Puchalapalli Sundaraiah - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Puchalapalli Sundarayya (Telugu

Telugu language

Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...

: పుచ్చలపల్లి సుందరయ్య) (1913 – May 19, 1985) was a founding member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

The Communist Party of India is a political party in India. It has a strong presence in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI is leading the state government in Tripura. It leads the Left Front coalition of leftist parties in various states and the national parliament of...

and a leader of the peasant revolt in the former Hyderabad State

Hyderabad State

-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...

of India, called the Telengana Rebellion. He is popularly known as Comrade PS.

Fired by Communist ideals and egalitarian values, he changed his name from Sundararami Reddy

Reddy

Reddy is a social group or caste of India, predominantly inhabiting Andhra Pradesh. They are enlisted as a forward caste by the government. Traditionally, they are a high-caste community of nobility, warriors and cultivators. According to academics, they were a warrior caste in the remote past and...

by dropping his caste

Caste

Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...

suffix, reddy. He was so dedicated to the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden that he and his spouse chose not to have children, for the purpose of social service. He directly participated in the Telangana

Telangana

Telangana is a region in the present state of Andhra Pradesh, India and formerly was part of Hyderabad state which was ruled by Nizam. It is bordered with the states of Maharashtra on the north and north-west, Karnataka on the west, Chattisgarh on the north-east and Orissa to the east...

armed struggle against the cruel rule of the Nizam

Nizam

Nizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad popularly known as Nizams of Hyderabad was a former monarchy of the Hyderabad State, now in the states of Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka , and Maharashtra in India...

of Hyderabad

Hyderabad State

Early life

Sundarayya was born in Alaganipadu in Nellore district

Nellore district

Sri Amarajeevi Potti Sri Ramulu Nellore District is one of the 23 districts of Andhra Pradesh. Nellore is famous for high paddy field, and so it got its name from "Nelli". The population of the district was 2,966,082 of which 22.45% were urban as of 2011....

of Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. In 1930, at the age of 17, Sundarayya stopped studying in the entry level class in the college and joined Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement

Non-cooperation movement

The non-cooperation movement was a significant phase of the Indian struggle for freedom from British rule which lasted for years. This movement, which lasted from September 1920 to February 1922 and was led by Mohandas Gandhi, and supported by the Indian National Congress. It aimed to resist...

. He was arrested and was lodged in a Borstal school

Borstal

A borstal was a type of youth prison in the United Kingdom, run by the Prison Service and intended to reform seriously delinquent young people. The word is sometimes used loosely to apply to other kinds of youth institution or reformatory, such as Approved Schools and Detention Centres. The court...

in Rajahmundry, from where he made initial contacts with the communists. On his release, he organized agricultural workers in his village to fight against bonded labour.

He was mentored by Amir Hyder Khan who prompted him to join the Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India

The Communist Party of India is a national political party in India. In the Indian communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Indian communist party was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by CPI is 26 December 1925...

, which was then proscribed. In the 1930s, prominent communist leaders like Dinkar Mehta, Sajjad Zaheer

Sajjad Zaheer

Syed Sajjad Zaheer was a renowned Urdu writer, Marxist thinker and revolutionary.- Life :...

, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, and Soli Batliwala became members of the national executive of the Congress Socialist Party

Congress Socialist Party

The Congress Socialist Party was founded in 1934 as a socialist caucus within the Indian National Congress. Its members rejected what they saw as the anti-rational mysticism of Mohandas Gandhi as well as the sectarian attitude of the Communist Party of India towards the Congress Party...

. Sundarayya also joined for sometime and rose to the position of the Secretary of the Congress Socialist Party

Congress Socialist Party

In Communist Movement

After the arrest of Amir Hyder Khan, following the directions of the Central Committee, the task of building the Party in South India

South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...

fell on his shoulders. During this period, he motivated transition of prominent communist leaders of Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

like E. M. S. Namboodiripad

E. M. S. Namboodiripad

Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad, , popularly known as EMS, was an Indian Communist leader and the first Chief Minister of Kerala. As the first non-Congress chief minister in independent India, he became the leader of the first democratically elected communist government in the world...

and P. Krishna Pillai

P. Krishna Pillai

P. Krishna Pillai was a Communist revolutionary from Kerala, India, Kerala's First Communist, Founder of the Communist movement in Kerala, and poet....

to join the Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India

from the Congress Socialist Party

Congress Socialist Party

. In 1936, Sundarayya became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India

. During the same year, he became one of the founders of the All India Kisan Sabha

All India Kisan Sabha

All India Kisan Sabha , was the name of the peasants front of the undivided Communist Party of India , an important peasant movement formed by Swami Sahajanand Saraswati in 1936, and which later split into two organizations, by the same name.-History:...

and was elected as its joint secretary. When the Party was banned, he went underground

Resistance movement

A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...

between 1939 and 1942.

Telengana Rebellion

When the ban on the Party was lifted in 1943, the first Party Congress was held at Bombay. He was again elected to the Central Committee in the second party Congress held at Calcutta (now called: Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

).

In that Congress, the Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India

adopted a line advocating armed struggle, that came to be known as 'Calcutta thesis'. It was closely identified with its main proponent and the then General Secretary, B.T. Ranadive. It called upon its cadre to take on weapons to fight against injustice. As a result insurgencies took place in Tripura

Tripura

Tripura is a state in North-East India, with an area of . It is the third smallest state of India, according to area. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on the north, south, and west. The Indian states of Assam and Mizoram lie to the east. The capital is Agartala and the main languages spoken are...

