India's Glocal Leader: Chandrababu Naidu

Pagadala

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

Formative years:

The making of a politician

It is Sankranthi, the harvest festival, in Andhra Pradesh. Naravaripalli village is decked up with flowers adorning its streets as Naidu’s childhood friends, relatives and his followers await his arrival eagerly queued up alongside the road leading to his house. It is on Sankranthi every year that Naidu’s family serves lunch to the people of his village where he gets the opportunity to spend time with them in one place.

As Chandrababu Naidu’s convoy of cars drives into the village, the son of the soil, waving out to his people, becomes the cynosure of all eyes. Vigorous and vivacious with chiselled features, a well-defined chin with a French beard, dressed in an off-white shirt and a Pancha, he commands respect inside and outside the country.

As he exchanges pleasantries with his cousins and followers, he moves towards his paternal uncles, Nara Narayana Swamy Naidu and Nara Narasimha Naidu, and enquires about their health and well-being. The next moment, he calls out to the village head and enquires about the progress of the development works in the village. This nature of Naidu of switching from one mood to another within seconds is a rare character trait that his observers find amusing.

Outside the village rests a huge house with a backyard, manicured lawns and coconut trees, a tiny children’s play area, an office and a conference room. The house is secured with high walls and electric fencing while the area around is cordoned off, with a security guard patrolling round-the-clock. This is where Nara Chandrababu Naidu and his family stay on their visits to his native village of Naravaripalli. The village is surrounded by a massive hill on one side and lush green fields on the other. With a population of over 200 people and multicoloured houses lined up consecutively, this village houses a school, wedding hall, an ATM centre, a primary healthcare centre and a burial ground. It is a prosperous village compared to an average Indian village. Naravaripalli rests alongside the road to Chandragiri town of the Chittoor District, which was the fourth capital of the erstwhile Vijayanagara Empire. Chittoor district, which was the headquarters of the North Arcot district at the beginning of the 19th century, is also home to the world-famous temple town of Tirupati, the abode of Lord Venkateswara (also known as Balaji).

Naidu’s story is not an overnight-success saga nor was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In fact, his life journey runs parallel to that of the formation and division of Andhra Pradesh. Having struggled through his life, he picked the right lessons on his way and became a goal-setter with definite objectives – someone who loves to challenge the odds, go against the tide, and wants to stand out instead of fitting in the crowd.

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Right at the centre of the village lies Chandrababu Naidu’s ancestral home where he was born and raised. Born to Nara Kharjura Naidu and Amanamma on 20 April 1950, Chandrababu Naidu is the eldest of the four siblings and has a younger brother Nara Ramamurthy Naidu and two younger sisters, Rajeswari and Hymavathi.

His family hails from the Chittoor District that has been home to many poets, scholars, artists, administrators, freedom fighters, and politicians. Sankarambadi Sundaracharya who is the author of the Telugu anthem "Maa Telugu Thalliki Mallepoodanda", educationist and scholar Jiddu Krishnamurthy, P Ananadacharyulu, the president of the Indian National Congress, the famous 18th-century poet Tharigonda Vengamamba are some of the great personalities who belonged to the district. Chittoor, which was formed in 1911 as the headquarters for North Arcot district, played a key role in the freedom struggle of India and became the centre of political activities after the Theosophical College was established in Madanapalle in 1915. In 1919, on a visit to this college, Rabindranath Tagore translated our national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, into English as The Morning Song of India. During the same time, the now familiar tunes to the national anthem were set by Margaret Cousins, wife of the then principal of the college, James Henry Cousins. It witnessed the tours of Mahatma Gandhi, C Rajagopalachari, Annie Besant and much later, in the 1930s, of NG Ranga whose works Naidu was to study later during his PhD.

The period between 1947 and 1956 was a tumultuous time and critical for erstwhile Andhra Pradesh as well as Naidu as they were his growing years. Soon after India became independent in 1947, people of Andhra districts under the Madras Presidency sought freedom from bondage and demanded an independent state on linguistic basis. Their struggle ultimately ended in Potti Sriramulu’s fast for 59 days, demanding the immediate formation of the Andhra State, that ended with his death on 15 December 1952.

