http://balagopal.org/?p=843Remembering K Balagopal
Tributes to K. Balagopal, tireless activist for human rights and for justice
Balagopal Interview with Deepa Dhanaraj (Transcript)
without comments
BALAGOPAL INTERVIEW—by DEEPA DHANRAJ
Video Links:
Deepa Dhanraj Interview: Face To Face with Balagopal (Part I) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZvuIIjSbEY
Deepa Dhanraj Interview: Face To Face with Balagopal (Part II) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYv_vEhx0rU&feature=related
I had vaguely leftist sympathies almost from my initial college days.
Though I think in the beginning I was more of an admirer of Bertrand
Russell and through him I had an idea that communists are good in the
heart but wrong in the head. That's roughly Bertrand Russell's
attitude towards the communist movement. Up to the emergency, I also
thought that… I had a lot of friends among the Naxalite movement in
Warangal where I was studying, but I thought that philosophy was all
wrong, though they were, they were good in the heart. Their heart was
in the right place. The Emergency that way.. I mean I couldn't find
anything in Russell's philosophy which would explain the Emergency. Or
in anything else that I believed at that time which would explain the
Emergency. I thought the Marxist understanding would help me to
explain more. If I remember rightly it was during the Emergency that I
declared to myself that I am a Marxist hereafter. Later I became a
sympathizer. But as far as activity is concerned I was never… I was
only in the civil rights movement from the very beginning. 1978, 79 I
was in civil rights movement. Being in Warangal made a lot of
difference; if I had been somewhere else perhaps I won't have been
involved in these…. Warangal was a major center for the ML movement in
its earlier phase. Where one could see its social content, one did not
have to infer it dialectically. One could see it physically. That they
were there among the poorest sections of the people and for whom the
law had done nothing for the last, by that time 30 years, today it is
50 years. That one could see.
1.33
And I think also that , it is partly to the credit of the civil rights
movement in Andhra Pradesh that we have been able to educate the
ordinary people that encounter means murder. Today one does not have
to tell them. It's taken for granted that encounter means murder and
today the position is that the police have to explain and prove that
it's a real encounter. That's I think, its some achievement that has
been…. the achievement of the civil rights movement here. That also
has happened. Well, that's how it began. And, well subsequently it had
to grow. It had to grow by the very logic of its.. the cause it
exposed.
My own view which may not be fully accepted by everybody is that once
you formulate a protest in terms of principle, you have to; firstly..
you can never formulate a protest only in terms of interests. You can
never say I am being oppressed; you have to say oppression is wrong.
That's the only way you can formulate a protest. The moment you do
that, the principle becomes universal. Not universal in the sense of
100% universal, but it finds for itself a class which goes beyond you.
Then what happens is that, you will have to speak for many more
people, which again has its own further consequences. So a perpetual
expansion of the principled concerns is unavoidable in the very fact
that a protest has to be expressed in terms of universal values. So
once we say that torture is wrong, it is impossible for civil rights
movement to say torture of Naxalites is wrong. You have to say torture
is wrong. Once you say torture is wrong you have to look at who else
is being tortured. So we had to look.
In the beginning police used to make fun of us. That look when you
come to a police station asking for the release or somebody to be
produced in court who happens to be a radical, he is in the lockup,
there are ten more people in the lock up along with him, why don't you
talk about them? Police, of course were not interested that we should
talk about them. They were interested in exposing our one sidedness.
But we learnt a lesson from that. So we started saying say that
torture is wrong. And if torture is wrong, then you have to answer
many more questions. Because you are saying torture not only of a
political revolutionary, but also of a criminal is wrong. Then you
have to answer for yourself what is crime? What is civil rights
movement's understanding of crime? Is it the same thing as that of the
system or do you have a different understanding? Can you be satisfied
with a totally subversive understanding that — can you say that all
crime is protest? Obviously it is not. There is some crime which even
ordinary people don't like. So one has to formulate a notion of crime.
So the movement started expanding.
3.56
1985 brought about a major break. I remember very well that prior to
1985.. I had a few Dalit students, I was then teaching in a
university, who were of course friendly with us and appreciative of
what we were doing, but pointedly they used to ask, sir, is it a human
rights violation only if somebody is killed in a police lock up? But
not if he is banished from the village saying you are untouchable. Is
it not a human rights violation? I still remember answering that, in
that case you are being banished by another citizen, it is between two
citizens and you can approach the law. Whereas when the State itself
oppresses someone, there is no recourse, practically no recourse in
the law and therefore we are not concerned about untouchability as a
human rights issue. That was the answer we gave, I myself gave, until
1985.
1985 July 17th there was a major incident in what is today Prakasam
district, a village called Karamchedu, where a major assault on Dalits
took place and 6 men were killed and 3 women were raped by upper caste
people who happened to be very closely related to the then chief
minister N.T.Rama Rao. His daughter's husband's village. It was in
that village. I am saying all this because the civil rights movement,
at least that wing of which I was a part and our friends have been a
part, has always learnt from reality. I don't remember a single issue
that we decided purely by theoretical discussion. We never did. We
always learnt from reality. And if you can say one thing about
ourselves in a complimentary sense it is only that we were open to
learning from reality. That is all that we can say. Not that we could
guess things before hand and take theoretical positions before things
came up. That never happened.
