(S.Ravi Seshu)
The crusader of the anti-arrack movement in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, Vardhaneni Rosamma, more popular as Dubagunta Rosamma being the native of a sleepy village of Dubagunta in Nellore district, passed away at 93 on Sunday. Amidst penury, she died due to kidney and liver related issues, according to reports.
Inspired by a story she had read in her night school under the title: Seetamma Katha, Rosamma waged a lone battle against liquor from 1991 with a strong conviction that no family should suffer like her due to the liquor menace. Soon she could muster support from the womenfolk in the village, who equally suffered due to the liquor consumption of their husbands and sons.
The largest circulated Telugu newspaper, Eeandu, took up the cause and played a vital role in projecting Rosamma-led anti-liquor fight as a major movement of those times. Inspired by Eenadu, the Telugu Desam Party founder NT Rama Rao supported the movement and women organisations and communists hit the roads demanding prohibition. The issue dominated the election campaigns in 1994, with NTR promising to implement prohibition as State policy. On January 16, 1995, within days after he becoming Chief Minister, the Andhra Pradesh Prohibition Act was passed. It was NTR’s first legislative business in his third and final term as Chief Minister.
The actor-turned politician described the step as obligation fulfilled towards his adapadachulu (sisters-in-law) and entire womenfolk and intellectuals welcomed the move. Later, his son-in-law Nara Chandrababu Naidu reintroduced liquor from April 1, 1997, restricting the dry law to arrack. He claimed that it was “not successful or feasible because of the leakages within the State and from across the borders.”
Rosamma, who was credited for the historic decision of NTR, was bedridden for the last four years and she couldn’t afford the medical expenses in the last three years. She had appealed to the government, non-governmental organisations, and philanthropists to come to her rescue and donate liberally in 2013 but it fell in deaf ears.
The fact that she lost the bottle battle dawned on Rosamma at her twilight. A heartbroken Rosamma told in an interview: “It is shameful that the government, instead of promoting good health, is encouraging the people to drink more. There are umpteen ways for the government to earn money without liquor. What can I do and for whose sake do I resume the movement? The very women who worked with me to start the anti-arrack movement are now vying with men to get licenses for liquor shops. I wept for a whole day, unable to digest the news that the same Nellore women who were the torchbearers of the anti-arrack movement jostled with men for liquor shops.”
RIP, Rosamma garu.
