Hyderabad: The packed hall of Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad’s bustling Bagh Lingampalli area reverberated with songs, slogans, and powerful speeches by Marxist-Leninist ideologues on Thursday (February 20) morning.
The gathering paid tributes to a makeshift martyrs’ column, draped in red, located on the road outside the hall. Two boards with pictures of slain martyrs were erected beside the column. With hands raised in the air, the crowd chanted slogans, “Johar amaraveerulaku…konasagiddam amaraveerulu ashayalanu (To the martyrs of Johar… let’s continue the aspirations of the martyrs)”. Then, name after name were read out by someone or the other from the crowd to invoke the glory of their martyrdom. The names were followed by chants of “amar hai, amar hai (is immortal, is immortal)” from others.
The scenes left onlookers puzzled as there were no banners to announce the name of the organisation which had organised the event. A writing on the arch at the entrance merely read “forum of martyred revolutionary students” which gave no clue. Rightly so, the organisers did not mention any name because the event was to mark the 50th anniversary of a now-banned organisation – Radical Students Union (RSU). The police also took a lenient view apparently because the union was no longer active.
As the scenes unfolded on the road, it was as if each person recalled the names of those whom they could remember having fallen victim to police bullets in the long history of encounters aimed at curbing Naxalism in what was then Andhra Pradesh. Naxalism had taken hold since the peasants’ uprising in Srikakulam and Jagtial, following the Naxalbari incident in West Bengal, and continued intensely until 2004, with occasional resurgences later.
When the final moment came, it was left to an old woman – Soma Narsamma – to do the honours of hoisting the red flag.
Soma Narsamma (with raised fist) was given the honour of hoisting the flag at the 50th anniversary of Radical Students Union in Hyderabad. Photo: N. Rahul
Narsamma’s daughter Bhagya and two younger sons and another member of their family were killed in police encounters decades ago. Bhagya and her associate Puli Anjaiah, secretary of Andhra Pradesh state committee of the erstwhile People’s War Group (PWG) and a former RSU state president were allegedly picked up by police in Bengaluru and killed in an encounter at Pesara in Warangal district in 1993.
Accompanying Narsamma in the flag hoisting was Padma, a practicing advocate in Visakhapatnam. Padma was the associate of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, the official spokesman and second in command of Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI (Maoist)) – the new name of PWG after it merged with the Maoist Communist Centre of India in 2004.
Jagmohan Singh, retired professor of Punjab Agricultural University and a nephew of Bhagat Singh participated as the chief guest in the meeting.
The CPI (ML), PDSU and RSU
A founding member of RSU – Ch. Siva Reddy – set the tone saying the union was born out of the need to create awareness among students to work outside the confines of colleges and universities to carry forward the Naxalite movement.
Following the death of Naxalbari leader Charu Mazumdar in 1972, Kondapalli Seetaramiah took over the reins of the Central Organising Committee (COC) of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI (ML)) to lead the struggles in Andhra Pradesh. Till then, the students wing of COC was part of the Progressive Democratic Students Union (PDSU) of Chandrapulla Reddy group.
The students of COC walked out of the state conference of PDSU in Hyderabad on October 12, 1974, due to differences and decided to carry on their programmes in the name of RSU. Sticking to the ML philosophy, the RSU worked independently until Seetaramaiah floated the PWG in 1980.
Since then, the RSU was a powerful organ of PWG which participated in several militant struggles on social issues. It waged ideological and physical struggles against the communal politics of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on university campuses.
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The RSU and the Radical Youth League, an offshoot of PWG later, formed 1,100 squads of ten to 15 activists each to work in 2017 villages as part of ‘go to villages campaign’ between 1978 and 1984. With a socialist aim, the teams organised workers and led landless labourers against feudal lords in villages. It participated in the pro-reservations movement in the aftermath of Mandal Commission recommendations.
