M. Bhaktavatsalam

Bhaktavatsalam was born to C. N. Kanakasabhapathi Mudaliar and his wife Mallika{{cite book|title=Madras district gazetteers, Volume 12, Part 1|author=B. S. Baliga|publisher=Government Press|pages=246|year=2000}} in a Saiva Vellalar family of Nazarethpet or Nazareth village, Madras Presidency.{{cite book|title=Dictionary of Indian Biography|publisher=Indian Bibliographic Centre|pages=52|year=2000|isbn=978-81-85131-15-3}} His father died when he was five and Bhaktavatsalam was brought up by his uncles C. N. Muthuranga Mudaliar and C. N. Evalappa Mudaliar. He completed his schooling in Madras and enrolled at Madras Law College. On graduation in 1923, Bhaktavatsalam commenced practice as a lawyer of the Madras High Court.

Bhaktavatsalam joined the Indian Independence Movement even during graduation. He joined the Indian National Congress and became a member of the Madras Provincial Congress Committee in 1922. In 1926, he became a member of the Congress Working Committee.

Bhaktavatsalam started the daily newspaper India which he managed till 1933. He was the Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Congress Civic Board during the district board and municipal elections of 1935 and 1926. He also served as the Secretary of the Madras Mahajana Sabha for sometime.

Bhaktavatsalam was injured during the Salt Satyagraha at Vedaranyam. He was arrested in 1932 for conducting India's independence day celebrations and spent six months in prison. In the 1936 municipal body elections, Bhaktavatsalam was elected to the Madras City Corporation and served as Deputy Mayor.

At the age of 40, Bhaktavatsalam entered the Madras Assembly successfully winning the Thiruvallur seat in 1937 election. Bhaktavatsalam served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Local Self-Government in the Rajaji government. Bhaktavatsalam resigned along with the other office-holders of the Indian National Congress on declaration of war by the United Kingdom.

Bhaktavatsalam participated in the Quit India Movement agitations and was jailed by the British. On his release in 1944, he elected to the Constituent Assembly of India.

Bhaktavatsalam stood in the Madras Assembly elections held in 1946 and was re-elected. He served as the Minister of Public Works and Information in the O. P. Ramaswamy Reddiyar cabinet.{{cite book|title=The Times of India Directory and Year Book, Including Who's who|publisher=Bennett, Coleman and Co. |year=1951|pages=725}} In the 1952 Assembly elections, the first in independent India, Bhaktavatsalam lost. In 1957, he won the Sriperumbudur seat and entered the Assembly. He was appointed the Home Minister in the Kamaraj' cabinet and leader of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly House.

File:Mbhaktavatsalam.jpg

In 1962, the Indian National Congress won the assembly elections and formed the government in the state for the fifth time in 25 years. Winning again the Sriperumbudur seat, Bhaktavatsalam entered the Assembly. On Gandhi Jayanti day, 2 October 1963, Bhaktavatsalam took office as the Chief Minister of Madras, after Kamaraj resigned to spend more time as an office bearer of the Congress.{{cite web|title=List of Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu |url=http://www.tn.gov.in/tnassembly/cmlist-1920.htm |publisher=Government of Tamil Nadu |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130423150027/http://www.tn.gov.in/tnassembly/cmlist-1920.htm |archive-date=23 April 2013 }} Bhaktavatsalam is, till date, the last Chief Minister of Madras from the Indian National Congress.{{cite news|work=The Hindu: Metro Plus|url=http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/10/23/stories/2002102300090300.htm|date=23 October 2002|title=Playing host to wildlife|last=Muthiah|first=S.|author-link=S. Muthiah|access-date=28 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711171029/http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/10/23/stories/2002102300090300.htm|archive-date=11 July 2011|url-status=usurped}}

In August 1963, M. S. Golwalkar, the Sarsangchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh established a Swami Vivekananda Centenary Committee and a Vivekananda Rock Memorial Committee and appointed Eknath Ranade as its secretary.{{cite book|title=Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: National Upsurge|first=M. G.|last=Chitkara|pages=274|publisher=APH Publishing|year=2004|isbn=81-7648-465-2}} The main function of the committee was to construct a rock memorial at Kanyakumari in order to honour Swami Vivekananda on his birth centenary. The Chief Minister Bhaktavatsam and the Union Minister for Cultural Affairs, Humayun Kabir vehemently opposed the move. However, Bhaktavatsalam yielded when Ranade presented him a letter with signatures of 323 members of Parliament in support of a memorial.{{cite book|title=The 5 Hours and After|pages=58|publisher=VIGIL|year=1993}}

{{See also|Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu}}

Bhaktavatsalam's tenure as Chief Minister witnessed severe anti-Hindi agitations in Madras state.{{cite news|title=The Hindu and Me: 'I have one grievance'|url=http://www.hinduonnet.com/th125/stories/2003091301091500.htm|date=13 September 2003|first=Sarojini|last=Varadappan|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071119023650/http://www.hinduonnet.com/th125/stories/2003091301091500.htm|archive-date=19 November 2007}} Bhaktavatsalam supported the Union Government's decision to introduce Hindi as compulsory language and rejected the demands to make Tamil the medium of instruction in colleges saying that it was "not a practical proposition, not in the interests of national integration, not in the interests of higher education, and not in the interests of the students themselves".{{cite book|title=Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891–1970|first=Sumathi|last=Ramaswamy|publisher=University of California|year=1997|isbn=0-520-20805-6}} On 7 March 1964, at a session of the Madras Legislative Assembly, Bhaktavatsalam recommended the introduction of a three-language formula comprising English, Hindi and Tamil.{{cite book|title=Indian Recorder & Digest|pages=19|publisher=Diwanchand Institute of National Affairs|year=1964}}{{cite book|title=Asian Recorder|publisher=K. K. Thomas|pages=6292|year=1965}}

