6.3 Karnataka Personalities, Freedom Fighters & the Unification Movement

Early Resistance Heroes

Kittur Rani Chennamma (1778-1829)

Rani Chennamma was the queen of the princely state of Kittur (in present-day Belagavi district). After her husband Shivalinga Rudra Sarja died in 1824, the East India Company applied the doctrine of lapse — the principle, applied in Kittur decades before Lord Dalhousie systematised it in 1848, that a princely state without a natural heir lapsed to the paramount power — and refused to recognise her adopted son Shivalingappa and ordered Kittur to be annexed.

Chennamma refused to comply and led an armed rebellion in October 1824 against the British forces under the Company's collector and political agent St. John Thackeray, who was killed in the battle. She initially defeated the British but was eventually captured and imprisoned at Bailhongal fort, where she died on 2 February 1829. She is revered as one of the first women freedom fighters of India, her revolt predating the 1857 uprising by more than three decades. A statue of hers stands in the Indian Parliament complex.

Sangolli Rayanna (c. 1798-1831)

A brave general and commander of Kittur's forces, Sangolli Rayanna continued resistance after Chennamma's capture. He organised guerrilla warfare against the British, attempting to restore Kittur's independence by installing Shivalingappa as ruler. He was captured through betrayal and was hanged on 26 January 1831 from a Banyan tree at Nandagad (Belagavi district). His dying words are reported to have predicted that a resurrection of Kittur's cause would come — a story that inspired later generations. He was a community hero of the Kuruba (shepherd) community.

Tipu Sultan (1751-1799)

Covered in detail in Section 6.2, Tipu is regarded in Karnataka as a pioneering anti-colonial warrior. He fought four wars against the British, allied with the French and the Ottoman and Afghan rulers, used rocket technology against them, and died in battle. In Karnataka his legacy is invoked as a freedom fighter despite controversy over his rule in coastal Karnataka (treatment of Mangalore Catholics and Kodavas).

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The Mysore Progressive Era

Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV (1894-1940)

Maharaja of Mysore from 1902 to 1940, Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV is regarded as a 'Rajarishi' (sage among kings) — Gandhi used that title for him. He was privately educated at the Royal School in Mysore and succeeded to the throne in 1894, ruling under a regency until he was invested with full powers in 1902. Under his 38-year reign Mysore was called a 'Model State' of India for progressive administration, public works, education, and industry:

• Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) Dam across the Cauvery at Brindavan Gardens
• University of Mysore (1916) — the first university in Karnataka and the sixth in India, and the first outside British-administered territory
• Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (established 1909 with Tata endowment and Mysore state land; expanded during his reign)
• Promotion of Kannada language and the fine arts (Mysore style of painting)
• First Indian state to have a Representative Assembly (1881) — quasi-constitutional governance

His Dewan, Sir M. Visvesvaraya, transformed the state's infrastructure (described below).

Sir M. Visvesvaraya (1861-1962)

Born at Muddenahalli (Chikkaballapur district), Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was India's most celebrated engineer-statesman:

• Dewan of Mysore (1912-1918) under Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV
• Designed the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) Dam (1924-31) — a then-state-of-the-art irrigation reservoir at Brindavan Gardens, providing irrigation to Mandya and Mysore districts
• Patented the automatic sluice gate system in 1903 (used in Khadakwasla Dam, Pune) — a major innovation that prevented wastage of water
• Designed the flood protection system for Hyderabad city against the Musi river floods (1908-09)
• Founded the Mysore Iron and Steel Works at Bhadravati (1923) (Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant)
• Established the Mysore Soap Factory, Mysore Sandalwood Oil factory, and Mysore Silk Weaving Factory — state public-sector industries that gave Karnataka its early industrial base
• Established Bangalore's Jayanagar — one of the first planned residential neighbourhoods in South Asia (1949)
• Architect of the Mysore Economic Conference (1911) for planned economic development

Honours: Knighted by the British in 1915; awarded the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian award) in 1955. His birthday, 15 September, is observed as Engineers' Day in India. He authored Reconstructing India (1920) and Planned Economy for India (1934). Often summarised by his saying: 'Industrialise or perish.'

