The Kalasala itself was an offspring of the Vande Mataram Movement of 1906. Naturally the Non-Co-operation Movement launched by Gandhiji enthused the patriarch founder of the Kalasala.

In a year from the founding of the institution, Sri Kopalle Hanumantha Rao Panthulu Garu collected a sum of Rs. 11,000. He toured widely in the circars, the ceded districts, and the city of Madras, interviewed leading men and received promises of help and their blessings for the institution. Collections were made from individuals and associations and no plausible source of funding was left untapped; no stone was left unturned.