It is a matter of utmost pride and honour that Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, of India, shall grace the 13th Convocation of the KIIT University, Bhubaneswar on November 11 as the chief guest.
This is his maiden visit to Odisha after taking up the mantle as the Vice-President. Despite rising to the second highest Constitutional post, he has given a standing instruction that his visit should not halt traffic in any square for more than five minutes.
Hailing from most humble backgrounds, he understands the pains and troubles of a common man.
It has been a long and arduous journey for him from being born in a humble agricultural family in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh to the highest ranks of power.
He had lost his mother when he was only one year and three months and his father too at an early age. Coming from a farmer’s family, he had limited financial resources and struggled to become a self-made man by his sheer determination, perseverance and leadership abilities.
Everybody knows him as a veteran leader, a gifted orator and a seasoned politician who has a great appeal to the masses, farmers and leaders across parties. He is the leader of the people, by the people and for the people in a true sense. But the struggle underneath the success is immense which is reflected in his modesty and humble attitude. He is an embodiment of ‘Simple living and High Thinking’, which is evident from his simple lifestyle.
Shri Naidu at 68 years is young at heart as much as he was when he entered the RSS by accident and chanced upon a ‘Shakha’ while playing. It was the love for Kabaddi that made him join the RSS, and rest of his political career is history.
He has been an active student leader and activist engaged in putting posters of Shri lK Advani and Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee when they visited south on Yatras just to get a glimpse of these stalwarts and learn from them. He came into limelight during the Jai Andhra Movement and for his contribution to the students' movement during the Emergency. Such struggles of slowly raising in the ranks did not make him weak; rather he took it sportingly completing his Bachelors in law as well as focussing on his larger aim.
A quick-witted and effective communicator, Shri Naidu rose from the ranks of a poster-sticking boy to the party president and a Union Minister. He had three continuous terms in the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka from 1998 to 2016, when he shifted to Rajasthan to get a fourth term.
He was Rural Development Minister during the first NDA Government led by Shri Vajpayee. This was the time when the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna was inaugurated. In 2014, he was Union Minister of Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs besides handling the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He has brought various schemes and successfully implemented them as well.
Besides his political stint, one remarkable thing that makes him stand apart is his goodness. He believes in the philosophy of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya about uplift of the poorest of the poor (Antodaya se Sarvodaya). The Swarna Bharat Trust, founded by him, is based on the principle of Gandhiji’s call “Back to villages” for ushering in rural development.
The driving force of the trust is Smt Deepa Venkat, who has been ably working under the leadership of her father.
Passionate, poetic and progressive, he is one of the independent India’s most famous leaders, one who is known for delivering results. He is the embodiment of courage, conviction and compassion.
The compassion was evidently seen when he visited the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar on April 15, 2017 and addressed its 27,000 tribal poorest of the poor children and motivated them. He said the KISS is an example of change and amazing revolutionary transformation in tribal lives.
This rare privilege of being blessed by a remarkable visionary and a dynamic leader shall be written in the golden letters in the history of KIIT and KISS, two world-class educational institutions that have redefined the concept of education with its scale, scope and speed and yet, at the same time, have remained humble and humane.
(Prof Samanta is Founder, KIIT and KISS)