K KESHAVA RAO: LIFE IS ABOUT CREATING YOURSELF by Mihir Srivastava

K. Keshava Rao, popularly known as KK, is a young man of 87 years . A rebel by nature, he does what he believes in with penchant. And his actions are not driven by misplaced whims and fancies, but are informed decisions after due consideration. Over the past few decades, he has created an intellectual capital reading political theories and philosophies–both of the East and the West—that guides his thinking and responses.

KK has an interactive association with knowledge, yet pragmatic in his approach, therefore, is a wise man. Life is about living to the fullest. Being is an innate part of Becoming, and, is of the view that, the two are closely interwoven.  However, he prefers the latter, since life is a work in progress.

He has had a flourishing career as a politician extending for more than six decades, although Hyderabad is the city he made his home, lived intermittently in Delhi as member of parliament for three terms.

KK calls a spade a spade. His forthrightness is disconcerting for many fellow politicians. A man of a free mind, therefore, it’s difficult to exercise control on him. 

As a young member of legislative assembly, he sought the resignation of the sitting chief minister of his party, Channa Reddy, having failed to meet promises to the backward communities. In another insistence, he sought resignation of a minister, Baga Reddy, for having let down a fellow legislator, who was a Dalit and had been denied entry into a temple—Math at Mantralayam in Kurnool—because of his caste. Both of them were senior leaders of his own party.

His politics has always been issue based; for him the interest of the people is above that of the party. He wants the political parties to be accountable to people at large for better functioning of democracy.  That should be the case, but is hardly the case in the way politics is practised.

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Rebellious by temperament, KK thinks better, ahead of times, out of the box. He is not contained by the present context, or the precedence, and is blessed with the confidence to look at things differently, from a fresh perspective, and has the uncanny ability to effectively implement new ideas.  

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Having interacted with KK at leisure in the evenings when he is relatively relaxed, I got a peep into his personality. A sportsperson of yesteryears, he likes to watch sports in his spare time. We watched tennis and cricket matches​ ​i​n tandem, with muted volume, so that we could continue with conversation.

 KK has been around for a long time, has witnessed and participated in the making of history in his own quintessential ways, at the national level, particularly in his state of Andhra Pradesh (AP). I got the sense that he has a great understanding of people and their motivations, a curious man, he employs technology to good effect.

He was instrumental in the formation of the state of Telangana, carved out of AP. He was one of the second most prominent leaders of the TRS, which he joined after severing ties with the Congress party after 50 years, ‘with a heavy heart,’ he confesses.

I want to talk about his passion in the field of education. He set up the first open university in the country– now known as B R Ambedkar Open University. It was a watershed movement in the history of higher education in the country. It paved the way to integrate a larger number of youths to the higher education system, taking education to their doorstep by the use of technology. Distant learning is now a vogue idea; he is the one the pioneers.

Rebellious by temperament, KK thinks better, ahead of times, out of the box. He is not contained by the present context, or the precedence, and is blessed with the confidence to look at things differently, from a fresh perspective, and has the uncanny ability to effectively implement new ideas.

I get the sense that KK’s rebellious nature is a way of his self-expression. He doesn’t nudge from his point of view, unless someone has a better solution to offer. This aspect in him is ingrained, was born with it.

As a child he started protesting for what he thought was a legitimate right. Like, when he was barely ten years old, he garnered the support of fellow students to protest against the drying up of drinking water taps in school. He sat on a protest against being forced to wear a uniform in Sultan Bazar High School, while he insisted on wearing a traditional outfit to school.

His rebellion was driven by conviction, which made him a natural leader. KK has a great understanding of what motivates people and how to organise people into a cohesive political voice. In college, he headed the student unions, and coaxed the university to bring about many reforms.

A life dedicated to politics was a natural progression for him, at one point in time, perhaps in the 1960s, he was sympathetic to the radical-left-wing ideology and was fairly unapologetic in his tacit support to the Naxal movement, but he grew out of it.

KK is a liberal man and supports a political system that allows people to follow their passion without discrimination of gender, caste or creed. He is for a polity that corrects historical wrongs of caste discrimination over centuries.

A portrait of Mahatma Gandhi finds a prominent place in his living room, and a wooden charkha (a hand-driven spinning wheel) is placed on a table. Gandhi’s talisman has been his guiding force, "Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?’

The family was the first to realise his potential, elders, even his father, sought his counsel in tricky matters, and his words were mostly respected.

Apart from reading, he’s passionate about Urdu poetry and literature, we shared some couplets of Mirza Ghalib. I was mighty impressed because his mother tongue is Telugu. He is a scholar par excellence. 

KK’s family is his strength. He has seen so many ups and downs since very early in his life, a roller-coaster ride, his eldest brother made a fortune in a business and soon lost it all. 

The family stayed firmly united—parents, nine siblings, two widowed aunts, many young men from his ancestral village who stayed with them in Hyderabad to pursue education—helped them face the vagaries of destiny. The intense life in a big family during the formative years was a good training ground.  

He lost his life partner, Vasantha Kumari, a decade ago. His daughter, Gadwal Vijayalakshmi, is the mayor of Greater Hyderabad. He, however, remains the fulcrum of his family. Currently, he’s the advisor to Telangana government, with the rank of a cabinet minister, focusing on education. These days he is busy chairing a high-level committee that will formulate the educational policy of the state.

As George Bernard Shaw famously said, ‘Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.’ KK has done very well, he continues doing very well.