The Spirit of the Indian Revolution lives in Gaddar
Gummadi Vittal Rao has acted in two movies, and carries a bullet in his body.
He is best known as a singer, and thousands of copies of his songs have been sold throughout India.
He is best known as a singer, and thousands of copies of his songs have been sold throughout India.
He is on the Andhra Pradesh police's list of people marked for overt support to Maoist rebels, the Naxalites.
And yet successive state governments have used his services in the failed peace initiatives with the outlawed Maoists.
In Left wing circles, he is a living legend.
He is Gaddar, the balladeer.
He is Gaddar, the balladeer.
Unlike other left-wing revolutionary writers and poets, Gaddar is equally well known in rural and urban Andhra Pradesh. He is a familiar face on television screens, participating in protest programmes or spirited debates.
His songs cut across the barriers of region, religion, dialect, caste and social status.
In the words of prominent academic Dr Kancha Ilaiah, 'Gaddar was the first Telangana intellectual who established a link between the productive masses and the literary text and, of course, that text established a link between the masses and educational institutions.'
