Shri V. V. Giri – The fourth President of India

Shri V. V. Giri served as the fourth President of India, holding the office from August 24, 1969, to August 24, 1974. His full name is Varahagiri Venkata Giri. He was born at Berhampur in Odisha on 10 August 1894. Shri V. V. Giri was a prominent figure in the Indian political scenario. He was also known for his contributions to the labor movement and his strong advocacy for worker’s rights. To know more keep in touch with the blog.

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His full name was Varahagiri Venkata Giri and better known as V. V. Giri. He was an Indian politician and activist. Some of his achievement are as under –

– He served as the fourth president of India from 24 August 1969 to 24 August 1974.
– He was also worked as the acting President of India form 3 May 1969 20 July 1969 for 78 days because the chair has been vacant due to the sudden death of the President Dr. Zakir Hussain.
– He also served as the third vice president of India from 13 May 1967 to 3 May 1969.
– He was the first president to be elected as an independent candidate.
– He was awarded with Bharat Ratna in the year 1975.
– Shri V. V. Giri died on 24 June 1980.

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Early life of Shri V. V. Giri

– Shri V. V. Giri was born 10 August 1894 at Berhampur which is now in Odisha state but when he was born the Berhampur was under Madras Presidency.
– His family was a Telugu Brahmin family.
– Originally his parents were from Chintalapudi village of East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh but they had been shifted to Berhampur for their bright future.
– The name of his father was V. V. Jogayya Pantulu. He was a successful lawyer at Berhampur and also a political activist of the Indian National Congress.
– The name of his mother was Subhadramma. She was active in the national movement in Berhampur during the Non Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements.
– His mother was arrested for leading a strike which was prohibited during the Civil Disobedience Movement.
– Shri V. V. Giri was married in early age and the name of his wife was Saraswati Bai. The couple had 14 children.

Education of shri V. V. Giri

– Shri V. V. Giri had completed his initial primary education from Hillpatna Primary School at Berhampur
– He had completed his higher education at the Khallikote College which is now affiliated with Madras University.
– In the year 1913 he went to Ireland to study law from the University College of Dublin and the Honourable Society of King’s Inns, at Dublin and stayed there upto 1916.
– He was one among the first group of thirteen Indian students who sat with the obligatory year long course at UCD in the year 1914 to 1915. Because this requirement was necessary for the students who were called to the Irish Bar for study at the King’s Inns university. This is for the information that there were total 50 Indian students studied at UCD between 1914 to 1917.
– He and one of his fellow student of law collage enrolled in the full bachelor of arts course in UCD.
– In the year 1916 he was suspected to the association with the prominent rising ring leaders and the Irish Bar called him, he left the university that’s the reason he did not complete his studies for BA in UCD.

Political participation of Shri V. V. Giri

– Shri V.V. Giri was elected to the student union of Khallikote College for consecutive three times.
– He was highly active in freedom movement during his student days in Berhampur.
– During their bachelor degree he studied English and get a chance to met Thomas MacDonagh who was an Irish political activist, poet, playwright, educationalist and revolutionary leader.
– During the First World War he travelled from Dublin to London to met with Mahatma Gandhi.
– Mahatma Gandhi wanted him to join the Imperial war effort as a Red Cross Volunteer and initially he acceded to Gandhi’s request but one of his biographers said that later he regretted with his decision.
– During his student life he was active in both Irish politics as well as in Indian politics.
– He along with the fellow Indian students, produced a pamphlet documenting the abuse with the Indians in South Africa, this pamphlet was intercepted by Indian Political Intelligence and resulted to increased police scrutiny for him and his fellow students in Dublin.
– In the year 1916 he was suspected to the association with the prominent rising ring leaders and the Irish Bar called him and he left the university that’s the reason he did not complete his studies for BA in UCD.
– Shri V. V. Giri recounts in his biography that how he was served with one month’s notice to leave Ireland in 1916 and how the Indian students were subjected to police raids.

Career footprints of Shri V. V. Giri

His career can be divided into two part
01) Career in pre-independence
02) Career after independence

01) Career in pre-independence –

– After returning from Germany to India in the year 1916 he enrolled himself with the Madras High Court and started his legal career.
– Simultaneously he also became a member of the Congress party and attended the Lucknow session, where became a part of the Home Rule Movement of Annie Besant.
– In the year 1920 when the Mahatma Gandhi call for a Non-Cooperation Movement he abandoned a flourishing legal career.
– In 1922, he was arrested for the first time for demonstrating against the sale of liquor shops.

His role in the labour movement

– He was closely associated with the trade unions and labour movement in India throughout his career.
– In the year 1923 the “All India Railwaymen’s Federation” was formed and he was one of the founding member of the Federation and he served as its general secretary for over a decade.
– In the year 1926 he was elected as the president of the All India Trade Union Congress for the first time.
– He was also founded the Bengal Nagpur Railway Association and in the year 1928 he also led a non-violent strike for the rights of retrenched workers.
– This strike is treated as the milestone in the labour movement in India because this strike was succeeded to concede the workers’ demands from the British Indian government and the management of the railway company.
– In the year 1929 Shri V. V. Giri became the president of the Indian Trade Union Federation (ITUF) which was formed by him along with N. M. Joshi and others.
In the year 1927 he took part as the worker’s delegate of the Indian delegation at the International Labour Conference.
– He was present as a representative of the industrial workers of India in the Second Round Table Conference.
– He always worked towards getting the trade unions to support the freedom movement in India and he was also the president of the AITUC for twice.

