00:12This old man in a dhoti and red shawl was hugging and kissing Rahul Gandhi in front of a cheering
00:17crowd in 2023. Years later, in 2026, inside parliament, his name came up again. Home Minister
00:24Amit Shah brought him up while attacking the Congress, pointing to Rahul Gandhi's past
00:28meetings with figures he described as linked to the Naksal ideology.
00:32But how did Gumadi Vittal Rao, known across Telangana and beyond as Gaddaar,
00:37go from a folk singer and engineering aspirant to a man who lived with a bullet lodged into his
00:42spine till the end? The answer lies in his origins. Born in a poor Dalit family in Medak, Telangana,
00:48Gaddaar grew up in hardship. His father, influenced by B.R. Mbedkar, pushed him to study. He made it to
00:53an engineering college in Hyderabad. But he didn't stay. The rise of the Dalit Panthers and the
00:58influence of the Naksalbadi movement drew him towards revolutionary politics in the 1970s.
01:04He joined the cultural front, went underground, travelled through forests, tribal belts and remote
01:09villages, singing songs of resistance. Years later, Gaddaar returned to the mainstream. The man known
01:15for his dhoti and red shawl gradually switched to shirts and trousers, even adopting a clean-shaven look.
01:21But his voice never lost its edge. It travelled far beyond underground circles and played a crucial
01:26role in the Telangana agitation that led to its statehood in 2014. And if you're wondering why
01:31he's called Gaddaar, it was a tribute to the pre-independence Gaddaar movement that opposed British
01:37rule. In Telugu, people called him Praja Yudha Nauka, a worship of the people's struggles.
01:42But that life came at a cost. In the 1990s, he was shot. A bullet lodged into his spine,
01:47and it stayed there for the rest of his life. In 2018, he voted for the first time.
01:52He even floated a political outfit, the Gaddaar Praja Party, but nothing came off it.
01:56On August 6, 2023, Gaddaar died in Hyderabad. He was 77.
02:01So when his name surfaces in parliament debates in 2026, it isn't just about a meeting or a slogan.
02:07It's about a man who meant very different things to different people. A revolutionary voice to some,
02:12a controversial figure to others, and to many, just Gaddaar.
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