పులుల సత్యాగ్రహం [Pulula Satyagraham]

by Viswanatha Satyanarayana, విశ్వనాథ సత్యనారాయణ

139 pages, Paperback

About the author

విశ్వనాథ సత్యనారాయణ

Reviews

[Rahmanuddin Shaik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a satire on how Satyagraham as a tool has been misused by the people in fame and power. There is no direct link shown to Mahatma Gandhi and the book, though he is mentioned as proponent of Satyagraham. It is discussed that people like Mahatma Gandhi only lead the Satyagraham but never take the consequences and burden, which are loaded onto innocent followers.
A village, Danavayipalem is described, which is adjacent to a forest, a stream separating them. Tigers of the forest attack the villagers and their cattle and the villagers send a cry to the bureaucracy to help them with no response from the authorities. Then a Gandhian starts a Satyagraham against the tigers. The tigers are all the more happy, for, the Satyagrahis decide to protest at the mouth of the caves where the tigers dwell, and the tigers now need not put effort into hunting.
As at the fate of Satyagraham concept turns to failure, the Gods appear as tigers to keep the spirit of Satyagraham up.
Viswanatha goes onto describe minute human instincts such as picking up mangoes from vendor and shows how these are derived from primitive animal instincts of picking up grass on other side of stream for grazing by cattle.

[Kranthi Reddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satirical novel implying the loopholes and ineffectiveness and the underlying irrationality in non-violent mass/popular movements against oppression/imperialism (like in Indian independence struggle against British). The book depicts how common people get sucked in to the mass hysteria using political rhetoric, means, ideas to appeal to the common people that kill their faculty to think while arousing their emotion for self-sacrifice as the pimary objective to suit the selfish/political interests of the elite few.