I don't know whether any other stream of the civil rights movement can
claim such an achievement, but for us being open to reality is the
only thing that we can claim for ourselves. And we learnt from this,
and I remember very well, the other stream of the civil rights
movement in our State spent a long time theoretically discussing
whether the assault is a civil rights incident, violation, and should
they go for fact finding? We on the other hand didn't even bother to
theoretical discuss. We went away the next day. We went to the village
the next day, talked to people. When we held a press conference we
were forced to theorize. The moment you express values, you have to
theorize.
5.59
Another issue which came up in the civil rights movement which still
is unresolved in the country as a whole. In fact in this matter we
remain in a minority. This has come up everywhere. That is, do you
have something to say to the revolutionaries? Or do you merely talk
about their rights, in defense of their rights? You do defend their
rights. You not only defend their rights in terms of law, you also
take a quasi-political stand. That, they are not to be treated merely
as persons committing crimes or using violence. They are to be treated
as a political movement. It is a fundamental point that we keep
emphasizing again and again, for society and for the State. An armed
movement — let it be ULFA, let it be Hizb-ul- Mujahideen, let it be
People's War, let it be anything, LTTE — irrespective of the fact that
there are so many differences among them, that we do distinguish, if
the need arises. Still, every one of them is a political movement. And
the response of society and State has to be principally, primarily
political. Which is not to say that they are not committing offences.
Which is not to say that the law shall not take note of their offences
and take legal action, it shall happen. This is a point on which, of
course, our friends have differed. They have said that we should never
say that the law should take action against revolutionaries because a
crime committed by them is an act of revolution. We said it is
impossible for a human rights group to say that. It's a crime. It's an
offence. What we do say is that; look at the political aspect as the
fundamental aspect and the aspect of crime as something which is
attached to it, which is a consequence of the political nature of the
act. Deal with the crime in terms of law, but let the law be something
which respects rights. Let it not be any law. Let it not be an
arbitrary law like the Disturbed Areas Act or the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act which gives the power to kill… without… kill on suspicion.
It has to be a law which is democratic, which is respectful of rights.
But law…handling them through the law should be only a minor aspect of
it, handling them politically shall be the major aspect it. This I
think is a complex of understanding that we have and we want to
communicate constantly to society and to the State.
5. 8.01
I was a teacher. I was a lecturer from 1981 to 85. A situation was
created where — my job was in Warangal, in the university at Warangal
— to live and work at Warangal, I had to give up my civil rights work
because the police were openly saying they would kill me. To do civil
rights work I had to leave Warangal or leave my job. I chose the
latter. For about thirteen years I was a full time activist. Then,
when I have a growing up son and I also have earn some thing. I can't
put all the burden on my wife. So one reason why I chose to…. and I
thought of all possible professions…, as a lawyer I can continue my
human rights activity both outside and inside the court, to some
extent at least. One had very few, what one may call illusions about
the court. Not that one had no belief in the court but illusions,
additionally illusions can be there. I do not have any illusions
because though not a lawyer, I was a petitioner in many cases. I know
the courts. But I chose this profession because it is closest to the
human rights activity of all the possible professions, that's why I
became a lawyer.
8.58
After a while we find that, they may not say to, but it appears that
we are the only persons whom they at least respect in the sense that
they feel, they should at least explain themselves to us. I don't
think they explain themselves even to their home minister or chief
minister. So that also gives you a feeling that in the long run… my
own understanding of the human rights movement is that it is
essentially a moral concern. This is where many of my friends
disagree; they believe it is a political concern. It all depends on
how you define politics, but my only point is that essentially it is a
question of…. you are establishing, asserting certain values other
than the values of domination, power and oppression. And I do believe
that…. here perhaps there is an element of truth in what Gandhi said.
That ultimately the real victory is when you make the other person
feel that what he or she has been doing is morally wrong. Not when you
behead that person and remove that person physically. So I think we
have been able to communicate a strong message to the establishment,
at least to the police. That their exercise, their taking advantage of
their power to behave in a lawless manner is wrong. Morally wrong. We
may not have stopped them physically from doing those things. But this
is a message I think we have sufficiently been able to communicate.
That's why they probably respect us more than they respect anybody
else within the system. And we also find that a lot of people who are…
whom we constantly criticise, constantly expose, have recognized the
legitimacy of our critique. To the extent that some times at least we
are able to have some influence upon them, if it not always. If not in
a systematic manner.
10.27
Whatever concern that people used to feel for poor people or oppressed
people, it has been delegitimized totally. People feel something.
Feelings don't come only from your heart. What is socially legitimate
is also an important input for one's responses and feelings.
