Garuda Sadashiva Rao

The Story

Born in 1882 near Udupi, Garuda Sadashiva Rao was drawn early to the national movement. He joined the Congress and threw himself into the campaigns that Gandhi led — the non-cooperation movement, the salt satyagraha, and the civil disobedience movement — organising the villages of the coastal Karnataka country for freedom.

He was arrested again and again for his work, spending years in British jails, and each release only returned him to the struggle with renewed energy. He worked for khadi, for prohibition, for the uplift of the villages, and for the unity of the nation — serving as a member of the Karnataka Congress and a trusted worker of the movement.

After independence, he continued to serve the people he had fought for, working for social reform and public welfare until his death in 1958. His life was the quiet, complete sacrifice of a worker of Bhārat — the kind of man on whose shoulders the freedom movement was really carried.