Golconda Patrika

The Golconda Patrika was a Telugu newspaper published in Hyderabad from 1925.¹ Its founder and editor, Suravaram Pratapa Reddy, used it to speak for the Telugu people of the Nizam’s state.¹² Its place in the history of the Telugu press is told in Telugu newspapers and journals.

A Telugu paper in the Nizam’s state

Telugu papers came late to Hyderabad. In 1901, the Hyderabad State committee’s history notes, the state had fourteen papers and periodicals, none of them in Telugu.³ A paper needed the government’s licence, and the government could take the licence back.⁴

The Who’s Who of Freedom Struggle (1980) says Pratapa Reddy, a lawyer and a scholar of Telugu and Sanskrit, founded the Golconda Patrika in 1925.¹ It came out twice a week, and he edited it until 1949.¹ The same book says it criticised the Nizam’s government without fear.¹

Sarojini Regani names it, with the Nilagiri Patrika and the Telugu Patrika, among the papers that came forward to support the Andhra Jana Sangham.⁵ This Telugu association started a library movement in Telangana and helped to found a high school for girls.⁵

The new-year number of 1928

A special number of the paper survives for the Telugu new year of Vibhava, in 1928.⁶⁷ It was printed at the paper’s own press in Troop Bazaar, Hyderabad.⁷ Its list of patrons shows who backed the paper.⁸ They included the estates (samsthanams) of Gadwal, Jatprolu, Amarchinta and Wanaparthy, and Pingili Venkatarama Reddy, a deshmukh (hereditary revenue officer).⁸

The paper and the Telugu movement

When the Andhra Jana Sangham became the Andhra Mahasabha, at Jogipet in March 1930, Pratapa Reddy presided.⁹ P. Krishna Moorthy describes him there as the editor of the Golkonda Patrika.⁹

The paper also took part in the debate on schooling. In 1936 a committee on education in Hyderabad heard a Mr. Pratap Reddy, who came to give the views of the paper’s editor.¹⁰ The paper held that pupils at secondary school should be taught in their mother tongue, or else in English.¹⁰ It would not make Urdu a compulsory subject for Telugu boys at all.¹⁰

How it was remembered

Pratapa Reddy died on 25 August 1953.¹¹ In the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly the Chief Minister, B. Ramakrishna Rao, spoke about his paper.¹¹ He said Pratapa Reddy had started the Golconda Patrika and kept it going against all odds, at a time when it was very difficult for any journalist in Hyderabad to criticise without fear.¹¹

He also said the paper was run very ably, and that Pratapa Reddy had made his own style of Telugu prose.² Once a paper outside the state wrote that few people in Hyderabad knew Telugu well.² Pratapa Reddy answered in the Golconda Patrika, and collected the work of Hyderabad’s Telugu poets into a book.²

Where the sources disagree

The Who’s Who says Suravaram Pratapa Reddy edited the paper until 1949.¹ The education committee’s report of 1936, however, says that the Mr. Pratap Reddy who spoke to it was representing the editor, and that the views he gave were the editor’s, not necessarily his own.¹⁰ The report does not name the editor.¹⁰

Footnotes

1. Sarojini Regani (ed.), Who’s Who of Freedom Struggle in Andhra Pradesh, Vol. II (1980), p. 385 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. Hyderabad Legislative Assembly Debates, 10 September 1953, p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. III (1957), p. 29 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

4. Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. III (1957), p. 41 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

5. Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh (1956), p. 179 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

6. Golconda Patrika, Vibhava new-year number (Hyderabad, 1928), cover, PDF p. 5 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

7. Golconda Patrika, Vibhava new-year number (1928), title page, PDF p. 7 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

8. Golconda Patrika, Vibhava new-year number (1928), list of patrons, PDF p. 9 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

9. P. Krishna Moorthy, Unification of Andhra Pradesh (Ph.D. thesis, Karnatak University, 1987), p. 176 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

10. A. H. Mackenzie and Fazl Muhammad Khan, Committee for the Reorganisation of Education in the Hyderabad State: Report of the Sub-Committee (1936), p. 68 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

11. Hyderabad Legislative Assembly Debates, 10 September 1953, p. 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³