While many are indifferent to what is happening around them, Kondapalli Koteswaramma, who will turn 100 shortly, keeps herself abreast of the happenings in the State and the country. She is a worried person and feels the need for a strong civil society and a civil rights movement to bring things back on track.
Ms. Koteswaramma, wife of the late Kondapalli Seetharamiah, founder of People’s War Group, is a warrior in her own right, and she has fought most of the battles of her life almost on her own and the fire still burns in her, though age has left its scars.
A communist of the old order, she has fought for the rights of women and the marginalised sections of society, leading an active political life for over eight decades. She will be celebrating her 100th birthday on August 5, with her grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Author
She is the author of four books and the last one Nirjana Varadhi was penned by her at the ripe age of 94. She, along with her husband, was part of the communist and civil rights movement that was led by stalwarts such as Puchalapalli Sundarayya and Chandra Rajeshwara Rao. She was an active underground member of the Communist-led peasant movement that started in Telangana in 1946 and lasted until 1951. She later married Kondapalli Seetharamaiah who founded the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War Group, which merged with the CPI (Maoist).
Fragile but still quick on the uptake, her eyes still hold the fire that she exhibited when she surreptitiously supplied arms to her comrades in Dandakaranya forest, hidden in beddings evading the eyes of the police.
In an exclusive interview to The Hindu , she talks about her baptism into communist movement and underground days, her penchant for writing and her relationship with her late husband.
She was at first a Congress woman. She recollects, “I initially joined the Congress party at the age of 10 by placing all my jewellery at the feet of Mahatma Gandhi when he visited Vijayawada, but was soon disillusioned with the party’s stand against Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.”
But it was her singing talent that made Puchalapalli Sundarayya to ask her to join the party. “I began as a singer for the party at the age of 16,” she said. A child widow, hailing from a progressive family, she was married to Kondapalli Seetharamaiah at the age of 19, but was left by him after some time, as he had to lead an underground life for over three decades.
An avid reader from childhood, she had developed love for the language and words. “I wrote my first book Amma Cheppina Kadhalu (Tales Told By mother) after I lost my only daughter Karuna,” she recalls.
