Gaddar’s sudden death on August 6, 2023, came as a shock to me. I read his handwritten letter sent from Apollo Spectrum Hospital informing the public that he was undergoing treatment. “The age of the bullet in my backbone is 25 years. I recently participated in a padayatra and covered 1,350 km. ‘The heartbeat of the people’ (janam gundela chappudu) was injured, so I got admitted to the hospital for treatment.” The letter suggestively mentioned the heart ailment and the surgery. I was hoping he would return home in good health.
The next morning, my friend shared a photo published on the front page of an English daily in 1990. I remember this photo from my university days: Gaddar and Varavara Rao crossing the road at Basheer Bagh cross road in 1990 to address a press conference at the Press Club in Hyderabad. I was a student at the University of Hyderabad in 1988-90. One day, I walked into the room of my senior and noticed this picture, which was cut from the Eenadu newspaper and pasted on his wall. ‘Who are they?’ I asked my friend. One is a balladeer and the other a revolutionary poet, he said. That was how I learnt about Gaddar, the legendary poet, singer and performer.
Gaddar was invited to my university, and his team performed in the open-air theatre on campus. With the pro-Mandal agitation in 1990, I was fully involved in student politics and attended several meetings where Gaddar performed. My memory of Gaddar/Jana Natya Mandali's performance is still very fresh in my mind, and I cherish the memory of that early Gaddar, the radical balladeer. A new Gaddar, a cultural icon of Telangana, was also in the making in the late 1990s. In the years I have been following Gaddar’s performances and political activity, two distinct images of Gaddar began to emerge.
Before I talk about the two Gaddars I know, let me introduce Gaddar. His original name was Gummadi Vittal Rao. He was born in Tupran in the erstwhile Medak district of Telangana. Gaddar’s father was an Ambedkarite, who worked in Aurangabad and returned to Tupran. Gaddar was a student of Osmania Engineering College but dropped out and worked as a bank employee for a while. His cultural activism began with the Art Lovers Association led by filmmaker B Narasing Rao and friends in the cantonment area of Secunderabad. Against the backdrop of the withdrawal of the Telangana armed struggle by the Communist Party of India (CPI) and police action by the Indian state, the Marxist-Leninist parties began reorganising their political activity in the wake of the Naxalbari uprising.
Inspired by the Srikakulam armed struggle, the Art Lovers Association changed its name to Jana Natya Mandali (JNM) in 1972 and Gaddar was one of the key artists in this cultural forum. Gaddar’s first collection of songs, ‘VB Gaddar songs’ was published in 1973. Gaddar composed nearly 3,000 songs and released many audio cassettes/CDs. Following the Marxist tradition of publishing in the name of the cultural organisation, the authorship of many of his songs was credited to JNM in their songbooks. Thousands of copies of JNM song collections were sold in the public meeting in the 1990s.
Gaddar/By Laxman Aelay
Meanwhile, Gaddar published two important books: Prati Paataku Oka Katha Unda? Aa Undi (Is there a story for each song? Yes, there is) in 1991. A revised and substantially edited version of this book was translated into English by Vasanth Kannabiran and published as My Life is a Song: Gaddar’s Anthems for Revolution 2021. The other one is Taragani Gani: Prajala Patala Puttupuvottaraalu 1992, a book on the history of people’s songs. A collection of his poems was also published in the 1990s. His many unpublished writings are scattered and yet to be published.
Gaddar became an activist and leader in the late 1990s. He participated in the prisoners' rights struggle committee in 1995, the Solidarity Committee for Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti in 1996 and the Mrutadehala Swadeena Committee (committee to claim dead bodies of ‘encounter’ killings) in 1997. From the late 1990s, he played an active role in the struggle for a separate Telangana state. He was the first president of Telangana Praja Front, launched in 2010. Heed in the film Jai Bolo Telangana (2011) to advance the cause of Telangana. He represented the CPI (Maoist) party (the new party named after the merger of People’s War, MCC and Party Unity in 2004) as one of the three emissaries in the peace talks between the Maoists and the Andhra Pradesh government.
Gaddar is well-known for his aata (dance), paata (song) and maata (commentary). As a lead performer of JNM, he collected and reworked folk songs from Telangana and other regions of Andhra Pradesh. Dressed as folk artists, his team performed folk art forms such as burrakatha, oggukatha and jamukula katha. The puranic themes and mystical stories were rejected, and new stories of the contemporary life of the agricultural labourers and the Naxalite activists were narrated and performed through this form. The traditional folk art forms were also revised to address contemporary issues of poverty, landlessness, struggle and resistance. Naxalbari Biddalu, Karamchedu Oggukatha and Ragaljenda Bale are some great examples of JNM performances.
