When the Constitution of India was being drafted, it was sent to various parties/district bodies for comments and inclusions. Ammamma had argued for exactly the same. (Later, in early 2000, she opined the same in an interview she gave to the Doordarshan that parties with their ideologies, and not individuals representing parties, should contest elections). This was not included and that was her first disappointment with the political processes.
In the 1952 elections, Communists did gain a considerable number of seats, particularly in Andhra, as the Congress was seen dawdling and evading the separate Andhra issue. It was also because of public sympathy for the Communists due to the severe repression put down ruthlessly by the erstwhile Madras Presidency, by bringing in the Malabar police and routing out whole villages which had a large number of Communists and Communist sympathisers. Many prominent leaders went underground at that time. Thus, when Andhra was formed in 1953, the State Assembly had a sizeable number of Communists. Bolstered by their successes, Communists not only became over confident, they actually became arrogant. They moved a no confidence vote against the Congress in 1955, and Ammamma saw the government fall as she was present in the Assembly at that time. She remembers a member named Doraiswamy, also of the Congress voting against his own government and siding with the Communists. The 1955 elections saw Communists making campaigns bordering on threats of making the rich by name (eg Challapalli Raja and others) work and toil like peasants (a la the movie - The Last Emperor) and of the things they would do when they came to power and who would man which ministries. The electorate rejected this boorish campaign and returned only 15 members to the Assembly. The tenor of this campaign was the second disappointment for Ammamma. She was also pained to see that a party which was praised by Gandhi also as being a disciplined party, a party that did not hesitate to suspend even its prominent members if they worked against the values being propounded by them for the creation of a new societal order (a member was suspended because he had a consanguinous marriage, when the party was propagating against it), now had senior leaders who had developed second families while they were underground. This included her close associates as well whom she does not want to name now. This was the third disillusionment because of compromise of values. The fourth disappointment was that at the village level, several women's organizations were now set up on party lines. She felt that development should be all party based and should not be politicized and it hurt her to see that this was going to be the end of creation of "Nava Samajam" or a new (model) society.
Her disappointment reached its pinnacle when Communists fought on ideological lines (Russia and China divide) and vandalism was rampant even among erstwhile friends and this stretched over 3-4 years. In Vijayawada, this was at its ugliest with houses being burnt and the like. Tatayya's reporting of these incidents, particularly the Vijayawada carnage, was appreciated by the then Inspector General (Nambiar??) as being highly balanced reporting. This was the time, many party members, including Ammamma and Tatayya became passive members or even withdrew from membership. Ammamma became active as a teacher for the next almost 15 years and then she again became active as a member of All India Women's Federation when our family moved to Delhi. Thus Ammamma dissociated herself from active politics and devoted more time to social development in her own way, which I shall continue to document in my continuing narrative.
I am reproducing below a gist of the Andhra struggle which I downloaded from the net, for the benefit of those who are following this blog, but are also interested in factual rather than anecdotal history.
Struggle for Andhra State
The Andhras were struggling for the formation of a separate Andhra Province since the period of British, but could not succeed. When India attained Independence on the 15th of August, 1947, Andhras hoped that their long-cherished desire would be realised soon. Inspite of several renewed efforts put forth by the Andhra leaders before the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the desire for a separate Andhra State remained as a dream itself.
The Dar Commission, appointed by the Government of India under the Chairmanship of S.K.Dar did not recommend for the creation of States on the linguistic consideration. This report of the Commission created such an adverse reaction in Andhra that the Congress leaders felt it prudent to assuage the ruffled feelings of the Telugus. An unofficial Committee, consisting of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramaiah, popularly known as the J.V.P. Committee, was constituted by the Congress. The Committee in its report submitted to the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress in April, 1949 recommended that the creation of linguistic provinces be postponed by few years. However, it suggested that Andhra Province could be formed provided the Andhras gave up their claim to the city of Madras (now Chennai). This report provoked violent reaction in Andhra as the Telugus were not prepared to forego their claims to the city of Madras.
