Rao was also an associate of Indian freedom leader Mahatma Gandhi and assisted him in his campaigns against untouchability.

Rao was born in Visakhapatnam in the present day Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on 25 December 1889.

[1] Rao applied for membership of the Servants of India Society, a socio-political organization founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, after his graduation.

Rao then went to Central College, Bangalore, where he worked as a professor of Botany for six years before successfully applying for the society's membership in 1922.

[4] Rao was a personal friend of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and also assisted him in his campaigns against untouchability.

In one of those letters, Gandhi clarified the role of Henry David Thoreau in shaping his views on Civil resistance.

Writing in The New York Times in 1935, he decried the Government of India Act 1935 as limiting and preventing the country from moving towards freedom and a dominion status.

[7][12] He also wrote books including East vs West: Denial of Contrast, Culture Conflicts: Cause and Cure, and Foreign friends of India's freedom.