Vavilala Samstha

About The Founder:

Padmabhushan, Kalaprapurna, Dr. Vavilala Gopalakrishnaiah was born on the 17th day of September, 1906 and passed away after leading a successful life, on the 29th day of April, 2003. People affectionately calls Dr. Vavilala Gopalakrishanaiah as ‘Sri. Vavilala’.

Sri. Vavilala was a renowned Indian National freedom fighter, social reformer, a selfless legislator and an ardent follower of the ‘Gandhian’ philosophy, who is revered as the ‘Andhra Gandhi’.

Sri. Vavilala was born on the 17th day of September, 1906 in Sattenapalli village of Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh into an orthodox Brahmin family of Smt. Peramma and Sri. Samayajulu. Being influenced by the call of Sri Lokamanya Balagangadhar Tilak, one of the pillars for the Indian freedom struggle, Sri. Vavilala had jumped into the National Freedom Struggle at his tender age of 13 years. Since then, he never looked back in serving the Nation. He was jailed for about 27 times and spent several years of his adolescent years of life in jail, for the sake of this country. He had participated in almost all the major movements during the period for the free nation like Non-cooperation movement, Dandi March, etc., Sri. Vavilala had left the school when he was in his third (3rd) standard. But, nevertheless, he had written about 60 books both in English and Telugu languages. The said books are not general in nature but they are on specific topics. Sri. Vavilala had also worked for many daily newspapers like ‘Andhra Patrika’ and had made invaluable contributions to the freedom struggle by motivating people.

After Independence, Sri. Vavilala was elected to the Madras Assembly, as a Member of its Legislative Counsel (MLC). Subsequently, Sri. Vavilala had played a pivotal role in the “Visalandhra”, “Jai Andhra” and “Separate Andhra” State movements. Sri. Vavilala was a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) of the Andhra State from 1952 to 1972, being elected from Sattenapalle constituency. On all four occasions, he was elected as an independent candidate, without having any affiliations to any political parties. Further subsequently, Sri. Vavilala had led movements like the cooperative movement, the library movement and the movement for making Telugu as an official language in the State of Andhra. Sri. Vavilala was the first Chairman for the Telugu Official Language Commission of Andhra Pradesh and during his reign, the Telugu type writer was invented.

Sri. Vavilala was a great visionary. His vision for the future needs had gifted the Telugu people with the ‘Nandigonda project’ which is famously known as the “Nagarjuna Sagar Project, the Sri Sailam Project, a Steel plant at Vizag, a Central University at Hyderabad (now known as the Hyderabad Central University), Nagarjuna University, etc., As a classic example for his untiring services to the society, Sri. Vavilala had led the most popular movement of this era, for the complete ban of alcohol popularly known as the “Prohibition Movement”. This movement was led when Sri. Vavilala was above 80 years of age. But, what is to be noted is his energy to roam all over the 23 districts of Sri. Vavilala was the first Chairman of a State-level implementation committee for total prohibition before the ban on Indian-made foreign liquor was relaxed in the year 1997.

For the selfless and untiring services rendered by Sri. Vavilala, the Government of India, the State of Andhra Pradesh among so many other organisations have honoured this great human being with several awards including but not limited to the ‘Padma Bhushan’, Kalaprapurna and a doctorate by the Andhra University.