Lal Salaam

Gaddar addressing a rally in Hyderabad.

 

-Brian Mendonca

Lal Salaam

Gaddar calls
From the land 
Of the landless
Won't you listen

To the cry

of the soil?

I saw Gaddar's performance at the erstwhile CIEFL, Hyderabad during my years of research in the 1990's. That was the first and last time I did so. There was a buzz of excitement on campus that he was there and he was going to make an appearance. There was a roar of jubilation when he appeared on the stage clad in his dhoti and red shawl. The sound was much more than I've heard for any professor. 

The applause was perhaps because he was always on the run for his beliefs. Till the day he passed on last Sunday, he carried a bullet lodged in his spine from an assassination attempt in 1990. The police were also on the lookout for him after arresting Varavara Rao in 2019 for a case in Tumkur in 2005. 

Like Che Guevara, Gaddar retreated into the forests when subterfuge was necessary. He was seen variously as a Naxalite, a Maoist, and a Communist. 

'Gaddar' (1949-2023) born Gummadi Vittal Rao was a singer of songs. Like Yellana in Antarini Vasantam he sang of the difficulties of the oppressed and the Dalits, being a Dalit himself. He campaigned for a separate Telangana state. It was created eventually in 2014 with its capital as Hyderabad.

The Telangana movement (1946-'51) was an armed uprising of the peasants led by the Communists against the policies of the  Nizam of Hyderabad.

In Kalyana Rao's Untouchable Spring (2010) there is a reflection: 'Ramanujam was a school teacher. Why did he become a Communist? Why did he go to jail? . . .  All that night he spoke about Avalapadu. After that Ramanujam said many things. Ruth does not remember all of them now. Nehru's army landing in Telangana. Nizam's surrender. Suppressing the Communists. The end of the Telangana Armed Struggle. The 1952 general elections.' (229)

Srikakulam district, Andhra Pradesh

When Reuben and Ruth's son Immanuel dies after being arrested, all the people gather to bid him goodbye: 'How the thousands of people swarming around Immanuel looked at him! At Sreekakulam Immanuel. At Comrade Immanuel. At her child . . . A tractor that was decorated in red. Flags. Red flags.' (243-44)

Gaddar was cremated according to Buddhist rites, with state honours at Mahaboodhi Vidyalaya, a school set up by him at Alwal on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

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'Lal Salaam' (2005) was written by Brian Mendonca in Gadwal, Andhra Pradesh. It is the way comrades greet each other. It is included in his collection A Peace of India: Poems in Transit. (2011) Photo of Gaddar at NTR stadium on 9 December 2010. Courtesy Mohammed Yousuf in Frontline, 7 August 2023. Updated 10/8/23.