E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Ravindra Varma: A Brief Life SketchSiby K. JosephRavindra Varma was an outstanding scholar and activistwho made substantial contributions to the study, propagationand understanding of Gandhian Studies and renderedinvaluable service to the nation with total devotion and utmostcommitment. It is a difficult task to summarise his public lifewhich spans over six and a half decades.He was born in a royal family at Mavelikkara inSouthern Kerala, on April 18, 1925. He belonged to a mostillustrious family which made substantial contribution in thefield of literature and arts. His father Dr. Goda Varma was awell known linguist and Sanskrit scholar who played a key rolein the evolution of Malayalam language. His maternalgrandfather A. R. Raja Raja Varma was a great grammarian,translator and poet popularly known as ‘Kerala Panini’.He was a brilliant and industrious student and had hiseducation at the Maharaja's College of Arts, Trivandrum andlater at the Madras Christian College, Madras. At the age ofseventeen, he left his college studies to take part in the QuitIndia movement launched by Gandhi in 1942. He was soonarrested and imprisoned. Afterwards he fully devoted his lifefor the cause of India’s freedom and plunged into the vortex ofthe freedom struggle.He played a key role in organisng the students andyouth of this country under student and youth wings of theIndian National Congress. It was under his dynamic leadership,the Indian students' politics during the struggle forindependence was moulded. He served as the President of theAll India Students' Congress for three years (1946-49). It wasin recognition of his dynamism and organising ability that he