Dr.G.Viswanathan, fondly known as G.V is a living legend and his biography written by the students- B.Eswaramoorthy and P.Deepan traces his life and achievements from his school days till the present. This short biography is nothing but a condensed form of the biography written by the students.

Early Life:
Born as the sixth child to Thiru.Govindasamy and Tmt.Shrimathi on Dec. 7th 1938 in Kothakuppam – a small village in Gudiyattam Taluk of Vellore district, Viswanathan (following the biographers, G.V. is referred to as Viswanathan) showed all the signs of a promising and noble future even as a school boy. He started his schooling at the house of Thiru.Natesa Mudaliar where all the students used to assemble, as there were no formal or regular schools available in villages as remote as Kothakuppam. Though he came from a not so rich family, he had the generosity and kind heart to share his food with his friends and also gave away the milk powder that was given by the Government to the less fortunate boys. His thirst for knowledge and good oratorical skills were identified and tapped by his first school teacher Mr.Pattu Ranganathan. Mr.Ranganathan started a students’ forum and conducted oratorical competitions every week in which Viswanathan participated eagerly and honed his oratorical skills which has helped him achieve great heights in his life. He was a voracious reader and spent his leisure time reading magazines borrowed from his teacher rather than play with his friends as children of his age are wont to do.

 

Influences:
Impressions made at an early age are very strong and it shapes the character, habits and thoughts of a person. Viswanathan’s teacher was an atheist and thus used to take him to task asking so many questions because as a boy he used to smear the holy ash on his forehead according to the family custom. This had left an indelible mark on Viswanathan’s mind that he transformed into a non-conformist then on. The rationalistic books that he read enhanced this sentiment. Also, his friend’s brother greatly impressed him with communist ideologies. The first photograph that he brought home was that of Stalin and even conducted a condolence meeting on hearing the news of the leader’s death. Another person who impressed him was Arignar Anna whose books and ideologies attracted him as a magnet towards a piece of iron. In fact he travelled forty kilometers from Gudiyattam to Vellore in a bicycle as a high school student to attend a function where Anna was coming to unveil the statue of Mahatma Gandhi.

 

High School Life:
As a high school student Viswanathan was an all-rounder and excelled not only in studies but was also good in sports and won many prizes. Viswanathan’s love for his mother-tongue Tamil is a deep rooted one. With his head master’s permission he started a Tamil Club in his school for which he became the leader eventually. Though he was not an active member of the English club, his penchant for that language was remarkable which was appreciated by his

 

English teachers.
He was also a very straight forward person who never hesitated to speak the truth even to his teachers. Once during an examination he realized that two questions were asked out of the syllabus and thus he simply wrote the question numbers and beside that mentioned – out of syllabus. The teacher was very angry with this, and slapped Viswanathan demanding an explanation. Without hesitation, he pointed out the mistake, which the teacher accepted and apologized.

College Life:
Having successfully completed his eleventh grade, Viswanathan did his intermediate in Voorhees College, Vellore. As travelling every day from Kothakuppam to Vellore was a difficult task, he stayed in Vellore, but during weekends he used to go to his village to meet his elementary school teacher Mr.Pattu to borrow books and magazines and thus enlightened himself further.
Loyola College, Chennai, the portals of which has seen and produced many a great achievers in all walks of life embraced Viswanathan as an under-graduate in Economics. This period in his life was very crucial as it chartered his future course as a successful politician and later on as an academician. He joined the students’ squad of the Dravidian party and attended all the meetings addressed by Arignar Anna. He also had the opportunity to meet the DMK party leader Mr.Karunanidhi. Though Viswanathan actively participated in politics, his concentration in studies never wavered and he cleared all the papers without any arrears. This was once jocularly commented upon by Kalaignar, as he doubted whether Viswanathan was really a member of the DMK students’ squad as the members usually had at least one paper to clear. Hard work always bears fruits and he successfully completed both his undergraduate and post-graduation in Economics from the Loyola College.
With the gift of good oratorical skills, he realized he would be a successful lawyer and thus enrolled himself in the Law College, Chennai. He strongly believed in the potential of the police department to serve the public and thus wrote the I.P.S exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. Though he was successful in the examination, he did not join the service as he had to join the Tripura, Manipur Police. His father was unwilling to send him thus far as it was the time of the Indo-China war.
Great people take defeats as stepping stones to success and Viswanathan was no exception. The first election he contested was for the post of Chairman in the Law College. He lost this election by a margin of just six votes. This did not dishearten him, rather it fortified him. Shortly after, the election for the chairman of Tamil Forum of the colleges in and around Chennai took place. His friend Mr.Sathaya contested and Viswanathan went to many colleges campaigning for his friend who eventually won the contest.
Viswanathan finished his course in Law and joined as a junior to the famous lawyer Mr.V.C.Rajagopalachari in Vellore. He also registered himself as a member of the Bar Council in 1964. The first case he appeared for was given by the present minister Mr.Durai Murugan’s father, and he earned Rs.10 for sending a Lawyer’s notice to the opponent party.