As a consequence of the large-scale uprisings in Andhra, the Government of India had announced its decision to form the Andhra State on 19 December 1952 and appointed the then Justice KN Wanchoo of Rajasthan High Court to study the social and financial implications of forming the new state. After Wanchoo presented his report in February 1953, the Government of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced its decision in March 1953 to form the State with 11 Telugu speaking districts. Andhra State came into existence with its capital as Kurnool on 1 October 1953. Following the formation of the state, other linguistic groups across the country raised voices which led to the appointment of State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) as a result of which the map of India was re-drawn in 14 major states then. On the other hand, Hyderabad became a state in Independent India after its accession into the Indian Union on 24 November 1949 and existed till 1956.

Amidst this, the Government of India took a decision to merge the Telugu speaking districts in both the states. Hyderabad State, which comprised of the nine Telugu speaking districts, was merged with the Andhra State to form Andhra Pradesh on 1 November 1956, with Hyderabad as its capital. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy became the first chief minister of the enlarged state.

Chandrababu Naidu was six when Andhra Pradesh took shape. He was growing up to become a bright boy. Though his father Kharjura Naidu never wanted Naidu or his other kids to work at the field, the former accompanied his parents to the fields and helped them with farm works, with the same enthusiasm as he attended the school. Workaholism came naturally to Naidu as he worked in the sugarcane fields in the night and came home early in the morning to pack his bags and walk one kilometre to school in Seshapuram with his cousins and friends. Over the years, his parents respected his decisions and believed in him.

Naidu gave utmost importance to education as a child and understood its value. Once when his youngest sister, Hymavathi, told her mother that she doesn’t want to continue school, Naidu was angered by the thought itself. He said to his mother, ‘She doesn’t want to study. Don’t feed her for 40 days. Let her realise the value of education.’ In another attempt to convince Hymavathi to continue schooling, Naidu spoke to the headmaster of the high school in Chandragiri to get his sister admitted to the school as she seemed disinterested in the Ramgampeta School where she was then studying. However, his attempts proved futile as Hymavathi discontinued schooling in the seventh standard. Hymavathi now lives in Tirupati and visits her brother often.

During his schooling years, Naidu developed a keen interest in developing his village. As a result, he formed Vinayaka Sangham with 40 kids from the village, who planted saplings in the village and took up canal repair works. As someone who was popular among his peers, he convinced the village head to fix the 1km road from Rangampeta to his village. Encouraging social responsibility among his villagers, he convinced them to volunteer in laying the road to his village. His convincing skills and self-confidence often astonished his friends and cousins.

Eventually, Vinayaka Sangham became a model for neighbouring villages where school-going students took up development activities, explain Subramanyam Naidu and Keshava, cousins of Chandrababu who were part of the Sangham. Vinayaka Sangham also laid the foundation for Janmabhoomi, which was introduced by Naidu in 1997 to encourage people’s participation in rural development.

During his walks to and from school, Naidu would enlighten his friends on social responsibility. They would brainstorm about different ideas on developing Naravaripalle. Once when he got the idea generating income from sugarcane cultivation, Chandrababu and his friends took up jaggery production and sold 75 kgs of jaggery. This was one of the first instances that brought out Naidu’s entrepreneurial skills at an early age. After finishing the tenth standard at the Seshapuram School, Naidu shifted to the Chandragiri High School. Later, he pursued his degree at Sri Venkateswara Arts College in Tirupati. His college life was a mix of fun and serious work. He was well-known for helping out his friends from economically weaker backgrounds by allowing them to stay in his room, buying them food and giving them his clothes too. Naidu treated his uncles and cousins like his friends. He would go to movies with them but was also responsible for dropping them back home. He was the ‘big brother’ for all his cousins.

When his younger cousin Nara Subramanyam Naidu had finished schooling in a Telugu-medium school and was looking to pursue intermediate education, Chandrababu who was at SV Arts College in Tirupati, convinced his English lecturer to fill in Subramanyam Naidu’s application as the latter did not know how to write in English. Nara Subramanyam Naidu (63), retired as a bench clerk at a civil court in Tirupati in 2013 and now works at his farm in Naravaripalli.

