Sattiraju Sitaramaiah · Telugu History

Sattiraju Sitaramaiah was a lawyer and journalist of the Godavari country.¹² In April 1902 he started the Hindu Sundari at Eluru, a journal for Telugu women.³ It became the first Telugu women’s journal to be edited by women, and it ran for more than fifty years.³⁴ He matters because he gave the educated women of the Andhra country a place to write, and a way to find one another.²

About the sources. This page rests on two articles by the historian S. Mahaboob Basha, published in 2009 and 2010.⁴³

Early life

Basha gives his dates as 11 December 1864 to 17 March 1945.¹ Sitaramaiah belonged to Kanteru, a village in Tanuku taluk of West Godavari district. He was born at his grandparents’ home in Kavitam.¹ He studied at Kanteru, Marateru and finally Rajahmundry, up to the Matriculation examination.¹

He began as a teacher in the Mission School at Rajahmundry, where he had studied.¹ Soon he became a lawyer in private practice, and did very well.¹ He also held public posts:²

councillor of the Eluru municipality
member of the Tanuku taluk board
member of the Godavari district board and the district educational board²

A press of his own

Sitaramaiah began in journalism as a correspondent of the Andhra Prakasika, a weekly of Madras.² Later he bought a printing press and ran journals of his own.² From January 1893 he published the Telugu Law Vartamani, a fortnightly that printed High Court judgements in Telugu.² From 2 April 1893 he ran a weekly, the Deshopakari. He sent it free to anyone who paid the postage, and it had more than 1,200 subscribers.²

He wrote more than ten books, several of them for women.² His autobiography, Sweeya Charitra, was printed only after his death.² For over thirty years he also worked on the Viprakula Darpanamu, a history of more than 6,000 Brahmin families. Basha says he could not afford to print it, and it remains unpublished.²

The Hindu Sundari

He started the Hindu Sundari in April 1902, and at first he printed and edited it himself.³ He wanted a woman editor from the start, but every woman he asked held back.³ For the first issue no Hindu woman would write an article. So he asked a Christian woman, Mandapaka Johanamma, who agreed.³

Soon many women began to write for it. From December 1903 two women, Mosalikanti Ramabayamma and Vempali Shantabayamma, edited it.³ From 1905 the journal came out from Kanteru, where Sitaramaiah had settled.³ It stopped in January 1908.³ With the encouragement of women writers, he started it again in June 1909.¹ From March 1913 the Kakinada Vidyarthini Samajamu, a women’s society, ran it.¹

A brother to women writers

Basha sees Sitaramaiah’s finest work for the women’s movement in his role as a link between literate women.² He passed on the address of one woman to another, in far-off places, and urged them to write letters and make friends.² He called this work “a movement”, and the women thanked him for it.² They called him Annayya (elder brother).²

Many women visited his home. When Bandaru Achamamba came on 17 January 1903, he called a women’s meeting two days later, and about two hundred women of Eluru came to hear her.²⁵

Yet he took no hard line on social reform. He said he belonged to neither the reformers nor their opponents, and printed both sides in his journals.⁵ His dealings with Kandukuri Veeresalingam were strained. After a misunderstanding in August or September 1904, he never saw Veeresalingam again.⁵

Where the sources disagree

The first editors and the place of printing. In a 2009 article, Basha writes that Ramabayamma and Shantabayamma became editors in the middle of 1903, and that the journal came out at first from Kanteru.⁴ In his 2010 article he gives December 1903 for the women editors. There he says it was printed at Eluru at first, and moved to Kanteru only in 1905.³

Basha, “Story of the Hindu Sundari”, KJHS V (2010), p. 78 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Basha, “Story of the Hindu Sundari”, KJHS V (2010), p. 79 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶
S. Mahaboob Basha, “Flagging off the Marathon: Print Culture and Women’s Intellectual Movement in Colonial Andhra: Story of the Hindu Sundari, 1902–1947”, Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. V (2010), p. 77 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰
S. Mahaboob Basha, “Sculpturing a ‘New Woman’ with Print Culture in Colonial Andhra: A Biography of Telugu Zenana, 1893–1907”, Kakatiya Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. IV (2009), p. 135 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Basha, “Story of the Hindu Sundari”, KJHS V (2010), p. 80 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³