Visakhapatnam remembers 'pledge' composer
"India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters..." This famous national pledge recited by school children was composed in Visakhapatnam by then district treasury officer, Pydimarri Venkata Subba Rao, a native of Anneparthy village in Nalgonda, 50 years ago in 1962.
The original pledge composed in Telugu, first heard in a school in Visakhapatnam in 1963, was later translated into English, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and various other vernacular languages and incorporated as the national pledge to be recited on the Republic Day in 1965. The author was a multi-faceted personality and a polyglot having achieved mastery in Sanskrit, Telugu, English and Arabic. He wrote on various subjects, including naturopathy besides authoring many books in Telugu, including a popular novel, 'Kalabhairavudu'.
It must be noted that his efforts to popularise the pledge were encouraged by then education minister Raja Saheb of Vizianagaram, P V G Raju and nationalist Tenneti Viswanatham. Sources at the Tenneti Foundation say that Venkata Subba Rao was a frequent visitor at the residence of the late Tenneti. The duo diligently worked to ensure that the pledge was accorded constitutional recognition.
Surprised by the fact that people had remembered his father, Venkata Subba Rao's son P V Subramanyam, observed that even he did not know that his father had authored the pledge till his 20s. "I was not aware of the fact that my father authored the pledge till a year before he passed away. It is nice to know that my father is getting due recognition," Subramanyam said and requested the government to give credit to his father for the pledge.
The Uttarandhra Rakshana Vedika wishes to bring to public notice the fact that the pledge was first composed in Visakhapatnam and heard in the schools of the city. Moreover, the authorities are pressuring the government to celebrate the completion of 50 years since the pledge was composed, in memory of Venkata Subba Rao who passed away in 1988. The Vedika approached the government and various bodies such as the Tenneti Foundation for details concerning the author, who had slipped into anonymity while the pledge was being taken by every school kid in the country. Schools, institutions and NGOs have been invited to participate in a mass gathering where they would take the pledge as a tribute to the author.
National Pledge writer left unrecognised
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| Subramanyam Son of Pydimarri Venkatasubba Rao, National Pledge Writer.
Going through a book written on his fathers works at his home in
Nalgonda
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Writers in Nalgonda and family members of Venkata Subba Rao, who
wrote our National Pledge, urge the government to acknowledge his work
Just like the National Anthem and the National Song
that’s engraved on our memory, our National Pledge is taken by students
in schools across the country, but the writer who penned it is hardly
known to people.
Since the introduction of the Pledge
in school textbooks in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh in 1964, it
continues to serve the same purpose as our National Anthem and is quite
well-known. But its author Pydimarri Venkata Subba Rao, who hails from
Nalgonda district, has remained inconspicuous for some reason and has
not got the due recognition that he so deserves.
The
successive governments in united Andhra Pradesh made no efforts to
popularise him, neither did they give him credit for his work by
mentioning his name in the textbooks that had the Pledge.
Questioning
this, poets and writers from the district and the family members of
Venkata Subba Rao have made an appeal to the Chief Minister, K.
Chandrasekhar Rao, to acknowledge his work by including his name in the
textbooks by issuing a government order. Also, they have urged the
government to recommend his name for Padma award.
Born
on June 10, 1916 at Anneparthi village near Nalgonda town, Subba Rao
had a flair for writing and one of his poems appeared in Suravaram
Prathapa Reddy’s book on Telangana poets Golkonda Kavulu published in 1934, when he was only 18 years old, said noted poet Venu Sankoju.
Subba
Rao was an employee in the State Treasury Department and worked in
various capacities in Nizamabad, Khammam, Nellore, Visakhapatnam and
Nalgonda and retired in 1971. While he was in Visakhapatnam between
1962-64, India was in war with China during which time Subba Rao wrote a
story to inculcate patriotism among people.
His
elder son P.V. Subramanyam, recalling those memories, said that his
father showed his song to senior Congress leader from Visakhapatnam
Tenneti Viswanadham, who forwarded it to the then Education Minister
P.V.G. Raju, father of current Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok
Gajapathi Raju. Due to the efforts of the then Education Minister, the
Pledge was included in school textbooks which was later translated to
English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarathi and many other regional languages.
Shockingly,
the then State government did not even inform Subba Rao about the
inclusion of the song in textbooks, allege his family members. He only
came to know about it when his granddaughter was reading it aloud in his
70s, after his retirement.
But Subba Rao’s
contribution to writing has been recognised in books of other writers
like Elikatte Shankar Rao, who had authored Prathigna Padashilpi- Pydimarri comprising articles written by Telangana writers on Subba Rao. Mr. Shankar Rao has written another book Prathigna-50 Years of Discrimination highlighting the failure of successive governments in recognising the contribution of a legendary figure like Subba Rao.
“Union
Ministry of Human Resource Development records, however, show Subba Rao
as the author of the Pledge,” claims his family members and writers.
