T. Nagi Reddy

Who was T. Nagi Reddy?

Tarimala Nagi Reddy, often called "TN" was a communist politician from Andhra Pradesh, India. He was born in a wealthy family in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. He did his schooling from Rishi Valley School India, founded by the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti.He studied at Loyola College in Madras and at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. During his student days he got involved with nationalism and Marxism. His political activities got him jailed in 1940, 1941 and 1946. He revolted against his father who was a landlord and donated his land of over 1000 acres to landless labourers.

Reddy was elected to the Madras legislative assembly, as a communist candidate, in 1951. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantapur in 1957. In 1962 he was elected to the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly as a Communist Party of India candidate from Putloor. In 1967 he was again elected to the assembly, now as a Communist Party of India candidate from Anantapur. Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy a two-time Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and the sixth President of India was Nagi Reddy's brother-in-law.

In 1968 T.N. Reddy broke with CPI and formed the Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. He succeeded in attracting a large part of the CPI cadre to APCCCR. During a brief period APCCCR was part of All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. Reddy was however very critical of the left adventurist line of Charu Majumdar. Instead he wanted to promote a mass line. Thus Reddy and APCCCR were expelled from AICCCR.