A BLASPHEMOUS ACT BY HOOLIGANS

Desaraju Surya

Hyderabad: They were towering symbols of Telugu glory and stood immortalized in the form of life-size bronze statues on the picturesque Tank Bund on Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad.

Statues they may be, but they had ‘life’ in them.

Each one of them was a legend in his\her own right and contributed their might for enhancing and enriching the Telugu culture in varied forms over the ages.

But, this evening, 17 of the total 33 statues adorning the Tank Bund, one of the most-famous tourist spots in the Andhra Pradesh capital city, were vandalized by Telangana hooligans. As many as 11 statues were, in fact, uprooted and dumped in Hussain Sagar lake by the hooligans who stormed the Tank Bund road seeking statehood for Telangana.

The highhanded vandalism by Telangana ruffians has left every Telugu shocked and distraught.

The Tank Bund certainly presented a gory sight now.

What should one say of Emperor Srikrishnadevaraya, who ruled the famous Vijayanagara empire 500 years ago?

Annamacharya was the first Telugu vaaggeyakara who penned thousands of keertans glorifying Lord Venkateswara with deep devotion.

Siddhendra Yogi was the founder of the world-famous Kuchipudi classical dance form more than 600 years ago.

While Kandukuri Veeresalingam Pantulu was a freedom fighter and social reformer, Gurazada Appa Rao was an acclaimed writer whose famous work Kanyasulkam itself was a legend in Telugu literature.

Yerrapragada was part of the triumvirate (Nannaya and Tikkana were the others) that translated the Mahabharata into Telugu.

Sir Arthur Cotton, a British national, was the darling of Telugu people’s hearts as he built barrages on rivers Godavari and Krishna that turned Andhra Pradesh into a rice bowl.

Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, himself a legend, conceived the idea and installed the 33 statues on Tank Bund when he was Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in his second term between 1984 and 1989. In doing so, NTR’s main intention was to immortalize the lives of such legends and showcase them as an inspiration for future generations.

There were other lumaries like Palnati Brahma Naidu (a historic personality dated back to the Chola period), Raghupati Venkaiah (movies), Mutnuri Krishna Rao (journalist) and Tripuraneni Ramaswamy Choudary (reformer) whose statues too were destroyed today.

The statue of playwright and actor Ballari Raghava was also totally destroyed.

Statues of Shalivahana, Nannaya, Yogi Vemana, Kshetraya, Sri Sri, Gurram Jashua and CR Reddy have been partly damaged and desecrated.

Incidentally, the Telangana separatists did not touch statues of Suravaram Pratap Reddy, Rani Rudrama Devi, Molla, Maqdoom Moinuddin and a few others as they belonged to “Telangana.”

Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu has strongly condemned the destruction of statues of the legends. Expressing serious anguish over the vandalism, Chandrababu held the Kiran Kumar Reddy government squarely responsible for it.

Praja Rajyam Party president K Chiranjeevi also condemned the destruction of statues and said any protests should be organised in a peaceful manner.