, Telangana

Telangana

, West Bengal

West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

and Travancore

Travancore

Kingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...

.

The most important rebellion took place in Telangana

Telangana

, against the Nizam

Nizam

Nizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad popularly known as Nizams of Hyderabad was a former monarchy of the Hyderabad State, now in the states of Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka , and Maharashtra in India...

of Hyderabad state

Hyderabad State

. Sundarayya, was one of its important leaders. He went underground between 1948 and 1952. He was re-elected to the Central Committee in 1952 when a special party conference was held. He was also elected to the Polit Bureau, the highest forum in the Party. He was re-elected to Central Committee and the Polit Bureau in the third party congress in Vijayawada

Vijayawada

Vijayawada is the third largest city in Andhra Pradesh, India, located on the banks of the Krishna River and bounded by the Indrakiladri Hills on the West and the Budameru River on the North. The city is located in the Krishna District, about from the state capital Hyderabad.Vijayawada literally...

and in the fourth congress held at Palakkad

Palakkad

Palakkad , formerly known as Palghat, is a municipality and a town in the state of Kerala in southern India, spread over an area of 26.60 km2.The city is situated about north of state capital Thiruvananthapuram. It is the administrative headquarters of Palakkad District...

In Communist Party of India (Marxist)

He was elected to the Central Executive and the Central Secretariat of the Party at the fifth Party Congress at Amritsar

Amritsar

Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...

. This was the time when the internal strife within the Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India

had heightened. The Party leadership under S.A. Dange were in favor of supporting the Government headed by Indian National Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

at the time of the Sino-Indian War

Sino-Indian War

The Sino-Indian War , also known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict , was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan...

. Also following the Sino-Soviet differences

Sino-Soviet split

In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...

of International Communist Movement, the Party leadership under Dange was pursuing the USSR line, which the pro-Chinese leadership within the Party like P. C. Joshi

P. C. Joshi

Puran Chand Joshi , one of the early leaders of the communist movement in India. He was the first general secretary of the Communist Party of India from 1935–47.-Early years:...

and B.T. Ranadive called revisionist

Revisionism (Marxism)

Within the Marxist movement, the word revisionism is used to refer to various ideas, principles and theories that are based on a significant revision of fundamental Marxist premises. The term is most often used by those Marxists who believe that such revisions are unwarranted and represent a...

. The group under Dange was referred to as the rightists, and the other group, leftists. Sundarayya was a prominent leader of the leftist group and he resigned his the positions conferred upon him during the Amritsar

Amritsar

congress of the Party, protesting against the policies of the dominant leadership of the Party. He was arrested and imprisoned during November 1962 at the time of India

India

-China border war.

The split came out in open and the leftists organized the Seventh Party Congress in October–November 1964 and forming a new Party called the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

. Sundarayya was elected as its General Secretary.

Immediately after this conference, several Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders including Sundarayya were arrested by the ruling Congress

Indian National Congress

government and detained till May 1966. Again, he went underground to evade arrest during the period of the then Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...

, who evoked Emergency

Emergency

An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or environment. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be able to offer palliative...

provisions of the Indian Constitution, between 1975–1977, to suspend Constitutionally guaranteed 'fundamental rights

Fundamental rights

Fundamental rights are a generally-regarded set of entitlements in the context of a legal system, wherein such system is itself said to be based upon this same set of basic, fundamental, or inalienable entitlements or "rights." Such rights thus belong without presumption or cost of privilege to all...

'.

Sundarayya continuously remained Party’s General Secretary till 1976. In that year, which fell during the Emergency, he resigned from the General Secretaryship and Polit bureau membership, for what he called the 'revisionist habits' acquired by the Party.

Telengana People's Struggle and Lessons

In December 1972, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) published a comprehensive report prepared by Sundarayya, the then General Secretary, called Telengana People's Struggle and Lessons. Apart from narrating the socio-economic background of the Telengana Rebellion, Sundarayya went on to enunciate the Party's line on the question of partisan struggles.

Legislative career

In 1952, he was elected to the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha

Rajya Sabha

The Rajya Sabha or Council of States is the upper house of the Parliament of India. Rajya means "state," and Sabha means "assembly hall" in Sanskrit. Membership is limited to 250 members, 12 of whom are chosen by the President of India for their expertise in specific fields of art, literature,...

from the Madras Assembly constituency and became the leader of the Communist group in Parliament. He was elected to the State assembly and remained a member of that House till 1967. After a long gap he contested again and got elected to the State assembly 1978. He continued till 1983.

At the time of his death, he was holding party’s state Secretary post in Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

and was member, Central Committee of the Party. His wife late Lila Sundarayya too was a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

.

He died on the 19th of May, 1985.

External links

http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/03/stories/2006050303630200.htm History on the verge of collapse in Hindu on 03-May-2006.
http://www.ganashakti.com/archive/ps.htm Remembrance, P. Sundarayya in Marxist daily Ganashakthi website.
http://www.igmlnet.uohyd.ernet.in:8000/gw_44_5/hi-res/hcu_images/G4.pdf P. Sundarayya, Telengana People's Struggle and Its Lessons, December 1972, Published by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Calcutta-29.

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