Jwalamukhi

Who was Jwalamukhi?

Jwalamukhi was the pen name of Veeravalli Raghavacharyulu, who was an Indian poet, novelist, writer and political activist.

Jwalamukhi won the national Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Rangeya Raghava Life History. Among the other more prominent of his novels and thousands of poems were Veladina Mandaram, Hyderabad Kathalu and Votami-Tirugubatu.

Jwalamukhi was a prominent member of the "Digambara Kavulu", a group of rebel poets whose views and style is recognised as a decisive break in the history of modern Telugu literature. He was also a co-founder of the Revolutionary Writers Association in 1970, an active member of the Organisation for People's Democratic Rights and a founder of the India-China Friendship Association. He was the Andhra Pradesh secretary and national vice president of the India-China Friendship Association until his death.

He was born in the Sitarambagh section of Hyderabad. He founded Sitarambagh Residents Welfare Association and opposed Laxmi Nivas Ganeriwal. After the foundation of Virasam in 1970, Jwalamukhi was arrested in 1971 for his writings along with two other Virasam members under the AP Preventive Detention Act. One of his poems was proscribed under Section 99 of the Code of Criminal Proceedings, and all copies of the book in which it appeared were seized.