CK: A HUMANIST TO THE CORE

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He is popularly called C K and his full name is C K Narayana Reddy. Vallampati Venkatasubbaiah, the noted critic of Telugu literature and a friend of my father used to refer to CK and his commitment with Communist ideology frequently. I was only a boy of 5 years when CK was the MLA of the then our constituency, Piler and he settled down in Hyderabad by the time I joined the Junior College and hence I never had the opportunity of meeting him in person. But I have been reading the books he published right from 1973 and learnt many things about him through my friends. I have been eager to learn more about CK as many revered him as our local hero. A recent book published by Hyderabad Book Trust, “Nenu Communisttuni” a biography of CK fulfilled my desire to know more about him to a certain extent.

Born in a feudal family of farmers that contained more than 100 acres in a small village near Piler in Chittoor district, CK had his schooling in Tirupati and Madanapalli. He despised discrimination of any type among the people right from his childhood.  As he believed that one should not have personal property he signed the documents forfeiting his share and he didn’t procure any kind of property till the end.  When he was an MLA government allotted land in a posh area in Hyderabad to all the MLAS but he refused to accept it.

CK was attracted to the politics from his school days, joined the Socialist Congress Party, played active role in Quit India movement and wore khadi under the influence of Gandhi. He started a Student Home for the students of all castes and creeds when he was also a student in Madanapalli.  He left the college without bothering the acquisition of degrees and took interest in strengthening the Socialist party and acted as its district secretary for a term. He participated in the movement that demanded a separate state to the Telugu people in 1952 and he supported Telengana movement afterwards.  Having fed up with the developments in the socialist party, he left it and joined communist party in 1953 and remained a true communist till the end. He contested to the assembly in 1955 and also in 1962, lost in the first time but won in the second and remained the same irrespective of the victory and defeat as he   worked for the uplift of the poor and downtrodden throughout. He married Jayaprada, a teacher in 1956 and it was an inter caste marriage.

He donated his salary to the war fund of India during the Indo-China war. He used to pay the debt of the farmers to the co-operative societies. He was not happy with the way of the then communist party also. He realized that the issues for which they fought for were beneficial to a few upper castes of coastal region. He believed that they supported the construction of Nagarjuna Sagar dam and overlooked Krishna-Penna project that would have been useful to the backward Rayalaseema region.

There was division among the communists during the Indo-China war as a group of them complained that another group that favored Russia joined hands with the congress party and made them prisoners by treachery. CK was one among the prisoners and that same group became CPI(M) afterwards. He joined the militant party under the leadership of Charu Majundar , went to underground for some time, then imprisoned for about two years and finally realized the importance of an intellectual revolution and so took up the publication of good books at affordable price to spread the great human values. Sahavasi’s tTelugu translation of Ted  Allen and Sidney Gorden’s , The Scalpel and The Sword, Rakthasruvulu was the first among them. He encouraged writers like M V Ramanareddy to translate classics and published a number of Telugu translations of the books like, William Hinton’s Shanpen, Mary tTailor’s My Years in an Indian Prison, Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China, Jack London’s Iron Heel and Rahul Sankrutyayan’s Olga Se Ganga. With some friends and relatives he established Hyderabad Book Trust in 1980.

CK took up the publication of the books seriously and carried books to the places where literary and forward looking  meetings were held and never thought of making profits by selling them. He believed that selling the books means spreading the message of humanism. Sri Sri Visweswara Rao the publisher of Sri Sri Press , Vijayawada, fondly remembers, “Many people of the Communist Party cleverly left it and some others simply became passive spectators but CK never deviated the track but got himself molded to suit the times and took up  more concrete and result-oriented programs. He had strong willpower, always sensitive to the issues related to the welfare of the common men and highly disciplined in the implementation of his beliefs. He always gave priority to the welfare of the others never caring his comforts.”

Gita Ramaswamy, the present director of HBT and the wife of CK’s nephew says that Ck was not a rigid man and he never hesitated to change his opinions when he was convinced that he went wrong. He was one of the first who recognized the importance of Feminist and Dalit movements and encouraged them with the publication of books related to them. He was always busy with the tackling of one or the other problems of common man like rabies of the dog menace, fluorosis of water, hygiene of the slums, and education of the poor and so on.

CK never took up the role of a judge to find fault with any person as he learnt that every man is prone to mistakes. He never scorned any body and highly regarded the human relationships. He led a complete life of 88 years and left the world silently like a passing cloud.

All political parties, like the religions, begin earnestly giving priority to the people but get changed transformed and even get tarnished by the vested interested persons. Marxism is the best political philosophy that has been ever propounded but unfortunately it is not foolproof.  Marx is a dreamer who visualized a stateless state but he couldn’t discern the true nature of the men who would misuse the proletarian government. Many argue that communism had failed the people but the truth is the opposite: we the human beings failed communism. There are very few people who realized that and tried to mould themselves in better way. CK is undoubtedly one among them.

                                              -MADHURANTHAKAM NARENDRA

 (The writer is a bilingual short story writer, novelist and poet, writing in both Telugu and English)

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