I remember Gaddar/JNM openly propagated the politics of the Maoist Leninist (ML) parties, rejected Parliamentary politics and advocated revolutionary change. These performances attracted huge crowds who were not necessarily sympathisers of radical politics. Some wanted to see the artists and ‘enjoy’ the songs, dance and skits. As students, we used to ask the JNM artists to sing full songs to ‘enjoy.’ But Gaddar/JNM performances offered a combination of songs, dance, commentary and speeches. Gaddar commented on international, national and local issues and asked the audience to join the struggle for liberation. He did not allow the audience to slip into passive consumption by constantly commenting on contemporary issues, directly talking to the audience and enacting short skits amid public speeches by intellectuals.
One could see the collective work of the JNM team in the performances, including the thought-provoking speeches by public intellectuals. If the lead performer/singer took rest, the others would be ready to occupy the centre stage and perform without any break. JNM team included many talented artists like Sanjeev, Divakar, Padma, Kumari and Dappu Ramesh. Some of them joined the armed struggle and some died in the struggle. They collected folk tunes, reworked them in JNM training workshops and developed perspectives in the political classes. The revolutionary literary movement also contributed many songs in the early phase of JNM. Cherabanda Raju (Ye Kulamabbi), Sivasagar (Amma Nannu Kannaduku Viplavabhivandanaalu) and many other writers wrote memorable songs for JNM. Many songwriters are anonymous activists and may have died in the struggle.
JNM team performed in many public meetings conducted by Radical Students Union, Radical Youth League, Rytu Coolie Sangam, Virasam (revolutionary writers) and other like-minded ML organisations in the 1970s. The shift in the 1990s is interesting. Gaddar/JNM played an important role in the Nizam College meeting and Rytu Coolie meeting at Warangal in the 1990s. But his troupe was also invited by students, workers and govt employees in the cities and small towns to participate in their public meetings and protests. Gaddar/JNM visited all the Universities and colleges in Hyderabad in the 1990s. The mess workers, staff and the Deans cutting across class lines used to attend his performances.
Gaddar/JNM was criticised in the late 1990s for distorting and appropriating folk art and using it for communist propaganda. It was argued that folk culture was the pure, authentic and original heritage of the people. It was alleged that the JNM’s experiments with folk culture were a ‘distortion’ or ‘appropriation’.
It was a significant move that Gaddar/JNM renewed, reworked and popularised folk art forms in contemporary society. The folk culture and arts were effectively reconfigured and reimagined to get recognition in the public sphere as ‘people’s culture’. The project of ‘preservation of traditional folk culture in a museum’ was an important task to claim cultural heritage. The renewal of folk arts was also a significant cultural innovation of Gaddar and JNM. Their performances and songs thematised the concerns of the rytu coolies, workers, women, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities and even the middle classes. The stated aim of the JNM may have been translating Marxist concerns or mobilising people for the struggle but the vitality and renewal of new cultural forms and ‘education’ of the masses was an equally important achievement. Whenever Gaddar was performing in the 1990s, there was an expectation that he would write a new song on current political issues. His songs ‘Potiviro Ramanna’ (on NTR’s electoral defeat), ‘Telugode Rajayyinadura’ (on PV Narasimha Rao as Telugu PM) and ‘Podustunna Poddummeeda’ (on Telangana statehood) are some examples of this. These songs offered an analysis of contemporary politics for the public in general, who may not immediately join the struggle. But the power of the political consciousness that these songs spread is enormous.
Gaddar was suspended from the People’s War Party (commonly known as People’s War Group) in 1996. One of the charges against him was writing songs for a commercial film. The Marxist-Leninist parties have been critical of those artists who write songs for the film industry, which it views as a capitalist cultural industry. The performance of songs for the people in their own locations with funds collected from the people was an important principle in Marxist-Leninist circles. By the 1990s, Gaddar emerged as a voice of the People’s War Party, and his popularity reached new heights. By the late 1990s, Gaddar was stepping into a domain of mass culture, a commercial culture. This was an important turning point in the career of Gaddar.
