Born into a wealthy family in the Krishna delta region in present-day Andhra Pradesh in 1920, the communist activist Kondapalli Koteswaramma describes herself as “neither a famous person nor a writer.” Koteswaramma grew up in a keenly political environment, at a point when the emerging freedom movement was challenged by several other movements such as the communist movement, the socialist movement, and the Dalit movement. She was married to a communist party worker, Kondapalli Sitharamaiah, who encouraged her to become an activist. Koteswaramma was often popularly identified as Sitharamaiah’s wife, despite being a core member of the communist movement. However, Sitharamaiah, who became a prominent leader of the movement, had an extramarital affair and abandoned Koteswaramma. Gita Ramaswamy writes in her introduction that through this memoir, Koteswaramma “defines herself, her life, her emotions, on her own terms.”
In the following excerpt from the first English translation of her book, Koteswaramma recounts her return to public life after having been forced to flee underground during the Telangana agitation from 1946 to 1951.
I could not sleep in the train that night. As the sun rose, all the passengers turned towards it to offer their respects. I did so too. As the cold air of the dense forest touched me, I remembered that Telangana bordered this forest. “This is Telangana’s air,” I thought. The poet, Nanduri had written, “Enki knows the language of flowers.” I thought, “If great people could understand the language of the wind, they would know why our revolutionaries who started the fight died in the arms of this forest without seeing victory.” Thus went the rest of my journey.
Sitaramayya got off at Visakhapatnam. The train moved on, as if it knew my desire to meet the widows of our martyrs who wrote history with their blood, and reached Vijayawada very soon. The streets appeared dull without our red flags. I walked in the general direction of the party office as fast as I could. A few minutes later, I found a house with the red flag on it. I enquired with a woman who was sweeping the streets and she confirmed that it was indeed the new Communist Party office. Without further ado, I went towards it.
I met a few comrades who worked with me four years ago. They were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. I was bombarded with questions even before I could open my mouth: Where are you coming from? How did you come? How did you travel alone up to this point? Though everyone says the ban has been lifted, the police still are capturing some of us—don’t you know?
Fanning myself in this rain of questions, I entered the office. It felt as if I was coming home and my brothers were welcoming me. I thought of Bellapu Shobhanadri (a martyr), whom I addressed as “brother” as I sat in the office. I asked the comrades who sat beside me about their families. Meanwhile, one comrade came in, looked at me and said, “Someone has come for you. He is waiting with a rickshaw outside. Perhaps he has come to take you somewhere.”
The man who came for me now owned the house in which I stayed for a few days before exile. He was a relative of our courier, Koteswara Rao. As I went towards him, another comrade came out of the office along with me. “How did you know that Koteswaramma would come here?” the comrade asked this man.
“Koteswara Rao informed me that she is coming alone today in the train from Visakhapatnam and I was asked to receive her. En route, I found out that plainclothes police were following me. So I got off the train at Eluru and travelled by bus from there. I reached the railway station on time, but I was told that the train had come and left early. I searched the station, but could not find her. Seeing the red flag here, I guessed she would have come here.”
“Koteswara Rao stays near this gentleman’s house. I will go there and come back to the office in the evening,” I told the other comrade and sat in the rickshaw that was waiting for us outside. My visitor joined me.
It was strange that I had come back to the same place from where my life in exile had begun. While I am not superstitious, I somehow found it mysterious.
I met Koteswara Rao in his house. “Was the train late? Stay here for a few days. If there are no cases against you, the party will reintroduce you to the public in the Gudiwada taluk,” he told me. “I am now going out on some work.” After I had bathed, the house owner offered me a newspaper.
“When the ban on our party was still on, no newspaper dared to publish news about us, except Janavani,” he said. “You must have seen that.” I took the newspaper from him, thinking he must be well-versed with party activities.
“They say 4,000 people were killed in the Telangana struggle. How many people died in Andhra?” I asked him.
“There might be more than 400. We do not know the details yet,” he replied.