Naidu obtained a master’s degree in economics from the Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati. He ranked second in academics but would hardly attend any classes. Instead, he and his friends would hang out at a bicycle shed in the university and work on political strategies and social issues. A jovial and an easy-going person at heart, Naidu enjoyed riding a motorcycle in the university, without the silencer that often irritated the girls. After classes at the university, his group would have dinner at the university, head to the town for a cup of tea. He also enjoyed going to movies regularly and would indulge in Sunday special breakfast at the Deluxe Hotel in Tirupati. However, during exams, he wouldn’t compromise on academics and would study arduously to perform well.

Soon after, Naidu enrolled for a PhD on NG Ranga’s agricultural policies under the guidance of Professor DL Narayana, who was to later work in Naidu’s government as AP State Finance Commission’s Chairman. The paper was titled ‘Economic ideas of Professor NG Ranga’.

Professor NG Ranga and his wife, Bharathi Devi, were responsible for setting up the Rayalaseema Organisation of Summer Schools of Economics and Politics in 1938 in Madanapalle for peasant activities. They organized the following: 1) the Rayalaseema Ryots Conference, 2) Rayalseema Economic Development Conference, 3) Rayalaseema Forest Ryots Conference, 4) Rayalaseema Teachers Conference, 5) Rayalaseema Peasants Institute, 6) Rayalaseema Students Conference, 7) Rayalaseema Youth Conference, 8) Rayalaseema Progressive Writers Conference, 9) Rayalaseema Cotton Growers Conference, 10) Rayalaseema Oil-Seeds Producers or Dealers Conference, 11) Rayalaseema Famine Relief Conference, and 12) Rayalaseema Irrigation Development Conference and many other platforms, including those for women, panchayat boards and co-operative societies.

In this way, thousands of farmers and youth were induced to play an active role on the ever-widening and deepening field of public work. Each of these conferences held at the taluk, district or zonal levels was initiated, stimulated, strengthened and inspired by one of the graduates of the Indian Peasant Institute or Ranga’s associates. Each conference carried the support and message of Ranga. This extensive service of NG Ranga towards agriculture inspired Naidu to research on the former.

However, Naidu discontinued his PhD due to his uninhibited interest in student politics. At this juncture, he proved to be a master strategist during the Students’ Union elections of Sri Venkateswara University, which was the early indication of his future growth as a political leader. He has always been adept at grabbing the opportunities that came to him. Naidu lived in Room No. 83 of C&D Block along with his roommates. At that time, the University had 32 departments, and each department had a chairman, elected by the students. In turn, they elect the chairman of the college. Naidu, a student of economics, who was also the chairman of the department, did not contest for the college chairmanship. Instead, he succeeded in getting his man elected and gained an upper hand over his opponents in the student election.

Naidu’s idea of putting up a backward class candidate for the post of the chairman worked successfully as the candidate secured a thumping majority. His strategy was: during the day time, gather the pulse of students’ votes and as the night falls, approach students and canvass in favour of his candidates. This strategy worked wonders for him. The talks of coaxing and cajoling would start at 9 pm and last till 5 am. But, it was a secret between him and the gate-post. Even Naidu’s closest associates did not have an idea about this strategy. Often, political equations changed soon after Naidu’s parleys with the students.

Naidu held various positions of office during his college days and organised a number of social activities. Following the 1977 cyclone, which devastated the Diviseema Taluk of Krishna District, he actively collected donations and relief from Chittoor District for cyclone victims. However, Naidu’s interest in rural development activities began during his school days, much before the Diviseema cyclone.

When a torrential downpour had inundated the road near Chandragiri in the 1960s, a private bus broke down and passengers were stranded on the road at around 4 am. One of them was a pregnant woman who was carried by other passengers to the nearest hospital. Naidu, who was in high school then, witnessed passengers’ problems and rushed to Naravaripalli sarpanch, asking him