Supercop who Drew Wisdom from Wounds Ravi Channannavar

Ravi D Channannavar has been down, but never out. There were dark days, indeed, when penury forced him to sweep the floor of a theatre in Gadag for a pittance, and to serve liquor at a bar in the same town. And when he went to Hyderabad to write his Civil Services exam, he went without food for two days because he didn’t have any money.

 

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ is the adage that most aptly describes the rise of the man now serving as Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru (West). His parents Dyamappa and Ratnavva were agriculture labourers, and he worked alongside them for a while in Goa, Mangaluru and Chikkamagaluru.

 

He often skipped classes to work in a farm to earn money, and would have dropped out if his teachers, who were struck by his potential, hadn’t encouraged him to stay the course. He repaid them abundantly for their confidence, securing the highest marks in the Class X exams for his school. He went on to Karnatak College Dharwad (KCD), where he gained a reputation for hard work, and a sense of righteous indignation at social inequality that was often channelled into theatre and oratory.

 

“He was always rebellious as a student,” Prof B P Donur, controller of examinations, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, and a former KCD staffer, recalls. Prof Suresh N Hullannavar, an associate professor at KCD, says that Channannavar had a ‘spark in him that he should achieve something’. “In his address at the KCD after cracking the IPS, he said that he wouldn’t compromise with corrupt political system and his actions would speak. He has kept his word,” he adds.