Suravaram Pratapa Reddy

Suravaram Pratapa Reddy was a Telugu scholar, lawyer and newspaper editor in Hyderabad.¹ He was born in 1896 at Itikyalapadu, in Alampur taluk of Mahbubnagar district.¹ For almost 25 years his paper, the Golkonda Patrika, criticised the Nizam’s government.¹ The source for most of this page is a short entry in the Who’s Who of Freedom Struggle in Andhra Pradesh, published by the state government in 1980.¹

The Golkonda Patrika, 1925–1949

He was the son of Narayana Reddy.¹ He took the B.A. and B.L. degrees and worked as a pleader (lawyer).¹ He was a scholar of Telugu and Sanskrit.¹

In 1925 he founded the Golkonda Patrika at Hyderabad, a paper that came out twice a week.¹ He edited it until 1949.¹ The Who’s Who says that it criticised the Nizam’s government without fear.¹

The Andhra Conference, 1930

In 1930 the Telugu association of Hyderabad State, the Andhra Jana Sangham, met at Jogipet in Medak district.² There it became the Andhra Mahasabha.² The Who’s Who says Pratapa Reddy was president of this first Andhra Conference at Jogipet, in March 1930.¹³

He also presided over a conference of the Andhra Saraswata Parishad and the 23rd Andhra Desa Library Conference.³ In 1940 he founded the Vijnana Vardhini Parishad.³

After 1948

In November 1951 he started a Telugu paper, Prajavani, which came out three times a week.³ He was a member of the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly from March 1952.³ He also sat on the Hyderabad State committee for the history of the freedom movement in 1952–53.³ He died in 1953.³

His writings

He wrote many books in Telugu on literature, history and language.³ The best known is Andhrula Sanghika Charitra (a social history of the Telugu people), published in 1949.³ It received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1955.³ Others named in the Who’s Who are Hinduvula Pandugalu (Hindu festivals, 1953) and Ramayana Visheshamulu (1957).³

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)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

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

3. Regani (ed.), Who’s Who, Vol. II (1980), p. 386 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