Covering his bare torso with a gongadi (woollen blanket), carrying a stick, tossing his long hair in the wind and singing the song of revolution; Gaddar is a household name in the Telugu-speaking States. When he first sang ‘Aapuro rickshoda’ he had thick black hair on his head; five decades later when he sang ‘Podustuna poddu meeda nadustuna kaalama, poru Telanganama’ the hair had turned platinum white. But the spirit remained intact. The ballads he adopted, composed and sang challenged the existing social order.
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Born Gummadi Vittal Rao, he had to drop his name Rao as his class teacher in Toopran village removed it saying he had no right to use the name. “I adopted the name Gaddar when my song ‘Apuro rickshaoda rickshaenta nenuosta’ became popular where I modified the song ‘apuro bandoda’ in 1971,” said Gadar when he met this reporter.
Pronounced ‘Ghadar’, he chose the name that referred to the party founded by expatriate Indians in 1913 in the US for overthrowing British rule in India, that harked back to the 1857 fight for Indian Independence. When B. Narsing Rao made Maa Bhoomi in 1979, that showed the plight of the landless peasants in Telangana, it was Gaddar’s voice that encapsulated the defiance and fight against the rulers.
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Narsing Rao gifted B.R. Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of Caste’ to Gaddar and that shaped his thinking. ’Bandenka bandi katti’ was a composition of Bandi Yadagiri during Telangana Rebellion in 1946-48. The song against a feudal lord was modified by Gaddar to his purpose for the movie targeting the Nizam and the British.
India had become free but the feudal setup in Telangana region remained and Gadar had to drop out of the Osmania Engineering College where he was a student between 1968-69. He had scored 76% in his Intermediate exam at the Saifabad Science College to get the seat. After dropping out, he flirted with arts and artists creating Jana Natya Mandali that spoke about rebellion, revolution, equality and freedom from want.
His past came to haunt him when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared Emergency in 1975 and Gadar was bundled into an interrogation facility ending his career as clerk in Canara Bank in Marredpally.
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Gaddar had to go underground in 1984 fearing for his life after the Telugu Desam Party came to power and began a crackdown on Naxalites. He returned to limelight again in 1990 with an electrifying performance at Hyderabad’s Nizam College Ground.
All the while, the song and the spirit of revolution did not leave him. On April 6, 1997 at 6 p.m. five bullets were fired at him from close quarters near his home. He survived with a bullet lodged near his spine.
When the movement for separate Telangana picked up in early 2000, Gaddar added his electrifying presence with his songs and performances.
In the passing of Gadar aka Gummadi Vittal Rao, the State has lost a balladeer who carried the scent of the Telangana’s soil wherever he travelled.