eighth President of India and served from 1987 to 1992.

He also served as a State minister under K. Kamaraj and M. Bhaktavatsalam.

Venkataraman was born during the British colonial rule in Rajamadam village near in Pattukottai, near Tanjore district in Tamil Nadu.

He had his school education in Govt Boys Higher Secondary School, Pattukottai & Undergraduation in National College, Tiruchirappalli.

Educated locally and in the city of Madras (now Chennai), Venkataraman obtained his master's degree in economics from Loyola College, Madras.

He later qualified in Law from the Law College, Madras.