Ninety per cent of senior positions in the present day CPI (Maoist) were held by the cadre who graduated from the ranks of RSU, according to Narla Ravi who was the Hyderabad unit secretary of the union. He was himself promoted as a member of Jharkhand state committee of CPI (Maoist). Ravi also said Azad was the president of RSU thrice. Azad and a journalist Hem Chandra Pandey were picked up by police from Nagpur and killed in an alleged police encounter at a village in Adilabad district close to the inter-state border in 2010.
Ravi added that RSU successfully organised a fifty-day strike in polytechnics across erstwhile Andhra Pradesh demanding reservation for students in engineering admissions. The union led an agitation demanding nationalisation of bus routes operated by private transport services in Visakhapatnam.
A general secretary of RSU M.F. Gopinath was booked by police in the sensational escape of Seetaramaiah from police custody while undergoing treatment at Osmania General Hospital in Hyderabad in 1983. PWG men shot an escort police constable and led Seetaramaiah to return to an underground life in April 1983. He finally surrendered to the police a decade later. Gopinath, a cardiologist at the same hospital, had spoken to Seetaramaiah by ‘mulaqat’ facility at Musheerabad Central Jail where the latter was lodged days before the great escapade.
The RSU suffered its first major setback with the killing of four of its activists in an encounter at Girayipalli village near Siddipet in 1978. The victims included Surapaneni Janardhan Rao, a student of Regional Engineer College at Warangal. Another encounter near Yemmiganur in Kurnool district in 1999 put an end to its activities. A PhD student of Hyderabad Central University Veeraswamy and his comrade Srikanth were killed in the encounter at Yemmiganur. They were president and secretary of RSU, respectively.
Between 1977 and 1985, the RSU led movements for ‘new democratic revolution’ on a broader platform. It forged unity with PDSU to win students union elections on university campuses. It swept elections as a left front in Kakatiya University every year tlll 1985. But, it faced severe repression from 1987, forcing the union to hold its state conference underground for the first time. It was a challenge even to distribute posters, raise slogans and take up wall writings during this period. Otherwise, the RSU held six state conferences from 1987 to 1992.
The imposition of ban by the government on PWG, and, among others, RSU, Jana Natya Mandali (a song and dance troupe) and Rytu Coolie Sangham (a farmers’ union) in 1992 drastically brought down their programmes.
According to Ravi, RSU worked under different names post the ban. For instance, it worked as the Association of Progressive Thinkers for some time. Its state president Markandeya was killed in an encounter at that time.
Answering a question on what was good about RSU in the beginning and what went wrong as it evolved, an activist and former president of All India Revolutionary Students Federation (AIRSF) Siva Sundar told The Wire that RSU gave a philosophical purpose and political and ideological orientation to a generation of students who were from downtrodden sections. Every college campus became a platform for class struggle. RSU championed the cause of students belonging to landless farmers and lower middle classes.
“Unless there is a systemic change through a revolution, there cannot be a change in the lives of students of this background,” he remarked.
The Naxalite parties did not properly comprehend the challenges of evolving changes in the nature of semi-feudalism, capitalist exploitation and fascist uprising. The failure to understand the changing reality and devising programmes or strategies corresponding to the changing reality did not happen.
On the way forward, he said two questions must be addressed. One, identify the principal contradictions of present times with regard to feudalism and big landlords as against the conditions of the 1980s. Two, identify friends and enemies of neo-liberalism marked by fascism of present times because fascism has organic roots among masses who ought to be in the revolutionary camp but they are in the reactionary camp. “How you are going to win over them politically and ideologically is the question,” Sundar said.
The meeting was also addressed by retired professors G. Haragopal and Katyayani Vidmahe. Haragopal was Veeraswamy’s guide for his doctoral thesis when the latter was killed at Yemmiganur.
N. Venugopal, a key organiser of the two-day conference on February 20 and 21, said about 300 PWG Naxalites who were killed in encounters rose from the RSU.
