September-2026
As Early as 1970s, Comrade TN Made a Serious and Scientific Observation: India was Mortgaged
( Speech at Comrade Tarimela Nagi Reddy’ s 50 th Death Anniversary Meeting, 2 nd August, 2026 Hyderabad)
TN clearly stated in‘ India Mortgaged’ that India’ s economy has been built on distorted structures after the transfer of power. Infact this book is not only relevant to revolutionary or ML politics. But also has been recognised as a highly important work in progressive studies, academic disciplines, and research— a book that examines India through a scientific approach.
I came from Warangal and worked at Kakatiya University. At that time, the entire region was marked by an intense and vigorous movement. In keeping with that atmosphere, both teaching and research in the 1980s followed the same ideological line.
As early as in 1982, our Professor Sivarama Krishna handed us“ India Mortgaged” and insisted that we must read it. This shows that even then, universities— particularly progressive ones— regarded it as a relevant and important book and studied it accordingly. Everyone needs to understand these issues— the direction of the economy and the foundations on which it rests.
Why? Because the mode of production is the foundation. Only when we understand this foundation we will have the chance to correct its distortions, abolish the system of exploitation, and create a society free from exploitation and oppression. That is why it is essential to understand the structures of exploitation.
The painful reality today is that even after fifty years the situation has continued to deteriorate.
As early as in the 1970s, TN made a serious and scientific observation when he declared that
India was mortgaged. He clearly showed how, after the transfer of power, the Indian economy was being built on distorted foundations, and how every sector— agriculture, industry, and foreign investment— was coming under the dominance of imperialist forces.
Tragically, those distorted foundations have only grown stronger. The forces of exploitation have strengthened. Imperialist dominance has intensified. As a result, the country has declined further, and the crisis facing the working class among the majority of the people has become more severe.
W hen people speak of a working-class crisis, many think only of unemployment reaching historically high levels. But the problem is much deeper. After the introduction of the four labour codes, employment has lost all safety and security. What remains is largely informal, casual work. Outsourcing has become widespread, and now gig workers are forced to earn their livelihood on an hourly basis.
We are living in a time of deep crisis— a time in which these exploitative and unjust conditions have become the new normal. As early as in the 1970s, Nagi Reddy declared that India was under mortgage. Today, however, the country has become completely sold out.
Our respected friend Subodh Mitra recently recalled that Nagi Reddy Garu would begin his day by reading every newspaper. In contrast, when we pick up the mainstream press today, we find only thoroughly misguided reports.
Prof. Thota Jyothi Rani
It is well known that the entire media has been bought and systematically misleads the public.
If we sit down with the newspapers first thing in the morning, the only perspective we receive is the government’ s— a perspective carefully crafted to strengthen the system of exploitation. The real facts never reach us. As a result, we remain completely unaware of where and how the oppressed people are resisting this crisis.
The situation has deteriorated even further. The system of dependence has grown stronger. False definitions have also emerged that portray economic dependence itself as self-reliance.
Dependence is no longer acknowledged as dependence. The more severe the economic dependence becomes, and the stronger the dominance of imperialist forces grows, the more it is presented as self-reliance and development. We are living in a time when such misconceptions have become deeply entrenched.
In the post-independence period it was claimed that a socialist pattern of society would emerge through the public sector, that a socialist society itself would take shape, and that this was the inevitable direction and path.
What is most striking is that Nagi Reddy had already pointed out at that time: in the early stages of the public sector and of capitalism( capitalism had not yet fully developed in our country; instead, a semi-colonial, semi-feudal system had only strengthened), dependence would intensify.
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