K.Kamraj.

K.Kamaraj. (1903-1976)

He is widely known as a kingmaker in politics. He came from the Nader, a dalit
community of Tamils. He was a representative, a Tamil as most of the
Tamils imagined him as a typical Tamil. His ways of speaking, walking, eating and his dress commend themselves to the many of the millions to whom such a Tamil character was familiar and there was nothing outlandish about it.


K.Kamaraj assumed the crucial role of a kingmaker at a time when
the void created at the sad demise of Nehru was so big that people believed that none could fit in his frame as the next Prime Minister of India. Kamaraj rose to the highest
position of installing two Prime Ministers in office during his tenure as the Congress
President. The master-mind exhibited rare tact and diplomacy rare to be seen, and that too without any crisis or any upheaval from the party members. Kamaraj manipulated
the diverse and chair hungry elements within the party and paved way to elect
the right persons for the right job.

In his childhood, he had very little scope for receiving education.
He was fully involved in politics from his boyhood at an age of 18.
He joined the non-co-operative movement and the salt satyagarh.
From 1940 to 1954, he was the president of the Madras Congress Committee.
He was elected to the Madras legislative assembly in 1937 and again in 1946.
He was elected in between these years as the Chairman of the local municipality.
In 1946 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of India.
In 1952 he was elected as a Member of Parliament.
In 1954 he was made the Chief Minister of Madras state.
During the period, he was the CM of the Madras state, he provided free education for all and mid-day meals in schools for the first time in the history of the whole country.
In 1965 he became the President of All India National Congress, over its annual session.
As the Congress President, he steered the party through many a crisis.




Kamaraj was an excellent party organiser, and he had joined the struggle for freedom
under Mr. Gandhi at a very young age. He participated in the Indian independence movement, and he was a close ally of Pandit Nehru.
He was the Gandhi of the South. He was not rich and did not grow rich.
He was a bachelor and had no family ties. He was a true follower of Gandhi.
He was in the right sense a common man.



His decline began when he failed to strike a working equation with Mrs. Gandhi
who outsmarted him in his own game. His confrontation with her was the consequence of the power struggle between the organization and the parliamentary wing of the party.

He died in 1976 at an age of 73 years.