Selected Works of C. Rajagopalachari: Vol. IX, 194951

The present volume is the ninth in a series of ten volumes of the Selected Works of C. Rajagopalachari, being published in association with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. This volume covers the period from January 1949 and December 1951. In his roles as the first—and subsequently the last—Indian Governor-General, a cabinet minister without portfolio, and finally as the Minister of Home Affairs, he played a key role in India’s transition to a sovereign Republic. One of Rajaji’s main concerns was establishing relationships of trust between India and its immediate neighbours, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan. Rajaji advised the provisional government on matters that ranged from municipal administration, industry, journalism, agriculture, to education and employment, science and religion, the establishment of central institutions, and the allocation of central funds. We also have tributes paid by him to great personalities such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Annie Besant, Kasturba Gandhi, Thakkar Bapa, and Sarojini Naidu. Rajaji’s views on capital punishment in the wake of the Mahatma’s assassination, his call to cultivate millets to meet nutritional deficiency, his perspective on the medium of instruction in educational institutions and on vocational education, and his disapproval of the nuclear arms race are also carefully recorded.…