Vyanktesh Vishnu Dravid

Dravid in 1965Vyanktesh Vishnu Dravid (10 August 1913 – 1994) was an Indian politician and trade unionist. He was the Labour Minister in the state governments of Madhya Bharat and Madhya Pradesh from 1952 to 1964. Dravid was a key figure in the labour movement in Indore and Madhya Pradesh for many years, as an influential leader of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the Indore Mill Mazdoor Sangh.

Early life Dravid was born on 10 August 1913, in Aligarh, British Raj. His parents were Vishnu and Lakshmibai. They came from a South Indian Brahman family, which had been assimilated into Marathi culture in Nagpur. Dravid played a key role in the Indore Textile Inquiry Committee. Dravid supervised the Labour Commissioner A. S. Banawalikar, who drew up the Banawalikar Report which would become the prescriptive basis for labour legislations of Madhya Bharat and Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Bharat Labour Minister Dravid became a cabinet minister in the Madhya Bharat state government after the 1952 election, holding the ministerial portfolios of Development, Labour and Local Self-Government.

Between 1953 and 1955, his ministerial portfolios were Development, Labour, Public Health (Engineering) including Town Improvement and Housing. Per Jones (1974) Dravid successfully orchestrated "the regulatory and patronage powers of the line agencies under his command, together with those of the [Indore Improvement Trust] and municipality, Dravid was in a few short years able to produce an impressive set of concrete improvements on behalf of the textile laborers in the city".

After the 1957 election, Dravid became the Minister of Labour, Rehabilitation, Housing, Chambal Project of Madhya Pradesh.

Relations between INTUC and the Madhya Pradesh state government deteriorated in 1959, and the Madhya Pradesh branch of INTUC adopted a resolution rejecting the 'conservative and reactionary outlook' of the state government. Verma's parliamentary candidature became the move would break the dominance of the INTUC faction in Indore, and rupture the two decades of partnership of Verma and Dravid. In 1962 Dravid was sworn in as the Minister of Labour, Agriculture, Housing and Chambal Project in the Madhya Pradesh state cabinet. Ahead of the 1967 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election the INTUC faction in the Congress Party was divided into the Dravid, Tiwari and Verma factions. In 1971, Dravid became the founding president of the Indian National Rural Labour Federation. Ahead of the 1972 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election Dravid resigned from his post as Madhya Pradesh INTUC president in protest of the move by the Congress Party to allot six seats to the Communist Party of India, albeit Dravid's resignation was later withdrawn. Dravid died in 1994, aged 80 or 81.