Swami Ramananda Tirtha

Before his full time participation in freedom struggle, Swami Ramananda Tirtha established schools and colleges in the Marathwada region. In 1931, he took sanyasa and christened himself Ramanand Tirth. He was influenced by Gandhian Satyagraha, Ramanand Tirth established the Hyderabad State Congress in 1938. The Nizam imposed a ban on this association calling it subversive and communal. The recommendations of the Cabinet Mission for princely states forced the Nizam to lift the ban on Congress in 1946, and Ramanand became its first president.

The State of Hyderabad was, really speaking, penta-lingual although from the regional point of view it could be called tri-lingual. Some of them were essentially rooted in Telangana, some in Marathwada, and some in the Karnataka districts. Those who were natives of Hyderabad city could not be fitted into the regional pattern, and there-fore, continued as the metropolitan contingent. This was, by and large, the pattern of leadership obtaining in the Hyderabad State and it was inevitable under the circumstances. Swami Ramananda Tinha constitutes a remarkable exception to this pattern.

He was born a Kannadiga, and the Karnataka region justifiably claims him. The bulk of his educational activity to start with, and political activity later on, was located in the Marathwada region, and therefore, the Maharashtrians can, with perhaps great justification, claim Swamiji as their own. But more than these two, it is the Telangana region that Swamiji's political per-sonality came into full bloom, and it was for solving the problems of Telangana that the best part of Swamiji's political life and leadership were devoted.

It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that if Swamiji's contribution to Telangana is removed, his political stature and achievements become very drastically depleted. It is for this reason that I can assert without any fear of contradiction that Swamiji while belonging to all the regions of Hyderabad State, belongs to the Telangana in a very special sense. He created a sense of pride in Karnataka by being born there. He created a political, educational, and spiritual edifice by his intense activity and renunciation in the Marathwada region. But, more than these two, Swamiji created history in the Telangana region.

There is no doubt that a parallel to this personality cannot be cited. To most of the political workers who got out inspiration from him, Swamiji was never a mere leader. It was not generally through precept that he built up following. Swamiji was looked upon as a symbol, as a force as an institution in himself. History indeed, afforded dramatic opportunities for Swamiji's prominence and effective leadership in the Telangana region. It is in this region that the problem of land tenure came to a head and created chaotic conditions throughout the countryside. The razakars, the feudals, the anti-social elements and the profiteers - all combined to create a hell on earth for quite some time.

The incidents of Akunur and Machireddipally and the hundreds of unreported atrocities perpetrated on the dumb millions of this region afforded sufficient explosive material for the exploitation of extremist elements. The massacres of Parkal and Bairampalli, coupled with collective fines, indiscriminative arrests, confiscation of property, rapes, loot and arson turned the whole of Telangana into a volcano. Unlike the other region, the problem was not merely communal or political in Telangana.

It was predominantly socio-economic, coupled of course with communal and political complexities too. Therefore it was not to be solved by political expedients alone. It required a major and complicated operation. It was this operation which Swamiji with his characteristic tenacity of purpose undertook to perform. Oddly enough there were many who opposed the operation. Still others calculate their own profits and losses and tried to back out in a variety of ways. One of which was by maligning the operation itself. But Swamiji stood firm like a rock and went ahead with the operation.

He was so clear and forthright about the genius of the Telangana trouble that most people were rather started for some time. Swamiji firmly believe that all the turbulence that was seen on the surface of Telangana was only a symptom while the real cause lay buried underneath. Swami Ramananda Tirtha, therefore, categorically stated times without number that anti-social elements were like mosquitoes whose physical extermination alone would not weed them out so long as the breeding places were not drastically disinfected.

Swamiji undertook an intensive tour of this ravished countryside. The conditions prevailing in the Communist-infested areas of Telangana in those days were too heart-rending to describe. Sandwiched between the military people and the Communist 'dalams', the people were finding life utterly intolerable. Despite all this, some of the suffering people appeared to maintain their sense of humour by nicknaming the police as 'Pogati Doralu' (Bosses of day-light) and the Communists as 'Cheekati Doralu' (Bosses of dark-ness). This was the atmosphere when Swamiji entered with characteristic boldness. He had no police force to escort him, no authority to protect him.

There were reasons to believe that government circles did not quite approve of this tour. There were some who entertained very little hopes of seeing Swamiji back again alive. But Swamiji did not flinch. He went from village to village trying to gather the petrified and fleeing ryots, and tell them something which they had never heard of before. It was a message which put a new life into the living corpses in the countryside. Under Swamiji's leadership, the ideological polarisation was deliberately sought to be accentuated to such an extent that caste, group, region, personality and self-interest, all these factors which generally lead to quarrels, were completely drowned in the main current of ideology. It is difficult to imagine what appearance the Congress organization would have presented today if only the ideologic accentuation deliberately created by Swamiji had been allowed to develop in well-regulated and wholesome channels. The fact to be recorded here is that political opposition to Swamiji which started in Telangana was considerably strengthened as a result of two issues. The first was the issue of Land Reforms and the second, States Reorganisation.

Swami Ramananda Tirtha

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