“Doddi Komarayya was the first martyr who was killed by the Nizam’s police forces in the Telangana struggle. I heard that Chintapalli Paparao was the first martyr to be killed by the Congress government’s police force in Andhra. I don’t have any more news. Can you please brief me about what you know?”
“Chintapalli Paparao was walking ahead of his courier. The police saw him and shot him near Musunuru in the night. They dropped his corpse on a road in Gannavaram. They showed their lathis and scared everyone who came near it. They also threatened that all communists and sympathisers would be killed like that.
“They discovered some of the party’s secret locations by terrorising people this way and shot other communists. They tried to find out our hideouts by hook or by crook. They branded Katuru and Elamarru as communist villages. They were barbaric, parading commoners naked around the Gandhi statue, beating them all the way and demanding that they give information about communists. You must have heard of this incident. The whole country was shocked. Communists like Tirumala Rao, Venkateswara Rao and others from this village were shot dead.
“They captured Anumarlapudi Sitaramarao and shot him with a pistol in the lock-up. Despite torture, they weren’t able to extract any information from some people, so they just killed them and left their corpses in the bushes. They also planned to capture those who came to see the bodies. It is rumoured that most of the 400 martyrs are from Krishna district; eleven of these belonged to Bhatla Penumarru village alone. In one of the families, three men—the father, son and son-in-law—were all killed by the police. You probably know their names, Chalasani Jagannatha Rao, his son, Srinivasa Rao, and son-in-law, Venkateswara Rao. Though no one talks about these things in public, ordinary people are saddened by these stories.”
His words brought tears to my eyes.
I record some fragments of memory in tribute to my comrades who were killed in the struggle. Chalasani Jagannatha Rao and I had lived in the same den for some time. I addressed him as babai (father’s brother) and he addressed me affectionately as ammai (daughter). He teased Sitaramayya by calling him his son-in-law. He enjoyed my singing and often wondered how long we would be in that den.
Anumarlapudi Sitaramarao cooperated with me and another woman comrade, Tapi Rajamma, wherever we went in Tiruvuru taluk for our Mahila Sangham work. He was a man with a sense of humour. He always advised us to continue singing as it was a good medium for communication. When he came for lunch to the commune, he used to tease us by singing as a beggar does, showing his plate.
Our comrades used to say that Chintapalli Paparao was braver than even the Bobbili tiger, Tandra Paparayudu. When we went to Buddhavaram in Gannavaram taluk, we never returned without having a meal at Paparao’s house. He was part of the first cultural squad assembled in Gunadala. He participated in the group song event with us at the first conference of the party (Vijayawada).
I thought of all these martyred comrades. I wanted to do something in their memory. I thought about offering my red salute to all of them. It occurred to me that I should write and sing songs about them. But I did not know how to compose music, I am not creative enough. I did not lose hope. I remembered the song, “Our country is India. We are Indians,” which we used to sing, and began writing about our three comrades in this tune, starting with, “We are from the Telugu land, ours is the Telugu lineage.” Those few days I spent in this house passed like a few hours. Then Koteswara Rao came back and took me along with him.
The party leadership announced my return to public life by inviting me on stage at Dantakurru in Gudiwada taluk. Many other communists came out like this later. We heard that the party founders were also coming back to civic life. I felt that our leaders coming back to Vijayawada was like the Pandavas’ return to Hastinapur after their life in exile in the forests. This was the city in which they shook hands with socialism; the city that they had filled with red flags; the city that ended rowdyism in an enlightened youth; the city that was then a communist bastion.
As I expected, one fine day, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, Pucchalapalli Sundarayya, Maddukuri Chandram, Makineni Basavapunnayya and Chalasani Vasudeva Rao appeared on a stage decorated with red flags in Vijayawada. Indrakiladri reverberated with the voice of the common people’s tribute to martyrs and with the praise showered on our leaders. The eyes of our Mother, the Telugu culture, filled with happiness.
Excerpted from A Sharp Knife of Memory by Kondapalli Koteswaramma, translated from Telegu by Sowmya VB, and published by Zubaan Books.