Electoral career in British India

– In the year 1934 he became a member of the Imperial Legislative Assembly.
– In the year 1936 he defeated the Raja of Bobbili In the General Election and become a member of the Madras Legislative Assembly.
– In the year 1937 and emerged a spokesman for matters of labour and trade unions in the Imperial Legislative Assembly.
– Between the 1937 to 1939 he was Minister for Labour and Industry in the Madras Presidency government headed by C Rajagopalachari.
– In the year 1938 he was appointed as the Governor of the National Planning Committee of the Indian National Congress.
– In the General Elections of 1946 he was reelected to the Madras Legislative Assembly and again became a minister in charge of the labour portfolio under T. Prakasam.

His imprisonment during the colonial period

– In the year 1941 he was arrested and spent 15 months in prison due to labour movement.
– He was imprisoned again in 1942 due active participation in quit India movement.
– In the year 1943 he was remained in jail when the AITUC summit in Nagpur whereas he was the elected president.
– He spend his tenour of his prison in the Vellore and Amaravathi prisons.
– He spend his longest period in jail was three years when he was arrested in the year 1943 and released in the year 1945.

Career in the independent India

– He was appointed as the first Indian High Commissioner to Ceylon and served from the year 1947 to 1951.
– In the General Elections of 1951, he was elected to the 1st Lok Sabha member from Pathapatnam Lok Sabha Constituency of Madras State.

As Union Minister for Labour

– After as the elected member of Parliament he was appointed the first Union Minister of Labour in 1952.
– His approach in industrial dispute resolution came forward through his policies.
– His approach emphasizes the negotiations between the management and workers as the means for resolving industrial disputes.
– His believed that the failure of any negotiations between management and workers should lead not to compulsory adjudication but to further negotiations through conciliation officers.
– However he had some differences with the government over patronage to trade unions.
– In the year 1954 he resigned from government because of the government approach towards with the trade union and the government’s decision to reduce the wages of bank employees.
– In the General Elections of 1957 he lost his Lok Sabha membership.
– He played an important role in founding the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE).
– In the year 1957 he was appointed as the Governor of Uttar Pradesh.

Shri V. V. Giri’s tenures as Governor

– He served as governor of Uttar Pradesh from the year 1957 to 1960.
– He served as governor of Kerala from the year 1960 to 1965.
– He served as governor of Karnataka from the year 1965 to 1967.

Tenure as the Vice president of India

– He was elected the third vice president of India on 13 May 1967.
– He held the office of Vice President of India for nearly two years until 3 May 1969.
– He was the first vice president to not complete his full term in office because he had been took charge of the President’s office which had been vacant due to the sudden death of the sitting President.
– He was the third vice president to be elected to the presidential office.

Role as the Acting President of India

– Shri V. V. Giri was sworn in as acting president the same day on the death in office of President Zakir Husain on 3 May 1969.
– He worked only for 78 days as the acting President of India on 20 July 1969 he resigned from the post to contest the presidential elections as an independent candidate.
– As his capacity as acting president he promulgated an ordinance to nationalised the 14 banks and insurance companies just immediately before his resignation as the acting President of India.
– Shri Mohammad Hidayatullah, the Chief Justice of India took charge as the acting President of India after the resignation of Shri V. V. Giri from the office of the acting President of India.

Unique Presidential election of 1969

– This presidential election was unique because there are 3 candidates fought in field of election for the office of the President of India. they were Shri Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Shri V. V. Giri and Shri C D Deshmukh.
– Shri Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was nominated as the candidate from the Congress Party, Shri C D Deshmukh was nominated as the candidate from the opposition Party and Shri V. V. Giri was contesting as an independent candidate.
– A tussle had been seeing in this presidential election between the sitting Prime Minister Sushri Indira Gandhi and the old members of the congress party.
– The All India Congress Committee decided to support Neelam Sanjiva Reddy as the presidential candidate but Prime Minister Sushri Indira Gandhi deiced to support the independent candidate Shri V. V. Giri.
– After endorsing the “vote of conscience” the Congress legislators allowed to vote for Shri V. V. Giri.
– The Presidential election was held on 16 August 1969 witnessed a contest between Shri N. S. Reddy, V. V. Giri and Shri C D Deshmukh.
– In this tightly contested presidential election Shri V. V. Giri emerged victorious by winning 420,077 votes against the target of 418,169 votes required to be elected President.

Election petition was filed in the Supreme Court of India

– Just after the presidential election completed an election petition was filed in the Supreme Court of India
– In petition it was challenged the validity of the selected candidate for the office of President of India on the grounds of having used corrupt practices to influence voters.
– The new elected President of India Shri V. V. Giri, unusually for an incumbent president of India, chose to appear in person before the Court where he was examined as a witness.
– The Court ultimately dismissed the petition and upheld Shri V. V. Giri’s election as president.

