Revolutionary Drama in Telugu Literature
Revolutionary Drama in Telugu literature emerged as a reaction to the colonial policies and the prevailing political conditions of the time.
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Revolutionary Drama in Telugu literature emerged sometime in the 1920's and 1930's. The historical drama of the early twentieth century began to acquire echoes of political suggestions and political drama emerged as an important trend in the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the earliest plays to contain political messages in poetic dialogue were Kallakuri Narayana Rao's Padmavyuham (1919) and Damaraju Pundarikakshudu's Gandhiji Vijayam (1921). The writers often used historical or mythological frameworks to represent contemporary reality into an allegorical form. Damaraju's Panchata Parabhavam (1922), Somaraju Ramanuja Rao's Tilak Rayabaram (1921), and Budhdhavarapu Pattabhiramayya's Matrudasya Vimochanam (1924) exemplify this trend. Under the impact of the widespread anti-colonial movement and the upsurge of a nationalist spirit, the writers felt the need for re-creating a national history and sculpting a national identity. This accounts for a fresh renewal of interest in historical themes, which provided the suitable ground for turning patriotic fervour and nationalist emotions into dramatic form. Sripada Kameswara Rao's Kalapahad (1913), Muttaraju Subba Rao's Chandragupta (1932), Viswanatha Satyanarayana's Venaraju (1934), and Gundimeda Venkata Subba Rao's Khilji Rajya Patanam (1935) form a part of this development. There was a re-reading of the history of Andhra as well, as seen in Grandhi Venkata Subbaraya Gupta's Andhramatha (1913) and Kavuluri Hanumantha Rao's Andhra Patakam (1939).
The next set of political plays came around the time of the Quit India movement (1942), with which the Indian independence movement entered its final and most forceful phase. The years 1943-46 witnessed the publication of a large number of plays revolving round the theme of political liberation - Vedanlakavi's Telugu Talli (1940), Utukuru Satyanarayana Rao's Sapa Vimochanam (1943), Jasti Venkata Narasayya's Congress Vijayam (1946), and Pattigodupu Raghava Raju's Delhi Kota (1946) dramatize the political struggle for freedom and celebrate the liberation of the Indian people. The purpose of these plays was to spread the message of liberation to common folk and consolidate the nationalist movement.
The progressive movement in the 1940s provided further impetus for the political drama. The Praja Natya Mandali (people's theater movement) provided the forum for the performance of revolutionary plays. Sunkara Satyanarayana and V. Bhaskara Rao jointly brought out two plays: Mundadugu (1945) and Ma Bhoomi (1947), dealing with the atrocities of zamindars and the autocratic rule of the Nizam of Hyderabad, respectively. This movement adopted folk forms such as burrakatha (storytelling) to reach out to the masses with their political messages. The establishment banned the performance of these plays; besides, the propagandist slant of these works lost the movement its audiences. Thus this phase gradually came to an end.
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