My paternal great grandfather was a Vedic scholar. He studied Vedas in Kashi and later lived off the agricultural land gifted to him by the Raja of Venkatagiri (near Tirupati), for his scholarly erudition. When I look back at my life it is so ironic that coming from that lineage, my father learned how to make bombs and to use them, and I learned how to diffuse them! 

Here I am trying to understand what led a bright brahmin boy to give up security and freedom to fight for his country. What factors caused him to take the tougher path, who were his influences, and what was his life like growing up in pre-independence Andhra Pradesh, India. 

Chivukula Venkateshwarulu, my father, was born in this orthodox Brahmin family in Ongole town in the then Guntur district of A.P on 4^th June 1920 to his parents, Gopala Krishnaiah and Rukminiamma. He was their third child. Gopala Krishnaiah, my paternal grandfather was in government service, a Revenue Inspector in Ongole Tahsildar office. A Sanskrit scholar in his own right, he continued to perform all the prescribed rituals daily without fail. Unfortunately, he died early in 1933 when he was only forty-seven years old. By default, after his father’s death and the departure of his elder brother to a different city for higher studies, my father was deemed the head of his family. The responsibilities and chores of the large household fell on the young shoulders of a thirteen-year-old. 

One of the main tasks was to fetch drinking water from the only drinking water source on Ongole-Ranga Rayudu Cheruvu, a lake- which was about a mile from their house.  There were eight members in the family including three widows, two elders, and two of his younger siblings. Those days brass vessels were used to store drinking water. A large household such as theirs required at least two trips daily. He used a system called ‘kaavadi’ – a long wooden raft carried on the shoulder with two brass bots held by nets, secured on either end of the raft. Those days children didn’t wear any footwear. So, he did most of these trips barefooted. This is one memory that he shared with us often. It was during these trips that he got exposed to and influenced by the politics of his time. 

And what was the political situation around this time? 

A year before my father’s birth, on April 13 1919, the Governor of Punjab, Michael Dwyer and Maj. Gen. Reginald Dyer of Punjab had shown barbarity by ordering the Gurkha jawans to open fire on unsuspecting fellow Indian civilians. There was continuous firing on men, women, and children- assembled in Jallianwala Bagh to celebrate Baisakhi. This massacre continued till the ammunition was exhausted. According to official accounts, there were 1200 deaths and 1500 severely wounded. 

The genesis of Jallianwala Bagh lay in the draconian Rowlatt Act passed early in 1919. This act empowered the British administration to arrest, detain, and imprison any person, as a preventive measure for any amount of time without a trial. The passing of this act gave rise to protests all over India. The assembly of 3000 persons in Jallianwala Bagh was to peacefully protest the arrest of the leaders of Punjab and also against the Act itself. 

Thus, the year 1920 had started with the backdrop of this horrendous massacre which was fresh in the minds of all Indians. The time was ripe to rise against British rule. Alas, great leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak were no longer around. At this time Mahatma Gandhi, a new entrant in the freedom movement scene, after a successful stint of satyagraha against the British in South Africa, took centre stage in the Indian National Congress (INC) in India. 

Two years later in 1922, the British police in the small town of Chouri Chaura in Gorakhpur district in U.P. opened fire on unarmed villagers protesting outside the police station. Nearly half a dozen villagers died in this firing. This enraged the villagers and they attacked the policemen in retaliation and set the police station on fire. In this arson, 20 odd policemen were burnt to death. 

Due to this incident, Gandhiji didn’t organise any movements until the Dandi March or the Salt Satyagraha in 1930.

The thirst for revenge and hatred against the British prevailing then must have gone deep inside my father’s system from an early age. By the time he was ten, the Dandi Salt Satyagraha was in full swing. From then on until his teens, my father had the fire of patriotism in his belly. But he was too young to participate in any agitation by the INC, colloquially referred to as the Congress party.

At seventeen, he was sent to district headquarters Guntur for doing his Intermediate after High School. Guntur was fairly a big town; it had a college run by British missionaries, called the Andhra Christian College (A. C. College). The principal and some key members of the teaching staff were Britishers. This was fertile ground for a firebrand young boy to be initiated into the freedom struggle actively. Some of his peers were already clandestinely participating in Congress’s activities. My father too joined them. Being away from elders in the family, he had the freedom to actively participate in anti-government activities. The management and Principal of A.C. College were naturally against the Congress and India’s freedom struggle. They would often threaten to disbar students who were found engaged in activities that they deemed anti-government.

By 1938, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had become the darling and icon of the youth. In February, he was elected as president of the Congress party at Haripuri near Bardoli at the Gujarat Congress session. He was a charismatic young leader. Most students used to look up to him for leadership. My father, like many of his contemporaries, was a great admirer of Subhash Bose. By then, my father was in the second year of Intermediate and was considered a political troublemaker by college authorities. 

He used to throw paper arrows with the words “Vande Mataram” written on them at the lecturers; he would scale college gates at midnight and paste slogans like “Bharat Mata ki Jai” written on chart papers everywhere in town and when pursued he would run away shouting ‘Mahatma Gandhi Zindabad’. There were of course traitors to the freedom cause in his college. It took three months for the college authorities to get hold of my father. He was caught scaling the college gate one night trying to go participate in his revolutionary activities! He was immediately suspended. 

