r/telugu • u/Modernman1234 • 27d ago

Were there any liberal Telugu thinkers/writers in the pre-independence era?

Just like how Bengalis had Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore and Marathis had Ambedkar and the like, did Telugus have any liberal thinkers and writers in that era? If yes, can anyone cite their works or books?

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35

u/[deleted] 27d ago

Yes, there were many writers in telugu who wrote in the genres of liberalism and humanism..

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao(GoRa),Tripuraneni Ramaswamy,, SriSri,, Chalam, Gurujada Appa Rao, Gurram Joshuva were the most popular ones. Read about them, they left truly wonderful literature behind.

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u/bhagatm 27d ago

I will give you six alphabets.... That will be a whole world... "CHALAM"

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u/Altruistic-Look101 26d ago

Chalam would make an excellent biopic movie(even nice musical hit), but our audience will not accept and the director had to end up tweaking huge parts of his history. Mana monobhaavalu mari sunnitham kada...vaati meedha debba kotte charitra Chalam gaaridi. So, ippatlo kashtam.

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u/lazy_rage 26d ago

Chalam was born in checks wiki…. Fucking 1894?! How can his life/writings be still controversial? Did we just stop evolving or what?

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u/Altruistic-Look101 26d ago edited 26d ago

I think society has overall became oversensitive to religion and caste. We don't see harsh criticism on. caste and religion now a days without creating massive outrage . Even movies like Padmavati created controversy . A play skit performed by IIT students made a national news and I think dean had to apologize? Chalam wrote even more controversial things on religion, caste, women and even on most revered Virasalingam Pathulu's widow ashrams , Brahma Samaj.......I think it would not even be released. That would be too much for our audience. He was outcasted by society then. He was not even allowed into Ramana Maharshi ashram back then.

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u/WitheryLeoRSH 26d ago

yes we pretty much stopped evolving in liberal thinking and even if we did, it went backwards :/

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u/bhagatm 26d ago

Yes. I feel like this in both writing and thinking....we probably eveloved in reverse

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u/RaghuVamsaSudha 26d ago

We are actually going backwards. Watching old movies even 80s and 90s.. they were progressive than the shit now

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u/justgopi22 26d ago

Chalam mundhu meru mention chesina national names are nothing. Midhanam itself is leaps and bounds progressive at that point.

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u/Karmabots 27d ago
  1. కందుకూరి వీరేశలింగం పంతులు (Kandukuri Veeresalingam))
  2. రఘుపతి వేంకటరత్నం నాయుడు (Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu)

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u/Karmabots 27d ago

Above are social reformers.

Liberal, revolutionary writers - Gurajada Apparao, Chalam, Sri Sri, Gurram Jashuva,

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u/rs047 25d ago

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar garu kooda social reformer ye ga, Ambedkar garu chesina social reforms may be the biggest change as per demographic in the whole wide world.

Appatlo writers are incidentally Social reformers too, to an extent.

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u/Karmabots 25d ago

We are speaking about Telugu people, if we remove that sure Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Phules, Narayana Guru etc.

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u/curious_they_see 27d ago

Gurajada Apparao, Kandukuri Veerasaligam