The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : The session then and now

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 21, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

The session then and now

K. Venkateshwarlu

STANDING TALL: The pylon for the AICC plenary. - Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD : Nanal who? Govind Rao Nanal was a quintessential Congressman of yesteryears, a satyagrahi, who had sacrificed his youth to the freedom struggle, for liberating Hyderabad State from the tyrannical yoke of Nizam's rule.

And a grateful party recognised his services by naming the venue of the first ever post- Independence All India Congress Committee session in Hyderabad in April 1953 after him. It was called Nanal Nagar, very much unlike today's Congress plenary where everything has to start and end with Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

For the benefit of the noveau Hyderabadis, Nanal Nagar, still exists not as a sprawling open ground `miles away from the city' as it was in 1950s but as a place bursting at seams with housing colonies, between Mehdipatnam and Langar Houz. There is a similarity here, both now and then, the venue chosen is to the east of Hyderabad.

"The meeting of 1953 that came to be known as Nanal Nagar session marked the turning point in the history of Hyderabad State. It was the first time after liberation of Hyderabad State that a big Congress meeting was held and all the tallest leaders of the party and others, from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Sheikh Abdullah, Sher-e-Kashmir, made it a point to attend it," Paga Pulla Reddy, veteran freedom fighter who had participated in that historic session in his capacity as secretary of the Andhra Provincial Congress, reminisces.

Interesting anecdote

He has another interesting anecdote of the session. "When Swami Ramananda Thirtha, president of the Hyderabad State Congress Committee spoke of the need for disentangling Hyderabad from its feudal past, Nehru stopped him saying such issues should be left to the Union Government. Swamiji sought Nehru's permission to allow him to express his feelings as chairman of the reception committee. He got unexpected support from Sheikh Abdullah and he continued."

Another Congress veteran, Katam Laxminarayana, who too attended the session, spoke of large number of delegates turning up from all corners of Hyderabad State encompassing parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra besides Telangana region.

And unlike now when everything has been corporatised from food to transport, ill-clad delegates wearing `Gandhi topis' came on their own, some on foot and some on bullock carts. And no multi-cuisine delicacies like now. It was frugal meals all through cooked by volunteers drawn from `basti' committees.

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