Naidu did not backstab NTR, TD will survive Jagan onslaught: Author

Hyderabad: In a second part of the interview with Sriram Karri, author of a new biography of late N. T. Rama Rao, ‘Maverick Messaiah’, Ramesh Kandula says though driven by Telugu pride, NTR was a nationalist but not a casteist, the TDP is not really a Kamma party and despite the challenges the party is facing in AP, Telugu Desam will survive the YSRCP onslaught and the BJP won’t grow in Andhra in a meteoric manner like in Telangana.

Was NTR a casteist or was he communal? Did NTR’s political rise also enable and accelerate the growth of Kammas as one of the most dominant castes in Telugu states?

NTR certainly did not come on to the political scene as a representative of his caste, where the-then Congress was dominated by Reddys, and supported by Brahmins and SCs. Congress provoked caste conflicts in a bid to wean away sections of people from NTR’s TDP. Some say caste polarisation started in AP after the political entry of NTR. It is the other way round. Unable to take on NTR, Congress blatantly resorted to caste politics and created caste faultlines in Telugu society.

An impression that NTR enabled the rise of Kammas in AP is very strong. But Kammas were dominant in various fields – from cinema to business and politics – even before NTR became chief minister. For example, Bollini Munuswamy Naidu was the premier of Madras province in 1930. Educated Kammas were probably the first migrants from here to the US in the 1960s. Kammas were also frontrunners in every significant socio-political movement witnessed in Andhra in the early twentieth century. There were prominent communists, congressmen, socialists, atheists and radical humanists, besides writers, thinkers and educators.

In the 1983 Assembly elections, the number of Kamma MLAs elected on TDP ticket was forty-eight. But as many as forty-four Kammas were returned to assembly as long back as in 1967 assembly elections. But yes, Kammas have drawn significant political mileage from TDP subsequently.

Did Chandrababu Naidu backstab NTR to grab power? Are you trying to say he started a revolt against Lakshmi Parvati and it scaled up organically? Was Ramoji Rao a co-conspirator in this cause célèbre?

That (saying Chandrababu backstabbed NTR) would be an oversimplification. When he precipitated the standoff, Chandrababu had no inkling he would end up replacing NTR. He was only trying to extract his pound of political flesh when he mobilised his group of MLAs.

However, many factors unexpectedly came into play that propelled him to dethrone NTR. Once the coup unravelled, those surrounding him were scared that NTR would ensure their political extinction if they were to take a step back. MLAs put pressure on Chandrababu to take the plunge. Not that the son-in-law suffered from any moral qualms and indeed did not shy away when the opportunity presented itself.

Ramoji Rao began being critical of NTR from 1990. He seems to have become tired of NTR’s whimsicalities. His paper editorially asked NTR to step down as president of TDP and pave way for the younger generation much before the coup. Both his support for and opposition to NTR were expressed openly and were not done covertly.

What remains a greater legacy - his art or politics? Have Dr YSR and Jagan taken over the welfare model of NTR while CBN has ditched it?

Both as an actor and a politician, NTR has left a deep imprint. His body of work in Telugu films will remain a great cultural achievement for times to come. In politics too, NTR’s achievements were no less. The continued domination of regional parties in residual AP and Telangana is a consequence of a political culture NTR created.

NTR’s contribution to recognition of Telugus as a distinct people, with a unique language and culture has been widely recognised. He was a regional leader with a nationalist outlook, probably the only south Indian leader who left a mark in Delhi. He was the architect of coalition politics at the national level, which contributed to the decline of Congress. He was a strong leader who used his political capital to bring about major changes in social and administrative structures.

His legacy lies in his gutsy fight against the hegemony of a single party, his bold stand over the historical necessity of regional political parties and his spirited advocacy of autonomy of states – are all ideas which continue to be relevant today.

I don’t think Dr. Y.S. Rajashekar Reddy and Jagan Reddy have any similarities with NTR. The TDP founder did not trade off welfare schemes for squandering public resources in a way YSR did or Jagan has been doing. NTR considered himself a trustee of public funds despite an image as a populist.

Chandrababu Naidu indeed moved away from NTR’s core ideology of welfarism though he succeeded in building a name for himself as a torchbearer of liberalization agenda at regional level. He tried to later on balance development with welfare, but it did not seem to have worked for him in the last elections.

Has the time come for a non-Reddy, non-Kamma political leadership in AP, in the lines of Telangana?

 Political leadership by a non-Reddy and non-Kamma person, per se, would not make much of a difference unless the shift is accompanied by a clear-cut political philosophy. As for Telangana, I believe while KCR’s success in realizing a separate state was no mean achievement, he did not necessarily bring about a qualitative change in the politics here in the same way as NTR, who fundamentally altered the political culture.

Is TDP on a terminal decline? Can it ever recover under the onslaught and success of YSRC's welfare politics, in a way Naidu, and his son Lokesh, cannot counter? Do you see BJP taking over opposition space quickly in AP? In short, is NTR’s party dying?

NTR’s party is certainly facing an existential crisis. One reason for its present condition, as I have pointed out in my book, is the gradual erosion of its ideological moorings. While Chandrababu continued with a personality cult that NTR nurtured, he seems to have moved away from value-based politics that NTR fostered. TDP will have to reinvent itself if it were to survive.

As for BJP, the weakening of TDP comes as a golden opportunity for the saffron party. But BJP, both at national and state level, suffers from a self-inflicted disconnect with people of the residual AP. While there is certainly a political vacuum in AP, the BJP at present seems to be in no position to fill this void.