Bhagya Reddy Varma · Telugu History

Bhagya Reddy Varma was a Dalit social reformer of Hyderabad in the first half of the 20th century.¹² He spoke for the people then called “untouchable” or panchama (outside the four castes), and he refused that name for them.¹ He organised them, ran newspapers for them, and wrote one of the first Telugu stories about their lives.³⁴

Name and early work

A. Satyanarayana, a historian of the Dalit movement, gives his first name as Madari Bhagaiah.¹ In his account, “Reddi” and “Varma” were titles that he took.¹ He gives his years as 1888–1939, and calls him the founder of the Dalit movement in modern Andhra, in the first decade of the 20th century.¹

The Humanitarian League

In 1913 a Humanitarian League was set up in Hyderabad. Its president was Rai Bal Mukund, a retired judge of the High Court, who led reform work among the Harijans.² The official history of the freedom struggle in Hyderabad (1957) says Bhagya Reddy Varma “belonged to the Scheduled Caste” and joined the League. He “later developed into a social reformer”.² Sarojini Regani names him with Bal Mukund and Lalji Meghji as the men who started the League, and calls him “a great Harijan leader”.⁵

Adi-Andhra and Adi-Hindu

In 1917 he became the first president of the Adi-Andhra Mahasabha.¹ K. Purushotham writes that from 1917 the Adi-Andhra movement held a series of conferences and public meetings under his leadership.⁶ It was the first time that educated Dalits had taken up their own cause.⁶

In Hyderabad he founded the Adi-Hindu Social Service League and the Adi-Hindu Bhavan.¹ He held many Adi-Hindu conferences to spread this new name and to take education to the lower castes.¹ He taught that the Adi-Hindus were the descendants of the first people of the land, who had ruled it before the Aryans came.³ So, he argued, they had never been part of caste-Hindu society, and they needed to break from it.¹³

Newspapers

He also used the press to reach people. According to G. Venkataramarao, he started a paper called Bhagyanagar in 1925.⁷ It stopped when he went to Mysore because of ill health.⁷ When he came back, he began a weekly, Adi Hindu, as part of his work for the Harijans. It also discussed politics and supported the people’s movements against the Nizam’s rule.⁷

Satyanarayana describes the first paper as the Bhagya Nagar Patrika, a Telugu fortnightly for Dalit uplift in the Nizam’s state.³ He says it came out from 1937 under the name Adi-Hindu, edited and published by Bhagya Reddy Varma himself.³

A writer

Bhagya Reddy Varma was also a writer. K. Purushotham calls his Etti Madiga (1932) the first Dalit short story in Telugu.⁴ It describes vetti, the unpaid forced labour that Madigas had to do in the villages.⁶ Purushotham calls him “the earliest Dalit writer in Telugu”.⁶

Where the sources disagree

When he died. Satyanarayana gives his years as 1888–1939.¹ Purushotham gives 1888–1937.⁴

The Humanitarian League. The Hyderabad freedom-struggle history says he joined the League after it was set up under Rai Bal Mukund.² Regani names him among the men who started it.⁵

His papers. Venkataramarao says Bhagyanagar began in 1925, and that Adi Hindu was a weekly.⁷ Satyanarayana calls the first paper a fortnightly and dates the change of name to Adi-Hindu to 1937.³

A. Satyanarayana, “Articulation of Self and the Other: Emergence of the Dalit Movement in Andhra Pradesh”, Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. I, No. 1 (2006), p. 70 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰
The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. III (1885–1920) (1957), p. 235 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Satyanarayana, “Articulation of Self and the Other”, KJHS I (2006), p. 71 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
K. Purushotham, “From Social Reform to Dandora: A Critical Perspective of Telugu Dalit Short Stories in Historical Outline”, Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. XV, No. 1 (2020), p. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh, pp. 173–174 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Purushotham, “From Social Reform to Dandora”, KJHS XV (2020), p. 6 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
G. Venkataramarao, Telangana Charitra (Andhra Saraswata Parishat, 2014), p. 155 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