Kota Ramakrishna Karanth (b. May 1, 1894) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the Minister of Land Revenue for the Madras Presidency

Madras Presidency

The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...

 from March 1, 1946 to March 23, 1947. He was the elder brother of noted Kannada novelist K. Shivarama Karanth.

Early life and education

Karanth was born on May 1, 1894 in Udupi, South Canara

South Canara

South Canara was a district under the British empire, located at . It was bifurcated in 1859 from Canara district. It was the undivided Dakshina Kannada district...

 district of the Madras Presidency

Madras Presidency

The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...

. He graduated from Central College, Bangalore in 1916 and studied law at the Bombay Law School graduating in 1918.

Tenure as minister

During Karanth's tenure as Minister of Land Revenue, the Telengana Uprising broke out in the northern part of the Presidency. Soon afterwards, there were peasant rebellions in Tanjore district

Tanjore District (Madras Presidency)

Tanjore district was one of the districts in the erstwhile Madras Presidency of British India. It covered the area of the present-day districts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam and the Aranthangi taluk of Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu...

. Karanth toured the district and advised the mirasidars to adjust with the changing times and provide better wages to farm labourers.