He was not yet 18, and still a minor.  His elder brother, my uncle, and my father’s guardian pleaded with the college authorities to excuse my father. The principal finally agreed to take my father back subject on the condition that he would not carry out any anti-British activities inside the college premises. My uncle warned my father that if he would get disbarred again if he dared to indulge in such behaviour, he would not be able to pursue any kind of education anywhere again. My father played the part of an obedient younger sibling but soon changed his strategy.

A few children in our extended family aged between nine to twelve years were easy targets. My father would assemble them on the municipal playground every Sunday and instill the love for the country in them, making them patriotic in spirit. He gave them Congress flags and ordered them to raise patriotic slogans like “Vande Mataram”, “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, and “Mahatma Gandhi Zindabad”, even as they ran around playing games. They were told to scatter these small flags in and around the playground. Once again there were informers who put an end to this. 

The parents of these children were warned to keep away from my father. But these children were fired up already. They used to meet my father clandestinely. Meanwhile, my father learned to make crude bombs with the help of the chemistry lab technicians, using chemical powders that were used to make Diwali crackers. He used to drop them in post boxes and near railway stations. My father showed no interest in studies. To the utter surprise of college authorities, he was elected General Secretary of the college Students’ Union unanimously. His influence on younger students began to grow; he was a born orator with a strong voice. The principal, sensing danger, suspended the Students’ Union temporarily. That gave my father a window to attend public political meetings in the town. He would effortlessly control the crowds before the leaders arrived at the venue.

He used to address the crowds with inspiring quotes of great national leaders of the time. Soon he caught the eye of district-level Congress leaders. Thereafter, he became a regular attendee at such meetings. Those days, microphones and loudspeakers were not so easily available. My father’s loud and stentorian voice did not need a mic either. So, my father’s voice and oratory became an asset to the Congress leaders.

There was no Youth Congress then. There was a Student’s Congress at the state level but only graduate students could contest since most students studying Intermediate were minors. My father had to bide his time till he was enrolled in a degree program. 

In 1939, Netaji Subhash Bose contested for the Presidentship of the Congress party against the wishes of Mahatma Gandhi. Enraged, Gandhiji put up Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramaiah from Andhra Pradesh as his candidate. In spite of this Netaji won the election. Gandhiji could not digest Dr. Pattabhi’s defeat. He openly declared “Dr. Pattabhi’s defeat is my defeat”. It was a hint to the Congress Working Committee members to resign en masse. That left Netaji with no option but to resign from the Presidentship. Carried on a stretcher to the podium of the Congress session in Tripuri (near Jabalpur in M.P.) as he was suffering from a high fever, Netaji announced his resignation publicly. 

This angered the youth of the country. A duly elected President of the Congress party was forced to resign wrongfully just because Gandhiji did not like Netaji. My father was shattered at the injustice done to Netaji. He became a staunch supporter of Netaji. His respect for Gandhiji began to plummet. For my father, from then on, freedom was not something that would be doled out by the British, it was to be snatched from them, by violent means, if needed. 

Meanwhile, by God's grace, he passed the Intermediate course. But the college would not admit him into the graduate degree program because of his open political activities. During an altercation between the principal and my father on the college grounds, my father angrily pushed the principal. The principal lost his balance and fell into a sewer behind him. This aggravated matters further. News spread throughout the state that Mr. C Venkateswarlu should not be admitted to any college as he was a radical Congress student member! A police case was registered against my father. Luckily, the passers-by at the time of this incident acted as witnesses testifying in favor of my father saying that the elderly principal had lost his balance and was not pushed by Mr. Venkateswarlu!

Fortunately for my father, the Raja of Pithapuram had his own college in Kakinada (Cocanada then). My father approached him and told him of his ordeal. The Raja was a nationalist. He immediately gave a seat to my father in his college. My father was allowed to freely engage in political activities without hindrance from the college’s principal or the administration. Here, he contested for Presidentship of the Andhra Student Congress. He was elected unanimously. He remained President of Andhra Student Congress for two years 1940-41 and 1941-42.

Since the draconian Defence of India Rules were in vogue, he had to hold secret meetings and urge students to revolt against the British behind closed doors. He was arrested twice but was released due to a lack of evidence. Since Gandhiji and most of the national and state level, Congress leaders supported the British during World War 2, my father could not wage his struggle openly, as the whole country rallied behind Gandhiji. 

My elder uncle, fed up with my father’s political activities for four long years, decided to send him out of A.P. to study Law. Those days, every parent wanted his child to be a lawyer. A brilliant cousin of my father was planning to go to Pune to study Law. My elder uncle decided to send my father too along with his cousin to Pune. Against his wishes, my father was admitted into a Law program in Pune although had wanted to be in A.P. only. By now he was married and his wife, my mother, was living with her father very close to Guntur. My mother was only fifteen years old then. 