Political Career:
Viswanathan became a full-fledged politician after he contested in the parliamentary elections from the Wandiwash constituency with the blessings of Arignar Anna who reposed great faith in him and chose him as a candidate because he was an educated man with a keen social responsibility. Viswanathan still remembers and cherishes the meeting in Timiri where Anna introduced him as the candidate and proudly proclaimed that Viswanathan was a person who was educationally more qualified than Anna himself.
The prophecy of his school teacher that he would scale great heights because of his oratorical skills became true as he won the elections from the Wandiwash constituency and entered the Parliament as the Deputy Whip of the DMK party. Incidentally he happened to be the only DMK member who knew Hindi. But, he gave so much importance to Tamil that he grabbed the opportunity given by the then Speaker Shri.Sanjiva Reddy to speak in any of the vernacular languages, provided it was translated into English or Hindi, and spoke in Tamil on many occasions.
Arignar Anna passed away in 1969 which was an irreparable loss to Viswanathan and the following political events led Mr.Karunanidhi to be the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu. Viswanathan along with Mr.K.Manoharan was instrumental in introducing Mr.Karunanidhi to several politicians in Delhi.
Viswanathan was a man of integrity and one such incident which highlighted this was: After the 1974 Lok Sabha election, in which he was in charge of the Raj Bhavan Assembly constituency, Viswanathan submitted not only the election expense account, but, along with it gave the balance amount as well. Mr.Panruti Ramachandran who was responsible for the state elections greatly appreciated this honesty in Viswanathan. Though Viswanathan was a staunch Dravidian, certain issues like the issue of CMC and the expulsion of MGR from DMK made him leave DMK for ADMK started by MGR in 1972. He severed his ties with the DMK party in 1975 when he was asked to sign an apology letter apologizing for his statement that the rice merchants, officers and the Minister responsible for the smuggling of rice should be suspended and dismissed, based on the report submitted by the Estimate Committee of Tamilnadu. Viswanathan joined ADMK and MGR welcomed him with open hands into his fold. He was also made the Deputy Leader of the ADMK in the Parliament.
Once when MGR was on his foreign tours, he noticed that there were many Indian students in the Universities there and 40% of the students were from Bangalore. When the reason for this was analysed, it was found that Bangalore had many self-financing colleges. Based on this knowledge, MGR instructed the then Education Minister Mr.Aranganayakam to permit self-financing colleges in Tamilnadu. It was also decided to permit one such college for Vellore and Viswanathan was the person chosen for this task as MGR thought that he was the apt person. Thus the seeds for the world renowned VIT University were sown.

VIT University:
The foundation stone for the Vellore Engineering College was laid on July 5th 1985. As Viswanathan aimed for quality in everything, he faced many financial problems and had to even sell some of his property to pay the staff members. The college was affiliated to Madras University and bagged many with the efforts of a farsighted management and dedicated staff. Even as VEC gained popularity and was running efficiently, it had to go through a very bad phase in the year 1990, when the state government ordered for the closure of VEC and opened a new government engineering college. A man of perseverance, Viswanathan appealed in the Madras High Court and got the order to fill the management quota seats as the Tamilnadu Government did not provide him the government quota. However, a year later, when Ms.Jayalalitha assumed office as the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, all the cases filed by the previous government were withdrawn and the college land that was taken away was given back. From thereon it can be said that there was no looking back. Students from not only different states, but also from different countries started joining VEC. In 1995, Viswanathan applied for autonomy to Madras University, but was rejected on the grounds that the college did not have permanent affiliation from AICTE. Undaunted, he applied to the AICTE and got it. VEC also got accreditation from NBA for six of its courses and the ISO 9002 certification by DNV Holland. Never complacent with what was achieved, Viswanathan’s next aim was to get the Deemed University status to VEC in which he succeeded in June 2001 and VEC became Vellore Institute of Technology. Later, by a statute of the government VIT Deemed University became VIT University. VIT University has catapulted into a world renowned institution with its world class infrastructure, dedicated staff and brilliant students. VIT has been ranked number one among the private technical institutions in India for two consecutive years and has been consistently placed within the first top ten institutions as per the AC Nielson Marg Survey report. The effort that has been put in by Viswanathan to bring this University to where it is will be understood when we hear the comment of the Vice-Chancellor of a famous University in Tamilnadu who said that it would take three generations of efforts for his University to achieve VIT’s status which has been achieved by Thiru G.Viswanathan in a span of just 20 years.