S. Satyamurti

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name = S. Satyamurti


caption = S. Satyamurti
birth_date = August 19, 1887
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death_date = March 28, 1943
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occupation = Politician, Lawyer
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S. Satyamurti (August 19, 1887 – March 28, 1943) was an Indian politician and patriot. A protege of S. Srinivasa Iyengar, Satyamurti was the political mentor of Kumaraswami Kamaraj.

Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari nominated Satyamurti to succeed him as President of the Indian National Congress in Tamil Nadu in 1930. He served as Mayor of Chennai in 1939, leading a campaign to restore public education. Like many others in the Indian independence movement, he was jailed repeatedly.

External links

* [http://www.satyamurti.org "S. Satyamurti, Freedom’s Soldier", Satyamurti.org.]

S. Satyamurti was one of the leading lights of Swarajists who laid the foundation for parliamentary democracy in India, the others being C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru. It required extraordinary courage of conviction to take a view opposed to Gandhiji's which was, in the 1920s, was not for participating in legislature, when the entire country was captivated by Gandhiji. But, it was left to the people like Satyamurti, Das and Motilal Nehru to impress upon the need for acquiring experience in legislature. Though Gandhiji did not approve of the decision of the Swarajists, he did not stop them from pursuing their own path. It was due to his relentless efforts that the Congress romped home in the 1937 elections to the Madras Legislative Assembly. Though he neither became the Premier (that was the name kept for the post of Chief Minister then) nor a Minister in the State Cabinet, his work for the party is still remembered by many. When Satyamurti became the Mayor of Madras in 1939, the World War II had begun. The city of Madras was also in the grip of an acute water scarcity. It was left to him to impress upon the British Government to agree to the proposal of Madras Corporation for building a reservoir in Poondi, about 50 km west of the city, to augment the water supply position. Those days, the tenure of Mayorship was only for a year. In a matter of eight months, the foundation stone for the reservoir was laid. Though Satyamurti was not alive to see the commissioning of the reservoir in 1944, the completion of the work in four years is considered, even in today's standards, something that cannot be matched. Till date, the Poondi reservoir is the only reservoir built purely for the purpose of Chennai water requirements. He was the political mentor of K. Kamaraj, who was the Chief Minister of the State during 1954-1963. It was because of his strong devotion to Satyamurti that Kamaraj got the Poondi reservoir named after Satyamurti. Not only that, the headquarters of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee is also called Satyamurti Bhavan.

Further reading

* P. G. Sundararajan, "The life of S. Satyamurti," New Delhi, South Asia (1988) ISBN 8170030900
* R. Parthasarathi, "S. Satyamurti," New Delhi, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India (1979).
* P. Ramamurti, ed., "Mr. President Sir: parliamentary speeches of S. Satyamurti," Madras, Satyamurti Foundation, (c1988).