Narla Venkateswara Rao - M.N. Roy

M.N. Roy

Narla studied the works of M.N. Roy scrutinising his ideas. Roy was then critical of Gandhi and his leadership of the Indian National Congress. He suggested alternative methods of reforming the Congress party. He also criticised Gandhi’s religious approach to politics. Roy had just then returned to India after 15 years' sojourn in Russia, Germany and China. Soon after he was arrested and detained for six years in 1930s in connection with the Meerut Conspiracy Case.He was then a relative stranger to most Indian journalists.

When Roy addressed a press conference in Madras 1938 July, Khasa Subbarao, editor of Indian Express wrote sarcastically of Ellen, Roy's wife. That made Roy furious and he castigated Subbarao with harsh words. The journalists including Narla could not take it and boycotted Roy's press conference. From then onwards no news of Roy appeared in the Andhra Prabha as long as Narla remained its editor.

The entire nation paid tributes to M.N.Roy after his death on 25 Jan.1954, but the Andhra Prabha did not editorially pay homage to him.When AGK Murthy's critical comment on it at a public meeting at Guntur was reported to Narla, he lost no time in obtaining as many books on Roy as possible from Guttikonda Narahari, secretary of the Radical Democratic Party (RDP) of Andhra Pradesh and set out to study them. Roy had briefly run the RDP 1942-48, until he moved towards the Radical Humanist Movement.

Next year (1956) Narla wrote an editorial on Roy. Not only that. As he began to study Roy's writings he started immensely liking his ideas. That also led to close friendship between A.G.K. Murthy and Narla. Narla disproved the popular belief that as age advances, cynicism and pessimism set in and that people start believing in karma, fate, the supernatural and the like and fall prey to all sorts of superstitions. On the other hand, his writings at that time were brimming with life, hope, optimism and above all humanism. Narla had meticulously maintained a diary, with copious notes on events, personalities and his thoughts.

The secret of Narla's fascination for M.N. Roy was his advocacy of human values, ethical norms, co-operative economy, decentralization of the political structure with power being spread out, renaissance, critical outlook towards life, scientific approach in understanding every aspect of nature, purging history of myths and parables, secularism keeping the State and religion apart, so that religion remains a matter of personal faith and not the basis of administration. Roy gave utmost importance to the value of FREEDOM. Narla wanted these positive aspects to be adopted by modern India so that it can discard superstitions and blind beliefs.