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Chapter Overview Map
Literature, libraries and women
15.1–15.2 How Telugu writing turned political
- Newspapers, the printing press and new readers carried patriotic poems, songs and essays to ordinary people.
- Writing moved from Swadeshi songs (1905–08) to Gandhian songs, reform novels and, from the 1930s, progressive poetry.
15.3–15.10 The seven prescribed writers
- Garimella, Rayaprolu and Unnava wrote in the nationalist years, and Garimella and Unnava went to jail.
- Tripuraneni, Jashuva, Boyi Bheemanna and Sri Sri attacked caste, superstition and class exploitation, much of it after 1947.
15.11 Literary movements compared
- Nationalist, social reform, rationalist, anti-caste and progressive literature overlap but have different targets.
- The target decides the label: colonial rule, harmful customs, caste hierarchy or class exploitation.
15.12–15.14 Grandhalaya Movement
- The Andhra Desa Grandhalaya Sangham was founded at Vijayawada on 10 April 1914.
- Its leaders, Iyyanki Venkata Ramanaiah, Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao and Paturi Nagabhushanam, were also nationalists.
15.15–15.19 Women
- Ponaka Kanakamma combined Gandhian satyagraha with a girls' school at Nellore.
- Dokka Seethamma (died 1909) is remembered for feeding travellers, not for political campaigns.
Don't confuse
- A writer's themes and a writer's political activity are different questions: Jashuva wrote against caste but was not jailed in the freedom struggle.
- Ayyanki Venkata Ramanaiah, the library pioneer, is a different person from the reformer Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu.
Notice how the three strands of the chapter (writing, reading and women's public work) meet in the same towns and often in the same people.