Harkishan Singh Surjeet

WHEN I left the country, I had the information that Comrade M Hanumantha Rao, a beloved leader of Andhra Pradesh, was in a serious condition due to his prolonged illness.

I had never missed the opportunity to pay my last respects to the leading comrades who had worked hard to build our party. When Comrade MB expired, I had just reached Beijing. I got myself excused from my hosts there and requested them to help me to reach India before his body was cremated. Somehow they helped me to come back and I succeeded in reaching Vijayawada just in time to pay my last respects. Similarly, when Comrade Sundarayya, former general secretary of our party, expired, I alongwith BTR and MB rushed to Hyderabad and from there travelled by car overnight to pay our homage.

If the news of Comrade Hanumantha Rao’s demise had reached me while I was in England to attend the marriage of my grandson, I would have cancelled all my programmes and reached India. But, unfortunately, I was in Eastern Europe, taking rest in a remote part where communication facilities were not easily available. It was after travelling for four hours that a messenger reached me to give me this sad news on the 18th. The cremation was to take place the next day. After considering a lot, I found myself helpless as there were no means by which I could reach in time for the funeral. I could only send a message in time to pay my homage.

MH was one of those comrades of Andhra Pradesh who were elected to the Central Committee along with me during the third party congress held in Madurai in December 1953-January 1954. One year after the third congress, a bitter struggle started inside the party on the line of class collaboration with or struggle against the bourgeois-landlord government headed by the big bourgeoisie. Hanumantha Rao, throughout this period, stood by us, through every thick and thin. His wife also actively participated in the struggles throughout.

Andhra Pradesh played an important role in the development of the communist movement in our country. During the post-war upsurge, it was the soil of Andhra Pradesh, where the Telangana armed struggle was being fought, which drew the attention of the whole country to the anti-feudal struggle and the struggle for national liberation. The Telangana struggle was a struggle which continued for five years --- a heroic fight not only against the armed forces of the Nizam but also the forces of India’s central government.

There were movements at the same time in Kerala, Surma valley, Tripura, Maharashtra, Bengal, PEPSU and many other places. But they did not reach the scale the Telangana movement had reached. The Telangana movement posed basic issues as to how the freedom movement had to be based on anti-feudal struggle which could carry forward the struggle for complete emancipation, not only from foreign rule, but also bourgeois-landlord classes. This message could not be carried forward since the leadership of the bourgeois-landlord classes came to a compromise with imperialism. But even then its achievement cannot be under-estimated. On the basis of the Mountbattern Award, the British imperialists wanted the states of Hyderabad and Kashmir to remain independent. It was the Telangana struggle which forced the Nizam to join India, though the movement was suppressed by the central government with the help of the armed forces.

However, its impact remains till today; it is not confined to Andhra Pradesh but extends to the whole country. Even after facing all types of repression, when the first general elections in the country took place in 1952, it was Andhra Pradesh which enabled the Communist Party to emerge as the first opposition party in the country. Then, after the merger of Hyderabad with Andhra Pradesh, when the first state elections were held in 1955, all other forces united together to meet the Communist Party’s challenge. Inspite of money power and all other avenues, the Communist Party was able to rally 35 per cent of the votes and received 47 per cent of votes in 100 constituencies.

When a sharp inner-party struggle began in the 1950s because of the Left-sectarian line, immediately it was Andhra Pradesh which assumed the leadership, though it also could not find a solution to the real problems facing the country.

After facing the crisis, when the party successfully held the third party congress, it was noticed that a good chunk of leadership which took the responsibilities in the Polit Bureau and Central Committee came from Andhra Pradesh. Hanumantha Rao was one of them. During the Telangana struggle, various comrades were assigned different responsibilities. Some leaders were directly involved in leading the struggle on the spot and others were engaged in necessary supplies. The job of editing the paper was left to Comrade Hanumantha Rao.

When a split took place in the party after a prolonged struggle for ten years, overall it was a majority of leaders from Andhra Pradesh --- like PS, MB, Prasada Rao and MH --- who took the lead in the struggle. It was a very difficult task because confronting a party like the CPSU and later the CPC, and to build a new party, was not an easy job. In this whole period, MH's pen greatly helped the party cadres and workers to rally behind the revolutionary path. Since 1953, I had the opportunity of working with him. I feel proud that at no time he yielded to oppression and pressure. Though he is no more, he will be remembered forever.