Builders of Modern India - Gangadhar Rao Deshpande

GANGADHARRAO DESHPANDE was well known as the Lion of Karnataka. His biography as presented by this series of the Builders of Modern India has so many important features which are hardly found normally in the lives of many others. The writer has taken care to keep him as the central figure, be it the most notable Congress Session of 1924 in Belgaum, which was the only session over which Mahatma Gandhi presided, or the historic meeting of the Gandhi Seva Sangh at Hudli, Deshpande's own tiny village, in which Gandhi took the decision of Congress participation in the elections under the Government of India Act of 1935. Deshpande was born and bred in a village but his leadership was built in the city of Belgaum which became the centre of both political and constructive activities of the Congress in Karnataka.

In his early days, Deshpande though inclined more towards social reform, came under the influence of Lok manya Tilak and till the latter's end in July 1920 led the people both of Karnataka and Maharashtra in the tough struggle for Swaraj or Home Rule advocated by Tilak. Deshpande was a distinguished orator in both Kannada and Marathi. When Gandhiji appeared on the political arena, Deshpande switched over to his politics but not before he convinced himself that Gandhiji's Non violence was made of sterner steel than the wordy and intellectual extremism of Surendranath and some others.

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