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Articles by K BalagopalSubscribe to K Balagopal

The Forbidden Wood

Vol. 23, Issue No. 22, 28 May, 1988
K Balagopal

K Balagopal The anniversary of the Indravelli killing was observed this year with yet another killing of a tribal in Adilabad district. The difference was that this time there was no possibility of blaming the 'extremists'. Also, the killing took place, not in the moderately forest-covered western part of Adilabad but in the substantially deforested coal and cement producing east.

Meerut 1987

Vol. 23, Issue No. 16, 16 Apr, 1988
K Balagopal

"The Muslims started it" and therefore the administration decides that it is going to wreak vengeance against the Muslims and ensure that they learn their lesson for good This is the "theme" of Meerut 1987.

To Judge, but How to Judge

Vol. 23, Issue No. 9, 27 Feb, 1988
K Balagopal

K Balagopal A truth that is usually left unsaid in discussions of the acts of revolutionary groups is that the activists and leaders who indulge in allegedly anarchic acts at the cost of the people are themselves from the people, are part of the people, and they share the cost with their people.

Chintapalli Again-One Eventful Day in a Lawless Life

Vol. 23, Issue No. 5, 30 Jan, 1988
K Balagopal

The Indian People's Human Rights Tribunal is holding an inquiry into the burning, allegedly by the police, of 46 tribal hamlets consisting of 638 houses in the Chintapalli Agency area of Visakhapatnam district. The first sitting of the Tribunal began in Visakhapatnam on December 11, 1987. Tribal victims of the arson had come from Chintapalli to depose. But hardly two hours after the start of the inquiry a mob organised by the police stormed the hall and assaulted the deponents.

An Ideology for the Provincial Propertied Class

Vol. 22, Issue No. 50, 12 Dec, 1987
K Balagopal

An Ideology for the Provincial Propertied Class I WAS reviewing a book and not the activities of the Shetkari Sanghatana (EPW, September 5-12). I do not think I referred to that organisation even once in the review; Sharad Joshi is mentioned only because there is an article of his in the book and my comment was only on his article, and not on the movement he leads. What I was trying to convey in the review is that we are witnessing the consolidation of a certain class in the 'districts', the class which I have, with deliberate vagueness, called the 'provincial propertied class' as I do not wish to use the more usual variant, the 'regional bourgeoisie' because of all that the expression conveys in the light of European history. And I was trying to say that the opinions expressed in the articles under review collectively constitute an ideology that perfectly suits the consolidation of this class. This is not, by itself, a comment on the "farmers' movements", though there is much that one can say about those movements in the light of this understanding.

Congress (I) vs Telugu Desam Party-At Last a Lawful Means for Overthrowing a Lawfully Constituted Government

Vol. 22, Issue No. 41, 10 Oct, 1987
K Balagopal

One of the secretaries of the Andhra Pradesh Congress(I) has in a strange law-suit petitioned the High Court to issue a writ of quo warranto questioning the Telugu Desam chief minister's right to continue in office and a writ of mandamus to the central government directing it to impose president's rule in the state. On the surface the petition reflects the frustration of the Congress leaders in the state At a deeper level it reveals much more about the politics and the fractional struggles of the ruling classes.

An Ideology for the Provincial Propertied Class

Vol. 22, Issue No. 36-37, 05 Sep, 1987
K Balagopal

and killing men in front of their women and children, amounted to a 'violation of the home'. The fact that it was those to whom one ordinarily looks for protection, who actively participated in these assaults aggravated their sense of injustice even further. Quite clearly, the role of the army in Amritsar prefigured the role of the 'neighbour' in the JJ settlements of Delhi. Where neighbours actively helped save lives, it was significant that Sikhs had to leave their homes and take sanctuary. The need for refuge found political expression in the concept of Khalistan