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Literary & Cultural Personalities

Kuvempu (1904-1994)

Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, pen-name Kuvempu, was born at Kuppali (Shivamogga district). He was the first Kannada writer to receive the Jnanpith Award in 1967 for his epic work 'Sri Ramayana Darshanam' (1949) — a re-imagining of the Ramayana in modern Kannada blank verse that also won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955. Other works include Malegalalli Madhumagalu (novel), Sri Ramayana Darshanam, and plays like Shudra Tapaswi and Smashana Kurukshetra.

He wrote 'Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate', composed in 1924 and set to music by Mysore Ananthaswamy; the Government of Karnataka officially declared it the state anthem (naadageethe) in January 2004, during Kuvempu's birth-centenary year. A common trap pairs the poem with 1956 or 1973 — those are the years of unification and of the renaming to Karnataka, not of the anthem's adoption. He was a Rashtrakavi ('national poet') of Karnataka (1958) and Padma Vibhushan (1988). He championed the Vishwa Maanava (universal human) philosophy — beyond caste, religion, and nation — which has been adopted by Karnataka University.

Other Notable Karnataka Figures

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Karnataka Ekikarana (Unification) Movement

Before 1956, the Kannada-speaking regions were scattered across half a dozen administrative units: the princely state of Mysore, parts of Bombay Presidency (northern Karnataka, Dharwad, Belagavi), Madras Presidency (southern Karnataka, Bengaluru, Kolar, Tumakuru, Mangaluru), Hyderabad Nizam's dominion (Gulbarga, Bidar, Raichur), and the chief commissioner's province of Coorg. The movement to unify them into a single Kannada-speaking state was the Karnataka Ekikarana (Karnataka Unification) movement.

Early Organisations and Leaders

• Karnataka Vidyavardhaka Sangha, founded at Dharwad in 1890 by R.H. Deshpande, was the first organisation to espouse the linguistic unification of Kannada-speaking areas. Its motto: 'Kannadaigannu Kannada Manyaraagiralabeku' ('Kannada should be in the hands of Kannadigas').

• Kannada Sahitya Parishat (Kannada Literary Academy), founded in 1915 at Bengaluru on the initiative of Dewan Sir M. Visvesvaraya and under the patronage of Maharaja Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV. Its founding president was H.V. Nanjundaiah (1915–1920), who was also the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore. (B.M. Srikantaiah is the 'father of modern Kannada literature' and a later office-bearer — not the Parishat's first president; the swap is a standard exam trap.) It worked across regions to nurture a common Kannada literary identity and held annual Kannada Sahitya Sammelanas in different towns.

• Aluru Venkata Rao (12 July 1880 – 25 February 1964), born in Bijapur (Vijayapura) and long settled at Dharwad, was called 'Karnataka Kulapurohita' ('high priest of the Kannada family'). In 1917 he published 'Karnataka Gatha Vaibhava', a landmark work of Kannada historical revivalism that recalled Karnataka's past glory under the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Hoysalas and Vijayanagara, awakening regional pride. He founded the Karnataka History Research Council at Dharwad (1914) and lived to see unification in 1956, performing a thanksgiving puja at Hampi. He was the first to articulate the demand for a unified Karnataka state spanning all Kannada-speaking districts. He served as the editor of Jayakarnataka magazine (1919 onward).

Key Milestones

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 redrew India's state boundaries on linguistic lines. Unified Mysore State came into being on 1 November 1956, integrating nine Kannada-speaking districts formerly under Madras, Bombay, Hyderabad, and Coorg with the old Mysore State. The new state was renamed Karnataka on 1 November 1973 under Chief Minister D. Devaraja Urs.

Personality Reference Table