As 26 January 1965, the day when the 15-year-long transition period recommended by the Indian Parliament came to an end, neared, the agitations intensified leading to police action and casualties. Six of the agitators (Chinnasami, Sivalingam, Aranganathan, Veerappan, Mutthu, and Sarangapani) immolated themselves while three others (Dandapani, Mutthu, and Shanmugam) consumed poison. One of the agitators, eighteen-year-old Rajendran was killed on 27 January 1965 as a result of police firing.

On 13 February 1965, Bhaktavatsalam claimed that the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Left parties were responsible for the large scale destruction of public property and violence during the anti-Hindi agitations of 1965.{{cite book|title=Asian Recorder|publisher=K. K. Thomas|pages=6316|year=1965}}

In January 2015, E V K S Elangovan, the chief of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC), (whilst reacting to the news of Bhaktavatsalam's grand daughter Jayanthi Natarajan resigning from the congress), blamed Bhaktavatsalam for killing of many anti-Hindi protestors. Further, he also blamed Bhaktavatsalam for ending the distribution of subsidised rice in the PDS (started by K. Kamaraj), ending the golden rule of Kamraj in Tamil Nadu.{{cite news|last1=Sivakumar|first1=B|title=Congress will be stronger if two more people quit Congress along with Jayanthi, TNCC chief says|url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Congress-will-be-stronger-if-two-more-people-quit-Congress-along-with-Jayanthi-TNCC-chief-says/articleshow/46066090.cms|access-date=2 February 2015|issue=National|work=The Times of India|date=30 January 2015}}

Bhaktavatsalam died at the age of 89.{{cite book|title=Asian Recorder|publisher=K. K. Thomas|year=1987|pages=19479}}

His tomb is situated next to Kamaraj tomb in Guindy.

Bhaktavatsalam was related by marriage to some noted political families of Tamil Nadu. The Indian National Congress politician and Union Minister O. V. Alagesan and former Chief Minister of Madras Presidency, P. T. Rajan were brothers-in-law of Bhaktavatsalam.{{cite news|title=I do not know what kind of magic Gandhiji had but people listened to him|url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/07spec.htm|work=Rediff News|date=7 August 2002}} Bhaktavatsalam's daughter Sarojini Varadappan is a social activist while his granddaughter Jayanthi Natarajan was a politician of the Indian National Congress, Rajya Sabha member and former Union minister.

• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KMvlQgAACAAJ |title=The Absurdity of Anti-Hindi Policy: M. Bhaktavatsalam Speaks on Language Issue |first=M. |last=Bhaktavatsalam |author2=K. Perumal Udayar |publisher=Perumal Udayar |year=1978}}
• {{cite book |title=West Asia: Problems and Prospects |last=Bhaktavatsalam |first=M. |publisher=Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division |year=1985 |isbn=0-86590-594-0}}

File:M Bhaktavatsalam 2008 stamp of India.jpg|Commemorative stamp

File:Bakthavatchalam memorial, Chennai.JPG|Bhaktavatsalam memorial, Gandhi Mandapam (Chennai)

File:Bakthavatchalam memorial in Chennai.JPG|Inside Bhaktavatsalam memorial

File:Bakthavatchalam statue 1.JPG|A bust of Bhaktavatsalam

File:Bakthavatchalam memorial opening.JPG|An inscription for Bhaktavatsalam

{{reflist|2}}

• {{Cite web|url=http://www.kamat.com/database/biographies/m_bhaktavatsalam.htm|title=Biography: M.Bhaktavatsalam |access-date=27 December 2008|publisher=Kamat's Potpourri|work=Kamat Research Database}}
• {{cite book|title=Bhaktavatsalan, Fifty Years of Public Life: Being a Commemoration Volume Issued on the Occasion of the Seventy-sixth Birth Day of Sri M. Bhaktavatsalam, Madras, October 1972|publisher=Kondah Kasi Seetharamon|year=1972}}

{{Commons category|M. Bhaktavatsalam}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20220117072308/http://www.indopia.in/India-usa-uk-news/latest-news/295647/National/1/20/B Stamps in memory of Bakthavatsalam, Bismilah Khan]

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{{s-bef|before= K. Kamaraj}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chief Minister of Madras state|years=2 October 1963 – 6 March 1967}}

{{s-aft|after= C. N. Annadurai}}

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{{Indian independence movement}}

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Category:1897 births

Category:1987 deaths

Category:Indian National Congress politicians from Tamil Nadu

Category:Chief ministers of Tamil Nadu

Category:Members of the Constituent Assembly of India

Category:Indian independence activists from Tamil Nadu

Category:People from Tiruvallur district

Category:Chief ministers from Indian National Congress

Category:Madras MLAs 1952–1957