Bengaluru: Centenarian freedom fighter and Gandhian H.S. Doreswamy, who had successfully recovered from the Covid-19 infection and was discharged from Jayadeva Hospital in Bengaluru on May 12, passed away here this afternoon following a heart attack. He was 103. 

Harohalli Srinivasaiah Doreswamy (born April 10, 1918),  a citizen activist and journalist,  ran the publication house of Sahitya Mandira and the Indian nationalist newspaper ‘Pauravani’ during the British Raj and the period afterwards. 

After finishing his education in June 1942, he began teaching Mathematics and Physics at a high school in Bangalore. In August the same year, when the Quit India Movement had begun, he involved in setting up low intensity time bombs in postboxes and record rooms to burn official documents as a method adopted to disrupt the functioning of the British Raj.

During the 1950s, Doreswamy participated in Bhoodan movement and the movement for the Unification of Karnataka. He was jailed for four months in 1975 after he sent a letter to Indira Gandhi threatening to launch an agitation against her for “acting like a dictator” during the Emergency. He was active during the JP Movement against the Emergency rule. During the 1980s, he was involved in various movements for the rights of farmers and other marginalised communities, and later became active in the ‘India Against Corruption’ movement.

In 1950, Doreswamy married Lalithamma, who was 19 years of age at the time, and with whom he later had two children. Lalithamma died on December 17, 2019 at the age of 89.