D. Devaraj Urs

D. Devaraj Urs was born at Kallahalli 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. His younger brother, Kemparaj Urs was an actor. The family belonged to the Arasu community and were very distant relatives to the Wodeyar royal family.

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.

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, Urs studied at the Central College in Bengaluru and took a BSc Degree.

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) ('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.[1] Under his leadership Congress(R) won 165/216 seats, thus garnering more than 75% of the seats. Congress(O) came a distant second with 24 seats. Independents won 20 seats. CPI won 3 while BJS, the earlier avatar of BJP stood second in 16 seats, winning none.[2] He was chief minister of Karnataka for the full term of the assembly from 1972 to December 1977. In January 1978, he joined Congress (I) as Mrs Gandhi split the party yet again. The new party won the assembly elections in February 1978 and Urs was appointed Chief Minister. But in 1979, he left Congress(I) following differences with Indira Gandhi, and joined the other Congress faction, Congress (S). He continued to be CM as many MLAs joined him.[3] The other Congress faction was even known as Congress (Urs) briefly when he became its president. But in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, his party won just one seat in Karnataka. Most MLAs in his camp deserted him to re-join Congress(I) and Gundu Rao became Chief Minister in January 1980. Urs then formed the Karnataka Kranti Ranga in 1982, a few months before his death.[4]

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 Hunasuru 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 Mysuru as Karnataka in 1973 were some landmark decisions taken by him.

D. Devaraj Urs was one of the greatest social reformers the State had seen. The land reforms spearheaded by him, in which the tiller of the land became the owner, was exemplary. It reduced the chasm between the rich and the poor, doing away with 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.

• Devaraj Urs had ushered in a 'silent social revolution' at The Hindu
• Contribution of Devaraj Urs remembered at The Hindu
• Devraj Urs' Exemplary Silence at Prajavani