Telangana government will accord State funeral to the eminent writer Dasaradhi Rangacharya, who passed on Monday after prolonged illness. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao issued instructions to Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma to make all arrangements to accord State funeral for Dasaradhi.
Born on August 24, 1928 at Chitti Gudur in Khammam district of the erstwhile princely State of Hyderabad, Dasaradhi actively participated in the fight against the Nizam’s autocratic rule. He went underground and took part in the Telangana Armed Struggle till Hyderabad was liberated. He was rusticated from school for raising voice against the Nizam’s rule and was forced to go to Vijayawada to pursue higher education. Initially, he worked as a school teacher and librarian and later shifted to Hyderabad and joined the Municipal Corporation in Secunderabad, where he worked for 32 years before superannuation.
In the year 1969, his style of writing hogged the spotlight with Chillara Devullu (The Lesser Deities) describing the socioeconomic conditions before the armed struggle. He followed it up with Modugu Poolu (Fire Flowers) in 1971, a chronicle of the history of Telangana including the scenario after the armed struggle. Chillara Devullu won him Central Sahitya Akademi award. Jeevanayanam was Dasaradhi’s autobiography.
Though his writings were influenced by the Communist ideology initially, his ideology turned towards spiritualism later. Dasaradhi completed the unfulfilled task of Vattikota Alwarswamy, who felt that it was the responsibility of the writers who took part in the armed struggle to tell the future generations about the state of affairs before, during and after the armed struggle with Chillara Devullu , Modugu Poolu and Janapadam . Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, Telangana Deputy Chief Minister K. Sriharimourned the demise of Dasaradhi.
