He stood on the barricades of the 1916 Dublin Easter Rising, was hunted by Scotland Yard, and was deported under armed guard as a dangerous anti-imperialist subversive. He cast aside his lucrative barrister’s gown to sleep on wooden station benches, eat from communal strike kitchens, and lead an industrial army of railwaymen, miners, and dockers against the corporate monopolies of the British Empire. And when party bosses tried to turn the presidency of the world’s largest democracy into an instrument of factional control, he defied the entire political establishment to win the head of state on an unprecedented “Conscience Vote.”

Meet Varahagiri Venkata Giri—the fearless trade union pioneer, the champion of the working class, and the Fourth President of the Republic of India who proved that the true sovereign of a free nation is the common worker.

Born in Berhampur, Ganjam, into a family of staunch patriots, Giri forged his fiery resolve in the heart of revolutionary Ireland, learning the art of general strikes from legendary labor leaders James Larkin and James Connolly. Returning to India during the storm of Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement, Giri made a historic choice: while others sought the elite comfort of council chambers, he took the battle to the railways, the economic jugular of the British Raj.

In 1923, he founded the historic Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) Indian Labour Union at Kharagpur. In the monumental general strike of 1927, he paralyzed over 3,000 miles of imperial transport lines, stared down armed colonial militias without firing a shot, and forced a British conglomerate to surrender unconditionally. Imprisoned in the harsh penitentiaries of Berhampur, Vellore, and the isolated wartime barracks of Damoh, his health was broken, but his resolve remained incorruptible.

After independence, he took that same working-class courage into the corridors of power. As Union Minister for Labour, he resigned from Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet on a point of principle rather than accept an executive wage cut for underpaid bank clerks. In 1969, stepping into the arena as an Independent Candidate against the ruling party’s official machine, he won the presidency in an electrifying election that reshaped modern Indian politics forever. And when summoned by the Supreme Court as a sitting President, he walked into the open courtroom to testify from an ordinary witness chair, proving that in a genuine republic, no one stands above the law.

Packed with dramatic confrontations, prison hardships, massive industrial standoffs, and gripping constitutional showdowns, this definitive biographical tribute brings to life the working-class titan who gave labor a permanent voice in the Republic.

An essential, stirring epic for every patriot, this book celebrates the indomitable life of Bharat Ratna V. V. Giri—the labor leader who took the blistered hands of India’s working millions and placed them firmly on the steering wheel of the sovereign nation.