Ravindra Varma

Ravindra Varma (born April 18, 1925 in Mavelikara , Alappuzha district , British India , today: Kerala , † October 10, 2006 ) was an Indian politician of the Indian National Congress (INC) and later of the Janata Party (JNP), which between 1962 and in 1967 and again from 1977 to 1984 member of the Lok Sabha and between 1977 and 1979 Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Labor.

Life

Student and youth functionary

Varma, son of K. Goda Varma, graduated from HH The Maharaja's College of Arts in Trivandrum and from Madras Christian College (MCC). During his studies he became involved in movements for India's independence from the United Kingdom and in the Quit India movement . In addition, he campaigns for self-government in the princely states of Travancore and Mysore and has been imprisoned several times for his commitment. In 1944 he became a member of the Executive Committee of the National Student Organization in the Madras Presidency and served as Vice President between 1945 and 1946 and then as President of the All India Students Congress (AISC), the student organization of the Indian National Congress (INC), from 1946 to 1949 .

At the same time, Varma was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Student Organization from 1945 to 1946, and from 1949 to 1950 he was in charge of the preparatory committee of the Nations Student Union. As such, he was president of the Indian delegations at an international student conference in Prague in 1946 and at the international conference for student services in Aurora in 1949. From 1949 to 1951, he also acted as secretary of the India Youth Congress (IYC), the youth association of the INC. He then worked as a social worker and became President of the IYC in 1957. He was also the International President of the World Assembly of Youth between 1958 and 1962 and a member of the World Committee of the Director General of UNESCO for Adult Education from 1960 to 1964 .

Member of the Lok Sabha and time of emergency

In 1958 he became a member of the presidium of the AICC (All India Congress Committee) , of which he was a member until 1976. In 1962 Varma was elected a member of the Lok Sabha for the INC and belonged to this in the third legislative period until 1967. During his membership in parliament he was from 1962 to 1963 and again between 1964 and 1967 a member of the Executive Committee of the INC Group . From 1965 to 1967 he was also chairman of the study group for public enterprises of the commission for administrative reforms and from 1967 to 1969 chairman of the working group for defense production of this commission.

Varma served as Secretary General of the AICC from 1971 to 1974. After Prime Minister Indira Gandhi proclaimed a state of emergency on June 25, 1975 , he played a leading role within All-India Lok Sangarsh Samiti and became its general secretary in August 1975. This movement organized resistance against Gandhi's government and advocated the restoration of democracy . In his function as General Secretary of All-India Lok Sangarsh Samiti , he traveled through India and built underground cells for this resistance movement. He was arrested in early February 1976 and was held in the police prison until his release on February 24, 1977.

Re-election to the Lok Sabha and Minister

A month later, Varma was re-elected a member of the Lok Sabha in the election from March 16 to 20, 1977 for the Janata Party (JNP).

Two days later, on March 26, 1977, he was appointed by Prime Minister Morarji Desai as Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Labor in his cabinet , to which he served until Desai's term of office on July 28, 1979. As Minister of Labor he represented the Indian government from 1977 to 1979 at the 61st to 63rd sessions of the conferences of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, and in 1979 he was chairman of the 63rd session there.

In the election on January 3 and 6, 1980 , Varma in the constituency of North Bombay was re-elected as a member of the Lok Sabha and belonged to this in the seventh legislative period until the election in December 1984 .

Web links

• Entry on the Lok Sabha homepage