National Pledge writer gets recognition, finally

Nalgonda/ Warangal: In what could be termed as proverbial justice, the Telangana Government in its recently released textbooks paid a tribute to Nalgonda-born Pydimarri by quoting his name as the author of National Pledge, reminding the people of the adage “better late than never”.

It’s been more than five decades since Pydimarri Venkata Subba Rao authored the ‘National Pledge’ - India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters…. Despite the fact that the Pledge is recited all over the country till today, the travesty is such that a majority of the students and teachers have no clue about its author.

Till now, his name has been kept firmly under wraps until recently when the poets, writers and the author’s son Subramanyam came up with a demand that Pydimarri’s name be quoted in the textbooks besides conferring the Padma award on him. A peep into the history reveals that Pydimarri penned the National Pledge when he was the district treasury officer in Visakhapatnam in 1962 to instill patriotism among the people during the Sino-Indian war.

With the initiative taken by the freedom fighter Tenneti Viswanatham and the then Education Minister of Andhra Pradesh P V G Raju, the Pledge was first introduced in the schools of Visakhapatnam before it was taken up at the national level. The Central Government decided to get the pledge translated into all regional languages.

Surprisingly, Pydimarri, who retired in the year 1971, did not even know that his work had been regularly featuring in all the textbooks alongside National Anthem and National Song until he stumbled upon listening to it when his granddaughter was reading it.

Although the Pledge has been there in the textbooks all these years, there was no initiative by the successive governments to include the author’s name in the textbooks. It reflects the disregard meted out to the writer by the successive governments. Born in 1916 at Anneparthi village, 10 km from Nalgonda, Pydimarri authored the novel ‘Kalabhairavudu’ besides writing books on various subjects such as naturopathy.

One of his poems had also figured in ‘Golkonda Kavulu’, a book written by Suravaram Pratap Reddy. There are several articles and books written on Pydimarri by writers like Elikatte Shankar Rao. In his book ‘Pratigna-50 Years’, Shankar Rao highlighted the successive governments’ failure to recognize the contribution of Pydimarri, who died in 1988.

“Justice has been done, finally,” Ampasayya Naveen, Warangal-based Telugu novelist and Sahitya Academy Award winner, told The Hans India, stating that hitherto no one was aware of the fact that National Pledge was penned by a Telangana writer.

By:Adepu Mahender