C. Rajagopalachari (born 1879, Hosur, India—died December 25, 1972, Madras [now Chennai]) was the only Indian governor-general of independent India. He was a founder and leader of the Swatantra (Independent) Party in 1959.
Leaving a lucrative law practice, Rajagopalachari edited Mahatma Gandhi’s paper Young India while Gandhi was in prison in the early 1920s. For 20 years (1922–42) he served on the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, and he was prime minister of his home state of Madras (now Tamil Nadu) from 1937 to 1939.
In June 1948 Rajagopalachari took over as governor-general of India’s interim government, serving until January 1950. From 1952 to 1954 he was again chief minister of Madras. He received the Bharat Ratna award in 1954 for meritorious service to India.
In June 1959 Rajagopalachari helped found the Swatantra Party in Madras, representing a coalition of interests opposed to the Congress. The party was fundamentally conservative and anticommunist, supporting free enterprise and the reduction of the central government’s control of the states.