Ex-K'taka CM had endless appetite for tennis, wanted to make B'luru ‘Singapore’

Sharan Poovanna

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 The Print. 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 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 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”.

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.