Sundarayya the Stormy Petrel By Famous Journalist Late G Krishna

Sundarayya the Stormy Petrel

By

Famous Journalist Late G Krishna

(Published in Deccan Chronicle on June 16, 1985)

The Pucchalapalli Sundarayya lived communism in a non-communist environment. Basically, a disciplined Congress man whom the freedom and well-being of the motherland was dear, he glided into a revolutionary party without shedding his earlier beliefs much. He was drawn into the Communist Party of India by Amir Hyder khan sometime in 1934.

But his emotional set up did not change. He remained the same unostentatious labour living, simple man that he was. In 1934 he was going about in a loin-cloth, without foot ware and never craving for a soft bed even when he was very badly need of rest says P Ramasubbaiah, his earliest comrade.

In about ten years, he changed a little. He was wearing a nicker and shirt with a cycle to match. It was said during those years, the People's War years that he was so calculating with his time that he used to meet his wife on appointment. But in 1952 when he became a Member of the Parliament, he had improved sartorially - he was wearing a pyjama and shirt and also foot ware.

During the Quit India days, when the Communists were the Congressmen as Fascists, some friends of his were participating in the movement not being able to remain alienated from the freedom struggle. Sundarayya was a silent spectator to this but he always appeared to be a silent sufferer.

He must have known or must have reminded himself of the advice of Lenin that the party should cooperate and work with the national bourgeoise, retaining its identity to achieve the welfare of the nation. But the Communist Party of India had been overlooking this Marxism, and progressing from one blunder to another blissfully.

Sundarayya has been a worker throughout his fifty years of career as a communist or for that matter as worker in the various Congress movements. During the Salt Satyagraha movement, he was in the Dirusumarru camp (West Godavari) which was managed by Tallapragada Prakasarayudu. Sundarayya used to bring to the camp every day a heavy load, a bagful of impure salt for the inmates to clean and offer to the people. Inmates used to look at him with wonder and admiration for his patience and devotion to work. He was also holding regular drill classes for the inmates. A prized worker indeed. Such a man was acquired by the Communist Party. He never chides away from work.

So, the Communist Party directed him to lead the Telangana uprising. But who assessed the revolutionary potential of the region? There surely was widespread dissatisfaction among the people against the Nizam's government and the feudal set up. But was the dissatisfaction so potential that it could be channelled into armed struggle?

Evidently someone else had assessed the situation for Sundarayya. His role was to lead it. He led it. He could not terminate it. When the police of the Indian Union marched into the Nizam's State and the Congress was taking the entire credit for the development when Ravi Narayana Reddi demanded halt to the armed struggle he was branded as a renegade but when Moscow did so it was obeyed. The result naturally was, the fruits of the armed struggle were dissipated. Even the fruits of the series of fights the Party had been carrying on for years, could not be retained as a result of this armed struggle which was started without any consideration for the preparedness of the people.

All this cannot be blamed entirely on Sundarayya. As a leader he had to take it but he was from them on entrusted only with the management of the Andhra Party.

The next shock administered to the Party to cure it or its revolutionary emotions was the entry into elected bodies. It is said that Sundarayya pleaded the Party elders that they should desist from entry into legislative bodies and should concentrate on work among the people. He advocated a token entry. He was ruled out. He himself had to enter the Parliament and Windsor Circle luxuries proved too much for his simple tastes.

As though this was not enough, in the following elections (1957) his Party Comrades began entering into electoral adjustments with candidates of other parties backed by all sorts of individual financial dealings. The result was, the self-effacement of the Party itself. This surely should have been a shock to the simple sacrifice-loving Sundarayya who gave away all his property to the Party.

May be Sundarayya shared this kind of agony, a silent agony with stalwarts like A.K. Gopalan.

In between there was a political comedy which Sundarayya must have taken to heart though he never deviated from his party discipline by giving public experience to his feelings. A sizeable number of Communists won in the 1952 elections and that gave them courage and confidence that they would keep on winning elections. So, when the mid-term elections were announced for the Andhra State Assembly, the Communists went to the extent of forming a shadow cabinet. Sundarayya was appointed the shadow Chief Minister. All the Shadows were trounced and finally a poor number of them could enter the Assembly. That surely could not be anything but a comic drift from the revolutionary path they are expected to tread.

They never had it any better in subsequent elections. Their field work matched the Congressmen's. After all the various political parties of India are the offshoots of either the Congress or the Communist Party. That should explain the penchant of these numerous parties to keep on bungling and continue the rudderless anchorless voyages. Even the Naxalbari movement which started with a peasant struggle degenerated into numberless splinters all except the Nagireddi group thriving on violence and pragmatism. Are the other parties much different?

Sundarayya retained his Individuality more as a non-party man. When a committee had appealed for funds to be given to the indigent family of the famous historian Mallampalli Somasekhara Sarma, Sundarayya was perhaps the first to meet the functionary of the committee and present his contribution in all humility with a promise that he would approach the government too for help if the committee so desired. He was always on friendly terms with his Congress and ex-Communist friends. He was very meticulously conveying birthday greetings to a friend whom his party had, during the Telangana struggle, resolved to liquidate. 

He was bedridden in the months which witnessed the save NTR conclaves and the subsequent election in which the Communist Parties won with the blessings and patronage of the Telugu Desam leadership. In fact, the parties bargained for 70 seats when the Telugu Desam offered Sixty and finally, they won eight seats. One does not know Sundarayya would have believed that such successes would have contributed to the popularity of the Marxist faith.

When Sundarayya passed away, the Marxist vowed that they would cling to the heritage of Sundarayya but a vast multitude of people paid homage to Sundarayya evidently for his sacrifice, simplicity and quality of Self-effacement.

A Marxist revolutionary party or Gandhian party needs more and it is the intellectual appreciation of the mood of the people and the identification of the strata of the people who would form the base of revolutionary activity.

And Sundarayya lives-abides as a disciplined fighter outside the Party.

(Pucchalapalli Sundarayya was born on May 1, 1913 and died on May 19, 1985)