The People’s War Party and its mass organisations were banned in 1992. The state imposed severe restrictions on public meetings, protests and performances. Though JNM was not banned, the party dissolved JNM, and some members of JNM joined the armed movement. Gaddar said, “I became a one-man army.” (From My Life is a Song: Gaddar’s Anthems for a Revolution translated by Vasanth Kannabiran). He continued to perform as JNM at many public forums but without his JNM team. Some unidentified gunmen attempted to kill Gaddar in his house by firing six bullets into his body in April 1997. Gaddar miraculously survived the attack and stated that the assassins were plainclothes policemen. His struggle for dead bodies of the Naxalite activists killed in fake encounters was said to be the immediate cause for this attack but his association with Maoist politics was the main grouse of the state. The scenes at the hospital and the large solidarity campaigns demonstrated the massive public support for Gaddar as a performer-singer and activist. This support clearly showed that Gaddar’s appeal crossed the class-caste divide and party lines. This public support revealed the making of Gaddar, a cultural icon beyond party lines and political ideologies.
The long-standing demand for Telangana statehood was gathering ground support in the late 1990s. The People’s War Party responded positively to the demand for a separate statehood. The All India People’s Resistance Forum’s Warangal declaration for democratic Telangana in 1997, the formation of Telangana Janasabha in 1998 and the Telangana Praja Front in 2010 were some of the historical developments that intensified the campaign for Telangana along with other political parties, mass organisations and cultural troupes. The stage was set for Gaddar to be involved in the struggle for Telangana. Meanwhile, Gaddar’s suspension from the party was revoked.
Telangana activists and thinkers argued that historically, Telangana was a separate state (the erstwhile Hyderabad state), and its merger with Andhra Pradesh led to their economic and political backwardness. They backed their campaign with data on water resources, employment and funds. This argument of regional marginalisation acquired a new dimension with the claim that Telangana faced discrimination on the basis of its language and culture. The stereotyping of Telangana people, their culture and their distinct language were cited as additional grounds for state bifurcation. Gaddar’s image resurfaced in the public sphere as a folk performer, a singer-writer of a distinct Telangana language with its own idiom and culture. Commentators credited Gaddar with the consolidation of Telangana as a cultural region and called him a cultural icon of Telangana.
By this time, Gaddar was no longer a singer-performer representing the ‘people’s culture’ of the Maoist ideology. He was an icon of Telangana culture. His images from his earlier films, such as Maabhoomi (Our Land, 1979) and his performances in public meetings circulated widely on the internet. His attire and style became a model to many cultural activists.
Gaddar was a key figure in bringing together cultural activists in cultural sessions such as Dhoom Dham. The Dhoom Dham sessions were held in various parts of Telangana and even abroad. These performances were very different from Gaddar/JNM's. Gaddar occupied the centre stage as a cultural leader in meetings consisting of artists and political leaders.
SV Srinivas, a film scholar, meticulously documented and analysed the circulation of Gaddar’s videos and clips on satellite TV, films, YouTube, mobiles and social media. He observed that Gaddar’s cultural activism had been detached from the politics of the Marxist-Leninist parties and acquired a new significance as mass culture (Maoism to Mass Culture: Notes on Telangana’s Cultural Turn, 2015). Srinivas suggests that Gaddar’s performances communicated new meanings such as Telangana people’s culture or mass culture, by recirculating his images, songs and speeches in the age of the internet and satellite TV. This shift from what was known as ‘people’s culture or popular culture to mass culture’ (culture produced by capitalist cultural Industries) is a transformation that requires critical scrutiny.
It is important to note that the radical left cultural forums expressed their concerns against the negative impact of TV channels on people’s culture in the early 1990s. Gaddar himself wrote a song on colour TV and its negative impact on people’s lives and culture. With the tide of the Telangana agitation, Gaddar, Vimalakka, Goreti Venkanna and several others actively participated in the transformation of class-oriented radical left cultural performances to mainstream mass culture of the TV channels and social media platforms. This mass culture was mobilised as Telangana culture. It is not only cultural activity, but the Naxalite movement itself that has been claimed and appropriated as a legacy of the Telangana nation. Of course, the role of Telangana Rastra Samiti and other bourgeois nationalist forums is enormous in this appropriation of the left cultural legacy.
We need to further study both the Gaddars in greater detail to appreciate the Gaddar phenomenon.
K Satyanarayana is Professor and Scholar of Dalit Studies at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Views expressed here are the author’s own.