Shri V. V. Giri as the President of India

– Shri V. V. Giri was sworn in as the President of India on 24 August 1969 and held the office until 24 August 1974.
– He was the fourth President of India after Shri Dr. Zakir Hussain
– He made the history to be the only president who became President of India after have been the acting president.
– He was the only person to be elected as the president of India as an independent candidate.

Works done by Shri V. V. Giri as the President of India

– In the year 1971 he unquestioningly accepted the decision of the Prime Minister Sushri Indira Gandhi to sack the ministry of Charan Singh in Uttar Pradesh and also advised her to go in for early elections.
– He promulgated the ordinance for abolishing the privy purses and privileges of the erstwhile rulers of India’s princely states even after the government’s original amendment was defeated in the Rajya Sabha.
– A.N. Ray was appointed as the Chief Justice of India by removing three judges senior to him. He advised the Prime Minister against Ray’s appointment but his advice was ignored by Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi.
– He warned to stop the action taken against the strike of railway workers in 1971 and said that any action against the striking railway workers could worsen the situation but Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi also ignored his warning.
– He made 14 state visits to 22 countries in south and southeast Asia, Europe and Africa as the capacity of the President of India.
– He is regarded as a President who completely subordinated himself to the Prime Minister and it is also said for him that he is –
“A Prime Minister of President”,
“A Loyal President”
“A Rubber Stamp President”
and it is also believed that the independence of the office was destroyed during his tenure.
– As the capacity of the President of India in the year 1971 he had suo motu conferred the Bharat Ratna on Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi.
– In the year 1974 when his term ended the Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi decided not to renominate him for the second term for presidential election.
– The Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi nominated the name of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and he was elected as the President of India in the 1974 presidential election.

Awards and honours received by Shri V. V. Giri

National awards and honours

– He was honoured with India’s highest civilian award “The Bharat Ratna” in the year 1975 for his contributions in the area of public affairs.
– He became the fourth President of India out of six President’s of India, who have been conferred with the India’s highest civilian award “The Bharat Ratna Award”.
– The name of the six Presidents of India who was awarded with “The Bharat Ratna Award” as under for the ready reference.
01) Shri Rajendra Prasad,
02) Shri Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,
03) Shri Zakir Husain,
04) Shri V. V. Giri,
05) Shri A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and
06) Shri Pranab Mukherjee

International awards and honours

– In the year 1971 he was awarded by Imperial Iran with the “Commemorative Medal of the 2500th Anniversary of the Founding of the Persian Empire”.
– In the year 1974 the Kingdom of Bhutan awarded as the “King Jigme Singye Investiture Medal”.

Death and Funeral of Shri V. V. Giri

– Shri V.V. Giri died of a heart attack in his home town Madras (Chennai) on 24 June 1980 when he was 85 years old.
– He was given a state funeral the next day and a week-long mourning period was declared by the Government of India.
– As Vice President of India Shri V. V. Giri had been the ex-officio chairman Rajya Sabha and the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for two days as a mark of respect to him

Commemoration of former President of India

– In the commemoration of Shri V. V. Giri in the year 1974 the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department released a postage stamp.
– The National Labour Institute which was established in the year 1974 renamed in the honour of former President of India in the year 1995 as V.V. Giri National Labour Institute (VVGNLI).
– In his hometown (Berhampur) which is in Odisha state, the name of a major road, a secondary training school and a big market have been changed in the honour of former President of India.
– The British time market of Berhampur which was known as the ‘Victoria Market’ is also renamed as GIRI Market..

The books written by his and donated house

– Shri V.V. Giri donated his huge and historic bungalow of Berhampur for a Girls School now it is a famous school known as The GIRI Girls High School.
– “The GIRI Girls High School” was the first girl’s school of Odisha state but now it is a famous secondary government school of Odisha state.
– The family members of former President Shri V. V. Giri resides in another small bungalow at Giri Road in Berhampur.
– Shri V. V. Giri authored many books on the Industrial Relations and Labour Problems in Indian Industry.
– He authored popular books named “Labour Problems in Indian Industry” based on the issues of labour in India.
– In his memoirs a book was published in the year 1976 titled “My Life and Times”.

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No	Name of the President of India	Click here to read
01	Dr. Shri Rajendra Prasad	Click here
02	Dr. Shri Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Click here
03	Dr. Shri Zakir Husain	Click here
05	Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed	Click here
06	Shri Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	Click here
07	Shri Gyani Zail Singh	Click here
08	Shri Ramaswamy Venkataraman	Click here
09	Shri Shankar Dayal Sharma	Click here
10	Shri K. R. Narayanan	Click here
11	Shri A. P. J. Abdul Kalam	Click here
12	Sushri Pratibha Patil	Click here
13	Shri Pranab Mukherjee	Click here
14	Shri Ram Nath Kovind	Click here
15	Sushri Droupadi Murmu	Click here

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