Parliamantarian, Lawyer, Publicist,Opinion Leader
T.RANGACHARIAR
( Rangacharai was my maternal grandfather. by the time I came to know him and about him, he was a victim of paralysis andwas rendered speechless. Here is an abbreviated version of my write up on my thatha, the first of others to come),
By Vengrai Parthasarathy
At the climax of his speech, moving a formal resolution for Dominion Status for India, Dewan Bahadur T. Rangachariar, representing Madras City in the Central Legislature, said :
“The government is inside and glass dome, working the levers, operating the engine inside that dome. I flatten my nose against it, to enter into it. How long am I to go on doing that? A day will come when we will have to throw stones at the dome to break it and enter by force..”. The Central Legislature hall reverberated with approbatory applause. Such a resolution was moved for the first time in the nation’s legislative history, way back in 1924., i.e. 23 years before India won Independence and the Tricolour flew over the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
Mr. Rangachariar, a Nationalist to the core, had fired the first salvo ever in the legislative annals for putting the country on the road to self-government with a safe machinery to work it. He had moved the resolution representing Madras and this resolution recommended to the Governor General in Council :“ To take at a very early date steps (including, if necessary) procuring the appointment of a Royal Commission, for revising the Government of India Act so as to secure for India full, self-governing Dominion Status within the British Empire and Provincial autonomy in the Provinces”
The resolution moved by him recommended revision of the then Government of India Act ,1919, so as to secure for India full, self-governing Dominion Status within the British empire.. He believed that it was a half-way home preparatory to full Independence . His resolution marks the earliest role of the Central Legislature in the freedom struggle. At the political level Gandhiji was more than a life force, laying siege at the stubborn ramparts of British Colonial policy. Gandhi was leading t his non-violent assault on the mighty Imperial ramparts.
Not many of the present generation know much about the lions of those days, of whom Mr.Rangachariar was a notable one. A political moderate, he was an outstanding lawyer with a vast practice. The politics of those days was dominated by lawyers, specially in the south. His initiatives in the Parliament of those days were many. As the leader of the Swaraj Party he led a walk out to condemn the hanging of the revolu-tionary Bhagat Singh. Mr. Rangachariar’s contemporaries included such luminaries as Pundit Motilall Nehru, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Vithalbhai Patel, Sir P.S. Sivaswamy Iyer, Sir R.K. Shanmugham Chetty, K.C. Neogy, Mr. Rangachariar was like a shining star . Those were the most troublous and critical of times for India. Cries of Independence rent the air and the nation was like a kicked-up anthill. Gandhi was at the throat of the colonial lion.
For Rangachariar, Dominion Status, was a half-way home to full Swaraj and was worth a trial if only to show the British that Indians were capable of self-government. There were other nationalists in the congress party who wanted full swaraj and no less. The British would not budge an inch.–till 1947 when they granted Independence