The J Lingaiah Interview – Part 1

Namaste to my fellow Indians & Hello everyone, This is a 90s' recording of an interview of Sri J Lingaiah, my grandfather ("tatha") (1915-2007). This is an account of a time in our nation's history of highly energetic resourcefulness, single-minded purposefulness, honesty, courage, idealism & high expectations of its peoples, of who my grandfather being as such never forgets to mention everyone he knew personally who contributed to the course of its history and to the littlest act of the kindness of strangers he experienced on the way. This interview conducted in Kannada by Sri Raman Gowda, who a dear friend of the family & colleague of my grandather Sri J Lingaiah, accounts for the time in his life from 1931 to 1958. In the first half of the interview, we are told of a time during which my grandfather had first migrated to the then Bangalore City of the Mysore princely-state of British-India, about the years he spent as a day-wage labourer in the first cotton mills of the city, about the inception & spread of labour-rights movement in the Indian provinces & states leading up to the second World War, the years from 1942 onwards of Quit India Independence movement against the then British Colonial Empire; During this time my grandfather served in the labor union and later as a Freedom Fighter for Indian Independence through the Mysore Congress under the advisory leadership of Mahatma Gandhi & under the aegis of the then Indian National Congress. He recounts of the days of Independence of India, the Partition, & of the Mysore state joining the Union at the time of the Birth of The Republic. The second half hour of the interview concerns the years 1951–58 & later, when my grandfather served as a corporator for a Bangalore City ward & later briefly of his time as The City's mayor in 1971–72. This account throws an insightful light into the beginnings of the administration of a burgeoning City-Universe more idealistically "federalized" then and not yet encumbered by the State & National Political controls of the massively Centralized Republic Of India. The rights for the recording remain with The BL Hemavathi Literary Arts Foundation, a non-profit family organization, that at present being chaired & managed by self & the Board constituted of the other grandchildren of the late HK Kempamma & J Lingaiah. Note: A Kannada Transcription & English Translation of this interview will be made available on this page in future updates. Thanks. Yours Sincerely, Citizen Zero, INDIA.