The Coast in India's Freedom Struggle

The national story of 1857 to 1947 is usually told from Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. The coast of Tulunadu had its own part in it, but far less of it was written down.¹ This page is short because it keeps only what we could check.

Karnad Sadashiva Rao

Karnad Sadashiva Rao was born in Mangalore in 1881 and died in Bombay on 9 January 1937. By 1919 Wikipedia describes him as one of the first from what is now Karnataka to volunteer for Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement, and as one of the key members of the Congress Party in the region, responsible for expanding it.²

A Deccan Chronicle article puts it more sharply: Rao was the first person from Karnataka to sign Gandhi’s Satyagraha pledge, in 1919. The same article says he had written to Gandhi in 1917 asking him to lead, and that Gandhi visited and met Rao’s mother in 1934.¹

He also founded the Mahila Sabha, to support widows and poor women, and Wikipedia says he spent his wealth on the independence movement and on helping the poor.² A Bengaluru neighbourhood, Sadashivanagar, and a road in Mangalore are named for him.²

Quit India in Udupi

The Quit India movement began in 1942. The Deccan Chronicle names two people from Udupi. S. U. Paniyadi led the freedom fighters there. Shesha Sherigar hoisted the tricolour on a 60-foot stone pillar at the Sri Anantheshwara temple, a few days after Gandhi called for Quit India. The article gives no exact date for this.¹

A communist in Mangalore’s jail

B. V. Kakkilaya was born in 1919 at Bevinje, in what is now Kerala, and studied at St. Aloysius College in Mangalore. He joined the Communist Party of India in 1940. Although his party opposed the Quit India movement, he took part, and in September 1942 he was imprisoned on a charge of possessing banned literature. He spent nine months in Mangalore’s sub-jail. He died in Mangalore in 2012, after serving in the Rajya Sabha and the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.³

A festival born of the movement

The freedom movement also left a mark on the coast’s festivals. Swarajya reports that Mangaluru’s public Sharada worship was needed in the years before independence, when the colonial rulers prohibited gatherings. The Sharada Mahotsava began around 1922, on the lines of Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s Ganeshotsav, as a way of bringing people together.⁴ It grew into today’s Mangaluru Dasara. Its story is told on a page of its own, Mangaluru Dasara: A Festival of the Twentieth Century.

What is missing

The Deccan Chronicle’s piece, “The forgotten heroes of South Canara”, says the coast’s part in the struggle went largely undocumented.¹ That is also true of this page. We have not found checkable accounts of the salt satyagraha on this coast, of the khadi and national-school movements, or of the many people jailed. If you have a source for any of them, we would be glad to hear it.

From Company Rule to Today’s Districts, the district in which these events took place
The 1837 uprising, an earlier revolt

Sources & further reading

The books and articles behind the numbered notes on this page.

Deccan Chronicle, “The forgotten heroes of South Canara” (2016; accessed 7 October 2026): the 1919 pledge, Gandhi’s 1934 visit, Paniyadi, Shesha Sherigar and the note on undocumented history.
Wikipedia, “Karnad Sadashiva Rao” (accessed 7 October 2026): his dates, Congress work, Mahila Sabha and memorials. Wikipedia marks several claims in this article as needing a source.
Wikipedia, “B. V. Kakkilaya” (accessed 7 October 2026): his dates, imprisonment in 1942 and later offices.
Harsha Bhat, “100 Years Of Celebrating Sharada On The Coast Of Karnataka”, Swarajya (26 September 2022): gatherings prohibited by the colonial rulers, the Tilak Ganeshotsav model, and the start of the Sharada Mahotsava around 1922.

The research notes behind this page describe a wider freedom movement in South Kanara, spanning Congress organising, the khadi and national-school movements and acts of individual resistance across the 1920s to 1940s. We could not find a checkable source for those, so they are left out.