Karamchedu Second Anniversary

Vol. 22, Issue No. 33, 15 Aug, 1987
K Balagopal

Karamchedu: Second Anniversary K Balagopal July 17 was the second anniversary of an event that has done much to shape political awareness in Andhra Pradesh in recent times: the Karamchedu killing of 1985. What has kept the issue alive and a thorn in N T Rama Rao's side is the birth of an organised dalit movement as a result of Karamchedu. The Dalit Mahasabha was formed in September 1985 and is an active and growing movement today ONE way of marking history is by the anniversaries of events of injustice; of suppression, of pillage and of loot. It is certainly more moral than marking history by the anniversaries of coronations; and more rational than marking it by the birth, death, revelation or flight of a prophet, July 17 this year was the second anniversary of an event that has done much to shape political awareness in Andhra Pradesh in recent times: the Karamchedu killing of 1985 Close relatives of the chief minister's son-in-law, Venkateswara Rao, a doctor, led a brutal assault on the Madigas of the village, killing six men and raping three girls. The assault was remarkable for its brutality that is not captured by the figures of the casualties: you can knife a man to death, or you can smash his skull with an axe, break his limbs, and dig a spear into his groin. The two are equally effective ways of committing murder, but when the latter is preferred, the choice conveys a message independent of the fact of the killing.

A Tale of Arson

Vol. 22, Issue No. 29, 18 Jul, 1987
K Balagopal

A Tale of Arson In Chintapalli in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, the tribals' conflict today, after the statisation of forests, is directly against the state than against non-tribal outsiders. The communists have been at the forefront of the tribals

Censorship by Force-A Telugu Prescription for the Yellow Virus

Vol. 22, Issue No. 26, 27 Jun, 1987
K Balagopal

Censorship by Force A 'Telugu' Prescription for the 'Yellow' Virus ABOUT a year and a half ago, what is called Indian Public Opinion was taken aback when it came to know that N T Rama Rao

ANDHRA PRADESH-I-Defeat in Victory

Vol. 22, Issue No. 14, 04 Apr, 1987
K Balagopal

ANDHRA PRADESH-I Defeat in Victory K Balagopal THE press has hailed it as a repeat mandate for N T Rama Rao but his party's victory in the recently concluded panchayat (upper tier) elections is not all that spectacular. Compared to the 1985 assembly polls he has actually fallen short of maintaining his hold in terms of the percentage of posts won, while the Congress(I) has pulled itself up almost double; partly at NTR's expense but mainly at the expense of the other opposition parties. Barring the CPI(M), and that thanks to the party's alliance with NTR, all the others have come a sad cropper. The Congress(I) did even better in the municipal elections which were held simultaneously, winning more than half the 95 municipalities, including the corporation of Vijayawada.

ANDHRA PRADESH- Missing Telugu Desam Style

Vol. 22, Issue No. 9, 28 Feb, 1987
K Balagopal

more the press and civil liberties organisa ANDHRA PRADESH tions raise a hue and cry about 'encounter' killings, the more the police have been tempted to discover new ways of getting rid of naxalite activists. And making people just K Balagopal 'disappear' is the easiest alternative What 'Missing': Telugu Desam Style A DOCUMENTARY on post-Allende Chile, made by an Australian producer, tells a gruesome tale of 'missing' persons. About 2,500 liftist opponents of the regime have been 'missing' in that country, and this tale is about two of them, one a leader of a teachers' organisation. The events that follow their 'disappearance' have a bizarrery familiar ring. The friends and comrades of the 'missing' persons accuse the government of having picked them up and done away with them. The government at first denies the fact. The teacher's colleagues hold a protest meeting at his college, at which his teenaged son makes a speech; he warns them that they must do something before his father becomes one more corpse floating anonymously down the river. A few days later, a couple of dead bodies are discovered floating down the river. They are identified as those of the two missing men. The democratic- minded public rises in protest, led by a church-based human rights group. Predictably, government-sponsored righteous Christians demonstrate outside the church, accusing the priests of preaching communism in the name of human rights. The priest is at that time actually telling the congregation inside that atrocities like beating up demonstrators, nightly raids on poor slum dwellers, etc, cannot be accepted silently. The government for its part goes on air with the statement that unnamed international terrorists or revolutionaries or whatever, who cannot forgive failure, must have killed these men for having failed to make a revolution in Chile; and that all this noise about human rights is merely an attempt to kill a second bird with the same stone by putting the blame for their crime on the Chilean govern ment. The denouement

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