Bengaluru: Towards the end of 1960, Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna, then a 28-year-old Fulbright scholar in Texas, reached out to John F. Kennedy. He expressed a desire to manage Kennedy’s presidential campaign in localities where Indians were in large numbers.
Kennedy wrote back after the elections, thanking the young Indian for his efforts, Krishna recalled in his 2020 autobiography Smritivahini.
Krishna said he misplaced the video of Kennedy taking oath but his love for the 35th American president never wavered. “He possibly considered Kennedy his political guru. He was also an ardent follower of the head of the Ramakrishna Mission and Ram Manohar Lohia,” B.L. Shankar, senior Congress leader and a close aide of Krishna, told ThePrint.
Krishna died in the early hours of Tuesday in Bengaluru. He was 92.
Even at a young age, Krishna developed sources in America’s corridors of power, including Capitol Hill, and could have stayed there. But, he returned halfway through his PhD programme due to his father’s ill health.
His father S.C. Mallaiah was a legislator for over two decades.
Upon his return, Krishna quickly turned to public life in his home district of Mandya.
At 30, he successfully contested the 1962 Karnataka elections as an independent against Congress stalwart H.K. Veeranna Gowda. He was elected to Parliament six years later, but returned to state politics in 1972.
He was the first leader from Karnataka to have been a member of both houses of the state legislature and Parliament. He was speaker of Karnataka assembly (1989-92), deputy chief minister from 1993-94 and served as chief minister from 1999-2004. Krishna was then appointed governor of Maharashtra (2004-08) and later served as Minister of External Affairs (2009-12) in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA-2 government.
He was often referred to as ‘Ajatashatru’ (a person with no enemies). This is also why he is counted among the few Indian political leaders who came to be known as ‘gentlemen politicians’ for their patience, etiquette and gestures.
There were times during his tenure as CM when he would drive himself for a game of tennis, said Shankar, adding that Krishna was a regular at the stands at Wimbledon. Seen to be moving in ‘higher circles’, he was often referred to as “America Gowda”.
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SM Krishna & Deve Gowda
S.M. Krishna was born in Maddur in Karnataka’s Mandya—the heartland of Vokkaliga and irrigation-centred politics. But his style of politics was not the same as contemporaries like H.D. Deve Gowda or H.C. Srikantaiah from neighbouring Hassan. There was also the tussle for more influence between ‘Gowdas’ or Vokkaligas from Hassan and Mandya.
His suave demeanour, impeccable dressing sense, intellectual flair, love for music and an endless appetite for tennis helped him stand out among peers, which included Deve Gowda, among others.
Gowda admitted that though he and Krishna entered politics around the same time, they “cultivated very different approaches to development and governance”.
I am saddened by the passing away of Shri. SM Krishna, my friend and longtime Karnataka colleague. We started out in politics around the same time, and cultivated very different approaches to development and governance. Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/CzuOFjAW1j
— H D Devegowda (@H_D_Devegowda) December 10, 2024
Krishna shared a cordial relationship with the former Prime Minister, but it was always “blow hot-blow cold” since they were contemporaries, said Shankar. He added that though Krishna became chief minister nearly three years after Gowda demitted office, in 1996, it was Gowda who helped Krishna get elected to the Rajya Sabha.
During his time as chief minister, Krishna set up the Peenya Industrial Area in Bengaluru, among the largest in India, which in a way laid the foundation for Bengaluru’s astronomical growth trajectory. His work as Karnataka’s minister of industries paved the way for US-headquartered Texas Instruments to set up its R&D centre in Bengaluru in 1984.
“Mid-day meals, Stree Shakthi, Yeshasvini, Bhoomi app are some of his [Krishna’s] other contributions. His contribution to making Bengaluru the ‘IT capital’ is immense. His contribution in building Bengaluru as a major brand in the world is visible today with its growth,” Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar, a protégé of Krishna, told reporters Tuesday.
Krishna once famously said he would turn ‘Bengaluru into Singapore’.
Rajkumar kidnapping
On 30 July 2000, Krishna faced his biggest challenge as chief minister when Kannada superstar Dr Rajkumar was kidnapped by forest brigand Veerappan. It threatened Krishna’s bid to put Bengaluru on the global map. Relations with neighbouring Tamil Nadu, already strained over the Cauvery water dispute, were on edge in the aftermath of the kidnapping.
Former Karnataka director general & inspector general of police C. Dinakar had in his 2003 book claimed Krishna’s son-in-law V. G. Siddhartha (founder of Cafe Coffee Day chain) offered to pay Rs 50 crore as ransom to Veerappan in exchange for Rajkumar’s release.
The actor was released after 108 days in captivity, during which Krishna engaged with his Tamil Nadu counterpart M. Karunanidhi and even roped in Tamil superstar Rajinikanth in a bid to diffuse the situation.
Having successfully brought back Rajkumar from captivity, and a string of welfare schemes he launched made Krishna confident of retaining power. But he feared that holding state elections immediately after the Lok Sabha polls would endanger his re-election prospects and called for early elections six months before the assembly term was due to end.
Politicians who spoke to ThePrint said this was ‘his biggest mistake’.
The Congress fell short of a majority and Dharam Singh replaced Krishna as CM, leading a coalition government. In an interview with Public TV, Krishna, sitting face-to-face with Deve Gowda, said, “In politics, we have not walked on all possible paths. There are some things still left to be done.”
In 2017, he decided to part ways with the Congress and joined the BJP saying he was ‘insulted’. Speculation was rife at the time that he switched parties to ‘save’ his son-in-law who later died by suicide in July 2019.
Shivakumar, Krishna’s protege, stepped in and offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to Siddhartha’s son. Since then, Krishna was rarely seen in public but graciously hosted anyone who came looking for counsel. His last rites are to be held Wednesday.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