Under the prevailing situation, a Partition Committee was formed under the Chairmanship of Kumaraswami Raja, the then Chief Minister of Madras. Andhra was represented by Tanguturi Prakasam, B.Gopala Reddi, Kala Venkata Rao and N.Sanjiva Reddy. The Partition Committee could not arrive at an agreed settlement. Prakasam disagreed with the views of other members and gave a dissenting note. The Government of India, took advantage of the dissenting note of Prakasam and shelved the issue. To express the resentment of the Andhras, Swami Sitaram (Gollapudi Sitarama Sastry), a Gandhian, undertook a fast unto death, which created an explosive situation in Andhra. However, Swami gave up his 35-day fast on the 20th of September, 1951, on the appeal made by Vinoba Bhave. Nothing came out of this fast except the increasing distrust of the people of Andhra towards their own leaders and the Government of India.
In the First General Elections of 1952, Andhras expressed their resentment towards the Congress leaders by defeating them at the polls. Out of the 140 seats from Andhra in the Madras Legislative Assembly, the Congress could secure only 43, while the Communist Party of India bagged as many as 40 seats out of the 60 it contested. In the Madras Legislative Assembly itself, the Congress could secure only 152. The non-Congress members in the legislature, numbering 164 formed themselves into a United Democratic Front (U.D.F.) and elected T.Prakasam as their leader. But the Governor nominated C.Rajagopala Chari to the Legislative Council and invited him to form the ministry.
After Rajagopala Chari became the Chief Minister of the Madras State, he tried to divert the Krishna waters by constructing Krishna-Pennar Project for the development of the Tamil area. The Andhras agitated against this as they feared that the Project spelt ruin to Andhra. The Government of India appointed an expert Committee under the Chairmanship of A.N.Khosla, who pronounced that the project in its present form should not be proceeded with and suggested the construction of a project at Nandikonda (the site of the present Nagarjunasagar Project). The report of the Khosla Committee vindicated the apprehensions of the Andhras regarding the unfriendly attitude of Rajagopala Chari's Government towards the Andhras. The desire of the Andhras to separate themselves from the composite Madras State and form their own State gained further momentum.
At this juncture, Potti Sriramulu, a self-effacing Gandhian, began his fast unto death on the 19th of October, 1952 at Madras. Though the fast created an unprecedented situation throughout Andhra, the Congress leaders and the Government of India did not pay much attention to it. On the 15th of December, 1952, Sriramulu attained martyrdom. The news of Sriramulu's death rocked Andhra into a violent and devastating agitation. The Government of India was taken aback at this popular upsurge. On the 19th December, 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru announced in the Lok Sabha that the Andhra State would be formed with the eleven undisputed Telugu districts, and the three Taluks of the Bellary district, but excluding Madras City.
On the 1st of October, 1953, Andhra State came into existence. It consisted of the districts of Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, Nellore, Chittoor, Cuddapah, Anantapur and Kurnool, and the taluks of Rayadurg, Adoni and Alur of the Bellary district. On the question of Bellary taluk, it was included in the Mysore State on the recommendation of L.S.Mishra Commission.
Kurnool became the capital of the new State, under the terms of the Sri Bagh Pact of 1937 between the leaders of the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. T.Prakasam became the first Chief Minister of the Andhra State and C.M.Trivedi was appointed Governor of this new State. With the inauguration of the Andhra State by Nehru, the forty year old dream of the Telugu people to have a separate State of their own was partly fulfilled. They looked forward to the formation of Visalandhra with Hyderabad City as the Capital.
Police Action in Hyderabad State
Andhras were very much agitated over the developments in the State of Hyderabad during the years 1946--48. The Nizam was very anxious to become independent and he insisted that Hyderabad should be the third dominion. He tried to achieve his ambitious desire with the help of Khasim Razvi of the Ittehadul Muslimeen and its storm-troopers, the Razakars.
