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TanguturiPrakasamPantulu is popularly known as Andhra Kesari. He was the First Chief Minister of the Andhra State, after its partition from Madras Province for the language reason. He was also served as Chief Minister of Madras Presidency. He was a freedom fighter and well known Indian politician.
He was the member of the Telugu Niyogi Brahmin family. He was born in Vinodarayunipalem village at Ongole, which is 26 kilometres away from Madras Presidency. He lost his father when he was eleven years old. On those days his mother was obliged to run a boarding house for livelihood. Prakasam moved to Rajahmundry with his teacher E HanumanthaRao for better educational opportunity. He always wanted to be the lawyer. He failed in matriculation examination but somehow he managed to go to the Madras for further study. Finally he became a popular lawyer. In 1904 at the age of 31, he was elected as the Municipal Chairman of Rajahmundry.
In the time of a court case in Madras, a barrister noticed his qualities in legal arguments and judgements. He suggested him to become a barrister. Prakasamcouldn’t do that because he was second grade pleader. So he decided to move to the England for legal studies. He reached to the England in 1904. He joined in the Royal India Society and participated for the election works of DadabhaiNaoroji in the House of Commons. He returned to India and joined Madras High Court when he finished the barrister course with the certificate of honour in London. On those days most of the successful lawyers were European and Tamil. He was the only Telegupopular lawyer. He fought for civil and criminal cases both. On those days he was also edited a law magazine named Law Times.
During that time Prakasam was came close to the freedom movement. He was impressed by few leaders. He supervised Bipin Chandra Pal’s speech at Madras. On those days Bipin Chandra Pal’s speech considered as a troublesome issue. He began to join Congress Party sessions regularly. He signed Satyagraha in October 1921, after the Lucknow pact. He left his job and started working as the editor of the newspaper Swarajya. He worked for the Telegu edition. He opened a khadi production centre and he ran a school. In December 1921, he was nominated as the general secretary of the Congress Party. He was a very brave person. Whenever he heard about the riot he tried to provide help to the people. He went to the Punjab in the time of Akali Satyagraha, and the Hindu- Muslim riots in Multan. He arranged a demonstration with thirty thousand congress volunteers at Guntur in the Non Cooperation movement in 1922. He was elected on Congress party ticket to the Central Legislative Assembly in 1926.
When Simon Commission visited India, congress workers planned to show the black flag with the slogan “Simon, Go Back”. When the commissionarrived to Madras, police didn’t allow protests in several sensitive places. But crowd was increasing in number and became restless at the Parry’s Corner near the Madras High Court. Then police started firing to control the crowd and one young man was killed in police firing. Then the police became ferocious and warned everyone to stay away from the dead body, otherwise they would shoot. Then Prakasam became furious and tore his shirt and told the police to shoot him. Everyone was surprised to saw his courage. Police was also stunned. Police understood the situation, gave way to Prakasam and his companions. From that incident he became the Andhra Kesari or The Lion of Andhra.
In 1930, he joined the Congress party which was led by Madan Mohan Malavya. But he resigned from the party when Gandhi and Congress party broke the salt tax law in the Dandi March. He also resigned from the legislator. On those days he was highly moved by the freedom movement. He was in the leading position of breaking the tax law at Madras. He stopped the publication of Swarajya for the Government claimed high deposit. After that he couldn’t run the paper due to insufficient cash.
Congress party won the majority in the Madras province in 1937 and Prakasam was contesting for the Chief Minister’s post. But he left that post for Rajaji and became the revenue minister. His major success was he formed and chaired The Zamindari Enquiry Committee. This committee had the power to look at the structural problems and agricultural loopholes in Zamindari system.
He was arrested and jailed for three years for joining the Quit India Movement in 1942. He also went to the ordinary people when he released from the jail. He visited the entire south India.
In 1946 Prakasam became the first Chief Minister of the Madras province when congress achieves the majority of the seats. Prakasamand Tamil leader Kamraj were against Rajaji. Rajaji was favourite to Gandhi and Neheru. But unfortunately that government stayed only for 11 months. Mahatma Gandhi ordered Prakasam to resign with some complaints against him. Like Prakasam accepted gifts and he wrongly used party fund.
After the Independence, in 1948 Prakasam visited Hyderabad. He met with Nizam who was still on power and few leaders. In 1952 he formed Hyderabad State Praja Party. His main motto was to defeat the Congress. But unfortunately his Praja party failed to come in power by alone and coalition was crashed even before it showed its power.
On 1st October 1953, a separate Telegulanguage state was established and Prakasam was the only choice for the Chief Minister. He was famous among the party and public. But unfortunately the government fell after one year due to the corruption charges and opposition of communists. On 1st November 1956 Telegu speaking part means Hyderabad state was attached with Andhra state and formed Andhra Pradesh. After this Prakasam was conduct a tour across the state for the harijans issue. In that tour when he was in the Harijanwwada near Ongole, he hurt by severe sunstroke and hospitalised and on 20 May 1957 he took his last breath.
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