Maverick Messiah

Book cover

Vice-president of India M Venkaiah Naidu releasing Maverick Messiah on 18 January 2021

Maverick Messiah: A Political Biography of N.T. Rama Rao is an analytical account of the role of the actor-turned-politician Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR), who founded Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1982 in the United Andhra Pradesh and stormed to power in an unprecedented victory. Written by Ramesh Kandula,^[1] a Hyderabad-based journalist, the book has been published by Penguin Random House India and was formally released in India in January 2021 by vice-president of India M Venkaiah Naidu.^[2] The book is available in Hardcover and in Kindle format.

About the book[]

NTR's political career spanned less than 14 years, but the imprint he left in that rather short period was remarkable, the book says.^[3] But NTR's rather dramatic entry into politics, the profound impact he left on the people of Andhra Pradesh and the vital role he played in national politics during his relatively short political life have not received deserving recognition. The book deals with these aspects in depth.

NTR waged an uncompromising fight against Congress Party all through his political life and it could be said that he was the original proponent of 'Congress-mukt' Bharat philosophy. According to the author, NTR's most significant contribution was in the area of Centre-state relations, which constituted his core political philosophy. NTR was not the first politician to talk about federalism in the Indian context but the credit for pushing Centre-state relations into the mainstream agenda should largely be accorded to him. The political biography also discusses in detail the complexity of the political personality of NTR, who dressed like a Hindu sanyasi but remained secular to the core in his public life.

Reception[]

Writing in The Wire, journalist and writer Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr praised the detailed narration as making the book solid in every sense of the word and complimented it as a good example of how a political biography/history should be written.^[4] During his book release speech, Vice-president Venkaiah Naidu said that as someone who was closely involved with NTR during some of the most tumultuous days of his political stint, he could say that the author, as a political biographer, had been accurate and neutral in his depiction of events.^[5] Author and commentator Sanjay Baru recommended the book for its good stuff, while public intellectual Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan said the book was a very objective, lucid, truthful biography and a dispassionate account of a politician's role in shaping the public life of his state and the nation.^[6]

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