Harohalli Srinivasaiah Doreswamy is a 98-year-old freedom fighter who is still fighting for his idea of a just India.
Last month, when the winter session of the assembly in the southern state of Karnataka began, Mr Doreswamy started a protest outside the house, demanding land rights for landless farmers.
The frail old man had travelled more than 500km (310 miles) from the state capital, Bangalore, to the town of Belgaum (Belgavi) where the session was being held.
“I know my presence acts like a catalyst,” he tells me laughing. “Ministers sit up and take notice. They can’t ignore it if Doreswamy is sitting on a protest.”
Sure enough, they couldn’t. Chief Minister K Siddharamaiah was among the several politicians and ministers who visited him to pacify him.
Mr Doreswamy has never held any political position and his power comes from the fact that he has dedicated his life to serve the people. And everyone I spoke to in Karnataka agrees that it’s a life that’s unblemished.
In a country where corruption is endemic, he stands tall for his honesty and fights for what he believes in.
All his life, he’s shunned power, instead choosing to work with the poor and the downtrodden to improve their life.
“I think a social worker should have voluntary poverty,” he told me when I visited him in his modest house in a Bangalore suburb recently.
Born on 10 April 1918 in Harohalli village in the then princely state of Mysore, Mr Doreswamy was raised by his grandfather and his mother as his father died when he was five years old.
“When I was 15 and was studying in the 9th class, I read My Early Life, a book by Mahatma Gandhi, and that changed the course of my life. I became interested in the freedom movement.”
India was a British colony and the independence movement was gathering momentum in the country.
In June 1942, after he finished his studies, he began teaching maths and physics at a local high school. But in December, he got arrested.
In August, Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, demanding an end to the British colonial rule and Mr Doreswamy jumped headlong into it.
“Some of my contacts were making and supplying time bombs. We would put them in post boxes to blow them up and burn all the documents.
“Sometimes, we’d also tie time bombs to the tails of rats and throw them into government record rooms where they would blow up and destroy all the documents.”
One night, the police came knocking on his door – they had arrested a man called Ramchandra, who was carrying some time bombs, and he named Mr Doreswamy as a contact.
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