Hyderabad: A political row broke out in Telangana over Padma awards after the Congress government’s proposal of the late balladeer Gaddar, one of the most prominent faces of the Naxalite movement, for India’s top civilian honours did not find place in the list of winners.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy lamented that none of his government’s nominees—Gaddar (for Padma Vibhushan), educationist ‘IIT Guru’ Chukka Ramaiah (Padma Bhushan), poet Ande Sri (Padma Bhushan), poet-singer Gorati Venkanna (Padma Shri), and poet-historian Jayadheer Tirumala Rao (Padma Shri)–were accepted by the Modi government.
Instead, from Telangana, the Centre awarded eminent physician Dr D Nageshwar Reddy and Madiga rights activist Manda Krishna Madiga with the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Shri, respectively.
Known for his revolutionary ballads that stirred armed, violent uprisings in the eighties and nineties in the combined Andhra Pradesh especially rural Telangana, Gummadi Vittal Rao, popularly known as Gaddar died of ill health, while undergoing treatment in a hospital, in August 2023.
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The row escalated ahead of the late balladeer’s 77th birth anniversary, with the Congress government set to celebrate the event in Hyderabad on 31 January, in association with the Gaddar Foundation. Revanth and his deputy Bhatti Vikramarka are expected to attend the celebration.
Though he congratulated Dr Reddy and Madiga, and also the five Padma awardees, including Telugu actor Nandamuri Balakrishna, from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Revanth expressed dissatisfaction over the Centre disregarding the names recommended by his government. He reportedly termed it “an insult, discrimination towards four crore people of Telangana”.
Sources in the chief minister’s office (CMO) said Revanth “will be writing to the PM, on the injustice meted out to Telangana”. “The selection list reflects the Centre’s utter disdain for Telangana’s glorious spirit, its culture, people. It is an affront to our self-respect,” Revanth’s aide and CPRO Ayodhya Reddy told ThePrint.
Union Minister of State, Home Affairs, Bandi Sanjay rejected CM’s discrimination claims, saying “the state should send names of eminence, stature suitable for Padma awards, after careful thought”.
“The names sent by the state, those individuals might be good but their contributions, eminence should be of Padma Shri award level,” Bandi, a former BJP state chief, told reporters on Monday.
Coming to Gaddar, the minister said, “How can we give such an award to Gaddar? Under no circumstances will we ever confer the honour on him.”
“Giving a Padma award to those who championed Naxalism is like spitting on the graves of martyred police officers and BJP karyakartas (workers) who fell victim to this ideology. It will be a betrayal to the families of the brave officers. How can the state even consider honoring a person investigated by the NIA for fuelling violence?” questioned the BJP national general secretary.
Bandi further reportedly said that Naxalites also killed many leaders from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Congress as well.
His comments against Gaddar and Naxalism come a month after Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s announcement in Chhattisgarh that Naxalism will be wiped out from the country by April next year.
However, Telangana Congress leaders reacted by demanding an apology from the minister and suggested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove Bandi from his cabinet for utterances against Gaddar. “Is there a provision in the Constitution needing Padma awards conferred on only those professing or inclined towards RSS/BJP ideology?” asked Congress state chief Mahesh Goud.
Telangana, according to Congress MP Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy, was met with injustice despite the state’s people sending eight BJP MPs to the Lok Sabha. In one of the protests by Gaddar admirers, Mala Welfare Society activists were said to have burnt down an effigy of Bandi.
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‘Remarks will not reduce his stature’
Last year, Revanth attended the first ‘Gaddar Jayanthi’ organised by his administration, and described the celebrated poet-singer as “a Telangana legend, brand ambassador”. Within six months of the balladeer’s demise, the Congress government moved to erect his statue on Hyderabad outskirts, and announced the reinstitution of the Telugu films-theatre awards in his name.
Political analysts then saw Revanth’s initiatives as a bid to consolidate the Dalit, Left leaning votes for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, while continuing to impress upon the public how the Congress is embracing the Ambedkarite who was allegedly disregarded by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
In the 2023 Telangana polls, the Congress party had fielded Gaddar’s daughter Gummadi V Vennela in Secunderabad cantonment. Vennela, an educationist, came third while the BRS won the seat.
“Gaddar never functioned in expectation of credit, nor he vied for any award or position during his lifetime. His fight always has been for the Telangana people, the downtrodden. Your remarks will not reduce his stature,” Vennela told ThePrint Tuesday, seeking to know if it was the Centre or the BJP conferring the Padma awards.
Vennela was appointed the chairperson of Telangana Samskrutika Saradhi, a cultural body, in November by Revanth.
Born Gummadi Vittal Rao in 1949, in a Dalit family at Toopran in west central Telangana, Gaddar was aligned with the radical Naxalite movements that overwhelmed united Andhra Pradesh till mid-2000s. He was the face of the Jana Natya Mandali, cultural front of the extremist movement.
Inspired by the Naxalbari movement, Gaddar discontinued an engineering course at Osmania University. He worked with Canara Bank for a brief time but rejoined the ultra-left campaign. His poignant lyrics extolling the class struggle, shirtless rendition on stage, and rustic dance steps electrified the masses and was a major force attracting many youths to take to armed resistance or become sympathetic to the ideology.
In 1997, the Telugu bard survived an assassination attempt, when Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister. For the rest of his life, he carried a bullet in his spine. Later, Gaddar gradually moved away from the revolutionary path to accept the ballot. In 2007, Gaddar announced that he was registered to vote. Turning to democracy, the balladeer went further and even visited temples.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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