Baddam Yella Reddy
Encyclopedia
Baddam Yella Reddy was an 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...

n communist politician from Telengana. He was one of the prominent leaders in Telengana armed struggle
Telangana Rebellion
The Telangana Rebellion or Vetti Chakiri Movement also known as Telangana Raithanga Sayudha Poratam was a communist-led peasant rebellion against the feudal lords of the Telangana region and later against the princely state of Hyderabad between 1946 and 1951...

 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...

 regime.

Early activism

Yella Reddy became influenced by the socialist ideas of Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...

. He belonged to the more militant sector in the Andhra Maha Sabha, that deplored the non-confrontational policies of the leadership of the organization. This tendency became increasingly attracted to communism in the late 1930s. Yella Reddy took part in the 1938 satyagrah. He was amongst those jailed during the protest campaign. In 1939 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...

 established its organization in the Hyderabad State, Baddam Yella Reddy worked closely with D.V. Rao and Raavi Narayana Reddy
Raavi Narayana Reddy
Shri. Ravi Narayana Reddy, , , was a founding member of the Communist Party of India. He was a leader in the Telengana Rebellion against the rule of Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII...

 in building grassroot networks of the party in the region.

Andhra Maha Sabha and the Telengana rebellion

From 1941 Yella Reddy's communist group came to dominate the Andhra Maha Sabha. Yella Reddy became the general secretary of the Andhra Maha Sabha. Under Yella Reddy's leadership the Andhra Maha Sabha moved from being a liberal organization into a militant anti-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...

 united front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...

.

Yella Reddy was one of the key leaders of the Telangana armed struggle. As the Nizam declared Hyderabad as an independent state in September 1947 Baddam Yella Reddy was one of the signatories of a joint declaration of the Communist Party, Andhra Maha Sabha and the All Hyderabad Trade Union Congress calling for armed struggle against the Nizam's rule for the integration of Hyderabad in the Indian Union (Yella Reddy signed on behalf of the Andhra Maha Sabha). The Telengana rebellion was one of the largest armed peasant uprisings in modern India, which lasted until 1951.

Parliamentarian

Yella Reddy also served as secretary of the Telengana Provincial Committee of 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...

 and was a member of the secretariat of the Vishalandhra Provincial Committee of the CPI. In the first parliamentary elections in independent India Yella Reddy was elected to the Lok Sabha
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha or House of the People is the lower house of the Parliament of India. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by direct election under universal adult suffrage. As of 2009, there have been fifteen Lok Sabhas elected by the people of India...

 in 1951 from Karimnagar
Karimnagar
As of 2011 India census Estimation, Karimnagar city had a population of 2,99,660. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49% has an average literacy rate of 86.75%, higher than the national average of 74.04%: male literacy is 92.61%, and female literacy is 80.79%. In Karimnagar, 12% of...

 as a People's Democratic Front candidate, defeating the 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...

 candidate P.V. Narasimha Rao (who later became the Prime Minister of India
Prime Minister of India
The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...

). In 1956 he became a Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...

 member of CPI. In 1958 he won a by-election to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the Buggaram constituency.

As CPI went through a major split in 1964, Baddam Yella Reddy joined the dissident 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...

. He was the sole prominent CPI leader in Karimnagar district to do so. However, he only stayed in the CPI(M) for three months before returning to CPI.

In 1972 he won the Indurthi seat in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election.

Memorials

In 2006, in connection with Yella Reddy's birth centenary celebrations the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy inaugurated a bronze statue of Yella Reddy in Karimnagar. At the ceremony the Chief Minister also vowed to realize the provision of additional ayacut through the completion of irrigation projects in the Karimnagar district, a longstanding dream of Yella Reddy.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK