We all remember standing in our school assembly and reciting, “India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters...”. But how many of us remember the author who wrote our pledge? At least, how many of us know that the pledge was written by our very own Telugu author? Unknown to many is the fact that our national pledge was initially written in Telugu by an author and Bureaucrat Pydimarri Venkata Subbarao.
Pydimarri Venkata Subbarao was born in Anneparthy village in Nalgonda District. He was a multi lingual having mastered Sanskrit, English, Hindi and Arabic. He was also a neuropathy doctor, a bureaucrat and an author. He wrote several books out of which a novel called ‘Kalabhairavudu’ was very well known.
He composed the National pledge in Telugu when he was working as district Treasury officer in Visakhapatnam in 1962. It was then forwarded to the then Education Minister of Andhra Pradesh, P.V.G. Raju who ordered that the pledge should be recited in every school in the district. Later in 1964, it was decided by the Advisory Committee of Department of Education that this pledge should be introduced in all schools nationally from January 26, 1965. It was later officially translated into English and several Indian languages.
On a surprise note, the author himself remained unaware of these honours. It was until he overheard his granddaughter recite it from her text book, he learnt that his pledge received national wide respect. The Union Human Resources Development Ministry also record him as the author of the Pledge although his family's letters to the Central and State governments remained unanswered until his death in 1988. The Uttarandhra Rakshana Vedika wished to bring to public notice the fact that the pledge was first composed in Visakhapatnam and heard in the schools of the city. Moreover, the authorities pressurised the government in 2012, to celebrate the completion of 50 years since the pledge was composed, in memory of Venkata Subba Rao who passed away in 1988. That was when his name saw the limelight as the composer of our national pledge.
So, on the account of our nation completing its 70 successful years of Independence, let us remember the unsung heroes of our country whose names aren’t popular, but their works can never be ignored!