Meanwhile, the Hindus of the Hyderabad State who accounted for 93 per cent of its population, launched the `Join India' movement with the cooperation of a few patriotic Muslims for the integration of the State with the rest of the country. The State Congress leaders, led by Swami Ramanand Tirtha, invoked themselves whole-heartedly in the movement. As the State Congress was banned by the Nizam, its leaders conducted their activities from places like Vijayawada and Bombay. The Communists on their part organised village defence squads to protect the villagers from the attacks of the Nizam Police and Razakars.
All negotiations between the Nizam's Dominions and the Indian Union proved abortive. The Nizam Government did not agree to the accession of the Dominions to the Indian Union. The activities of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen and the Razakars within the Dominions were posing a threat to peace and harmony. The growing violence of the Razakars seriously jeopardised law and order. The Government of India, tried to make the Nizam see reason and sign the Instrument of Assession with India. After tortuous negotiations, the Nizam finally entered into a `Stand Still Agreement' on November 29, 1947, with India for one year to maintain status quo, which existed between the British and the Nizam before August 15, 1947. This agreement of the Nizam was only to gain time to procure military hardware from different parts of the world and smuggle them into Hyderabad. In the meanwhile, the Nizam sent a delegation to the U.N.O. to refer the Hyderabad case to the Security Council.
With the growing violence by the Razakars and the Nizam's attempts to get himself independent, the Government of India decided to curb these tendencies by launching a `Police Action' against the Nizam. On the 13th of September, 1948 `Police Action' on Hyderabad commenced. The Indian Army, led by Major-General J.N.Chaudhuri entered the State from five directions and the military action was a brilliant success. On 18th September, 1949, Nizam's forces surrendered and Mir Laik Ali, the Prime Minister of the Nizam, and Khasim Razvi were arrested. On September, 23, the Nizam withdrew his complaint in the Security Council. The merger of Hyderabad Dominions into the Indian Union was announced. Major-General J.N.Chaudhuri took over as Military Governor of Hyderabad and stayed in that position till the end of 1949. In January 1950, M.K.Vellodi, a Senior Civil Servant, was made the Chief Minister of the State and the Nizam was designated `Raj Pramukh'. After the 1952 General Elections, the first popular ministry headed by B.Rama Krishna Rao took charge of the State.
Emergence of Andhra Pradesh
The creation of Andhra State in October, 1953 strengthened the general demand for linguistic States. Andhras had also long cherished demand for the formation of Visalandhra, since the people of Hyderabad State were unanimous in their demand for the trifurcation of their State. Andhras hoped that the outlying Telugu areas in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Mysore and Madras be incorporated in the greater Andhra.
The States Reorganisation Commission, with Syed Fazl Ali as the Chairman, set up by the Government of India in December 1953, who heard the views of different organisations and individuals, was though convinced of the advantages of Visalandhra, however, favoured the formation of separate State for Telangana. This report of the S.R.C. led to an intensive lobbying both by the advocates of Telangana and Visalandhra. The Communists reacted sharply and announced that they would resign their seats in the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly and contest elections on the issue. In the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly, a majority of the Legislators supported Visalandhra.
The Congress High Command favoured Visalandhra and prevailed upon the leaders of the Andhra State and Telangana to sort out their differences, who, thereupon, entered into a `Gentlemen's Agreement'. One of the main provisions of the Agreement was the creation of a `Regional Council' for Telangana for its all round development. The enlarged State by merging nine Telugu speaking districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Medak, Karimnagar, Warangal, Khammam, Nalgonda, MahabubNagar and Hyderabad, into Andhra State with its eleven districts of Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, Nellore, Chittoor, Cuddapah, Anantapur and Kurnool, totalling 20 districts* was named `Andhra Pradesh' with its capital at Hyderabad. It was inaugurated on the 1st of November, 1956 by Jawaharlal Nehru. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy became the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, who later rose to the position of the President of India. Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, last of the Chief Ministers of Hyderabad State was elevated to the Office of the Governor of Kerala. C.M.Trivedi continued to be the Governor of Andhra Pradesh.
kinnera garu,parties with ideologies to contest...........can u'r mother elaborate on this.
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