Hyderabad: Dodda Padma, one of the last surviving veterans of Telangana’s armed peasant struggle, died in Hyderabad on Tuesday night. She was 99.
Padma had fractured her hip after a fall at her home in Chilukur, Suryapet district, on July 25. She was shifted to a private hospital in the city, but died following complications from surgery, her daughter Kalpana said.
A lifelong Communist, Padma spent years underground during the rebellion against Nizam rule in the late 1940s. Alongside her husband, CPI leader and former Huzurabad MLA Dodda Narsaiah, she lived in the Nallamala forests for three years, serving as a courier for the party and distributing underground literature at the height of the armed movement.
Born in Atlapragada village of present-day NTR district in Andhra Pradesh, Padma was raised in a politically active household. Her father, Katragadda Rangayya, was a respected Communist organiser. From her teenage years, she was drawn into the ideological and organisational work of the party.
After the armed phase ended, Padma continued her activism through the All India Democratic Women’s Association, fighting for women’s rights and community welfare. Friends and comrades remember her as fiercely committed, politically grounded, and quietly fearless.
Her death marks the end of a generation shaped by revolution and resistance. Tributes poured in from former colleagues and political leaders across the state. CPI functionaries, literary figures, and veteran freedom fighters described her as a symbol of courage whose life belonged to the people and the movement.
