Pydimarri Venkata Subba Rao (10 June 1916 – 1988) was an Indian

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

author who is best remembered as the composer of the National Pledge of India.

Writer and polyglot

Subba Rao was a native of Anneparthy village in the

Nalgonda District Nalgonda district is a district in the Telangana state of India. Nalgonda district has the highest number of mandals in the state with 31 mandals. The district shares boundaries with Suryapet district, Suryapet, Rangareddy, Yadadri Bhuvanagiri, ...

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

. He was a

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

, having mastered

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. He was also a

naturopathy Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. Difficult ...

doctor and a bureaucrat who wrote several books in Telugu, the most famous of which is the novel ''Kalabhairavudu''.

Composer of the National Pledge

Subba Rao composed the National Pledge in Telugu in 1962 while he was serving as the District Treasury Officer of

Vishakhapatnam District Visakhapatnam (; formerly known as Vizagapatam, and also referred to as Vizag, Visakha, and Waltair) is the largest and most populous metropolitan city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is between the Eastern Ghats and the coast of t ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. He was a close associate of the nationalist leader Tenneti Viswanadham, who forwarded the pledge to the then Education Minister of Andhra Pradesh, P.V.G. Raju who was also known as the Raja Garu of Vizianagaram. Raju directed all the schools in the district to have the students take the pledge and it was subsequently taken up at the national level. The Advisory Committee of the Department of Education, Government of India at its meeting in Bangalore in 1964 decided to introduce the pledge in all schools nationally from 26 January 1965. The Government of India had it translated into seven languages and directed that it be taken in schools every day. Curiously, Subba Rao himself remained unaware of the status of this pledge as the National Pledge. It was only when, after his retirement, he happened to hear his granddaughter read the pledge from a textbook that he and his family realised this. The records with the Union Human Resources Development Ministry also record him as the author of the Pledge although his family's letters to the central and state governments remained unanswered until his death in 1988.

Golden Jubilee Celebrations

2012 marks the golden jubilee year of the National Pledge and there are plans afoot to commemorate it and the author as part of the celebrations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rao, Pydimarri Venkata Subba 1988 deaths Telugu writers 1916 births