Revolutionary poet and folk singer Gaddar breathed his last on Sunday at a private hospital in Hyderabad, where he was being treated for sometime now.
Gaddar, who was popular by his stage name rather than his actual name of Gummadi Vittal Rao, had been ailing for a long time.
Gaddar, who went underground in the 1980s and became a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), was the founder of the Jana Natya Mandali, the outfit’s cultural wing.
Gaddar was active in the Naxalite movement till 2010, and later joined the movement for Telangana’s statehood.
Gaddar went underground in the 1980s and became a member of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War. He was part of its cultural wing and performed in from of the crowds. He has a bullet in spine as a result of a failed assassination in 1997.
After being active in the Naxal movement till 2010, Gaddar later identified himself as an Ambedkarite. He adopted the name Gaddar as a tribute to the pre-independence Gadar party which opposed British colonial rule in Punjab during the 1911.
With the resurgence of Telangana movement, Gadar expressed his support for the cause of a separate Telangana state.
He said he was strongly with those who are for a Telangana of social justice where Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes have political representation on par with the OCs and BCs of the state.
