Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao Biography 
Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao was a freedom fighter and social worker from Andhra Pradesh. He lived during the period, 14 September 1883 – 29 February 1960. He is also remembered as the person who named the region as Rayalaseema. "Gadicherla Foundation award" is instituted in his memory and given annually to people who made significant contributions in the areas championed by Rao. It’s given by Gadicherla foundation. He along with along with Iyyanki Venkata Ramaiah and Paturi Nagabhushanam are regarded as trinity of library movement in Andhra Pradesh in the pre-independent era.
Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao was a freedom fighter who was born in Kurnool in 1883. He completed his master’s from Madras Christian College in 1906, and then joined a teachers’ training school. It was during those years, he joined freedom struggle movement. He attended a lecture by Bipin Chandra Pal at Rajahmundry, and got inspired by his speech. Next day, when the students reached college with a badge captioned ‘Vande mataram’ the principal asked them to remove it before entering classes. When students refused to take the order, as a student leader Rao was dismissed. This incident became a turning point of his life, and later he plunged into nationalist movement.
In 1908, Rao started a Telugu weekly newspaper publication called 'Swarajya'. He criticized different wrong policies of British through his articles published through the magazine. In 1914 he became the secretary for the Andhra division of the Home Rule League formed by Tilak and Annie Besant. In 1923, he joined the Swarajya Party formed by Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru. He had a good stint with politics, and got elected to Madras Legislative Council.
Published: October 08, 2018
Updated: October 08, 2018