Gandhiji realised that the British were using India to fight its battle in Europe. Nearly 4 lakh Indian soldiers fought and laid down their lives for nothing. Gandhiji called for an AICC session in Bombay on 8^th August 1942. All the Congress leaders, national and state, landed in Bombay. These leaders were accommodated in temporary shelters on the Chowpatty beach. Student Congress leaders were assigned the role of sevadars to these leaders. My father managed to get assigned to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He attended to him for two whole days. According to my father, Sardar Patel was the tallest leader he had ever met. Now he worshipped two lions- Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He told me that those two days were the best days of his life.

During this Congress session on 8^th August 1942 in Bombay, Gandhiji gave a clarion call to the British to “Quit India”. He exhorted the Indian people to fight the British by every means except ‘arson, rape and murder’. Indians who until then were waiting for Gandhiji’s signal, rose up like a phoenix and the country was in turmoil. All the leaders were imprisoned. My father decided to discontinue his law studies. He burnt his law books and fled Pune and went to Guntur. He rallied around students and exhorted them to go all out as per Gandhiji’s call. The police got tired of his violent activities and fiery speeches. He with his team of youngsters made crude bombs and flung them on railway tracks aiming at trains carrying soldiers. He targeted Post Offices near the Collectorate and other important government places causing an atmosphere of fear that made the employees flee and abscond from duties. The district administration swung into action to arrest him. He got wind of this news and immediately went underground. He started travelling under the pseudonym “Bharadwaj”. Bharadwaj was his gotra but this ancestor after which our clan takes their inspiration was also a warrior Rishi. He was not a pacifist sage. My father was hounded everywhere by the police. He travelled from place to place to escape the police dragnet. He travelled to Bengal and Punjab and met many Congress leaders there, dressed like a Sikh with a beard and a turban.  

Being a firebrand student leader and an orator in Telugu, he could not stay away from A.P. for too long. He positioned himself in a small village near Guntur and started his underground activities once again. One night he managed to slip into his father-in-law’s house incognito, their house was also close to Guntur. He stayed there for a few days spending time with his young wife. Not surprisingly, yet another informer offered information about my father’s whereabouts to the police. Not long after, special police suddenly landed in Manchala at my maternal grandfather’s house and arrested my father. Six constables and one S.H.O. showed up just to arrest one unarmed person! He was tired of being on the run by now and surrendered without protest. Subsequently, he was sentenced to six months of rigorous imprisonment. 

He was arrested on 2^nd February 1943 when he was only twenty-three years old. He was sent to the district jail in Guntur. Naturally, my elder uncle, grandmother, and my mother's parents were all distressed by this. They knew that this day would come. Once a week, two visitors were allowed to meet my father, for only 15 minutes. 

My maternal grandparents Sistla Venkateswarlu and Satyavati were worried that the arrest of their son-in-law would ostracise the family further but they understood the motivations of their son-in-law well. My maternal grandfather who was proficient in Sanskrit, Telugu, and English had himself rejected an offer of the Tehsildar post as he did not want to serve under the British, he had taken to farming instead and spent the rest of his time in Gayatri Upasana and other daily pujas. My mother at the time of my father’s arrest was only sixteen years old. After my father’s release in mid-August of 1943, he spent about a month with my mother, who was then pregnant with me, in her parents’ home. On 7^th November 1943, she gave birth to me, their first child

The hard life in jail and the harsh treatment meted out to prisoners like him mellowed him. After his release from prison, he continued to remain active in political activities but wasn’t his old fiery self. By the end of 1944, most of the leaders were out of jail and talk of independence was in the air. Everyone was tired- both the British and the Indians.

Everyone in the family on both sides decided that my father should do a B.Ed. degree so that he could at least become a teacher, a profession that was quite respected in those days. B.Ed. was only a 9-month course then. I feel that my elder uncle and others suspected that if he was enrolled in any program longer than that, he would surely get drawn into political activities again! After he completed his B.Ed. degree, he got a job as a Headmaster of a private high school in Parchur, with his politically active background and a prison record added to that, there was no way he could get the much sought after ‘government job’. In 1945, his second child, a daughter, was born. He named her Kasturi Bai, after Gandhiji’s wife.

He ingrained in me the values of patriotism from an early age, narrating stories of the lives of great leaders like Maharana Pratap Singh, Chatrapati Shivaji, Rani Jhansi Laxmi Bai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Netaji and many others. In our house we had portraits of 17 national leaders hanging on the walls. After the 1962 Indo-China war, he insisted that I join the Armed Forces to serve the nation. He encouraged his youngest son, my brother, also to join the Army. Two of his sons served in the Indian Armed Forces. This was common in Punjab, but not in A.P. for those times. It must have been his travels in Punjab that encouraged him to send two of his sons into the Forces.

Finally, how do I describe him? I take refuge in the words of Thomas Gray: -

“Full many a gem of a purest ray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air”.

My father was indeed one such “gem”, unknown to many. He was a Karma Yogi, performing his duty towards his motherland without expecting anything in return. In my mind the break from vaidika tradition in our family happened with him, and it happened for a good cause. 

 

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