Delegitimation of welfare, concern, sympathy.. that I think is the
strongest negative factor with globalization. Other things are a
question of policy. Policy wise one can very easily see how policies
are withdrawing from welfare and increasing the poverty, alienation
and so on. But my own view is that so long as you have a strong
outlook in society which believes in sympathy, in cooperation, in
helping people, these things won't really work much evil. But that has
been destroyed. And that delegitimation… globalization itself has
taken advantage of the demise of the socialist experiment, the failure
of the socialist experiment, which in turn has contributed to
delegitimizing the socialist concerns. It ought not to have. Because
one way of trying to build socialism has been proved to be false, it
doesn't mean socialism has been proved to be false. But that's how the
message is taken by society. That is very bad. So today for instance
we find it very difficult to get more activists. Much more difficult
than in the past.
10.45
Wherever you have structured inequality, you have problems of rights.
Wherever inequality is not merely accidental, but structured. It could
be economic, it could be social, it could be cultural, it could be a
hundred things, but if there is structured inequality anywhere in
society, it is a context for violation of rights . The very existence
of inequality is a violation of rights and it leads to further
violation of rights because of the working out of the inequality.
Mandal commission came in 1991. We took a categorical stand in defence
of the Mandal commission. So caste was one. Gender was.. in the sense
of dowry killing, I mean like all parts of the country, Andhra Pradesh
also has a major…. so we started taking up those issues also. Once
again the man woman relationship is a unequal relationship. Caste is
unequal relationship. A factory is a place where there is unequal
relationship. And with minorities being sidelined, today you also have
in religious terms also unequal, communal terms unequal relationships.
So these things became issues. There was serious objection to taking
up these issues but gradually a certain campaign was started that you
are taking up all these issues either to intentionally to sideline the
importance of the repression on the ML movement, or your unintended
consequence is that anyway. We overcame that by sheer hard work. We
did so much work that we satisfied their requirement that we do a lot
of work on that front and also took up a lot of work on other fronts.
Obviously it couldn't last forever. That was one thing. And gradually
this discussion boiled down to one point that is agreeing.. I mean
they also accepted, that wherever there is structured inequality there
is a violation of rights, yes, but nevertheless State repression
should be central. We said no, nothing will be absolutely central.
What is central is a sporadic thing. Today one thing may be central,
tomorrow another thing may be central. That depends on the context.
There is no absolute centrality. That is one thing we insisted. The
other thing which became quite a serious discussion was…See, when
these movements.. we support the right to agitate, we support the
right to struggle, we support the right even to struggle beyond the
limits of the Constitution because there is nothing absolute about the
Constitution. But when these movements starts misbehaving. When they
start behaving undemocratically, arbitrarily, do we or don't we speak
out? This is a very major…. And this touched them much more because
after 1985, when the Maoists, then People's War, became more violent.
Incidents of amputation of legs and hands of informers, arbitrary
actions… you go, and you want to kill somebody, you go there, you
don't find him, you kill his brother and come away… such things
started happening. And especially given the importance of armed
struggle, eliminating informers becomes very important. And what is
the touch stone of your decision that somebody is an informer. They
don't have any. It's a subjective decision of the local cadre.
Sometime the public also says, yes he was a bad fellow, sometimes they
say it's a mistake, he wasn't an informer. There is no way of proving
these things. So when these things came up, we took a stand that even
as we defend the right to struggle, if movements behave
undemocratically, it need not be only killing, like in Kashmir for
instance where they said women have to wear burqas, they can't come
out without burqas. We said nonsense. We are fully defending Kashmir's
right of accede from India, but you can't restrict the right of women
to have equal treatment along with men. So such things, undemocratic
behavior of any movement in its conduct, which includes also arbitrary
violence has to be condemned. That's the stand we took. Which they
disagreed, they still continue to disagree. Ultimately they came round
to saying this that we should tell the party or tell the organization,
not to give a public statement. We said there is no secret expression
of human rights concern, it has to be public. That was the major… so
the importance of centrality of State repression and the need to
criticise undemocratic acts of the movements, these were two very
major… and understanding also. You see they went on emphasizing rights
is an issue linked to movements. We said there are lots of people who
can't agitate, who can never become part of a movement. There are
small communities which can never be a movement at all. They have to
go to the law, they have to go to the court. They have to go and do
something, get hold of some good people, good samaritans to get
something. That's also a concern for us. We can't keep quiet; we can't
say we'll concentrate only on agitations, movements and repression on
movements. So this was the very broad… and finally we had one, two
years full, thorough discussion within the organization, identified
seven or eight points of difference, had a debate, got thoroughly
defeated and left the organization. That's how it was. About 35 of us
came out, out of a total strength of 200 or so at that time.
16.10
Concept of talks did not start with the Maoists or with the
government. It started with a certain section of the intelligentsia.
The Committee of Concerned Citizens. It began as essentially in a
concern that lives were being lost. Civil rights movements was
concerned in a sense with one kind of lives, not with the lives as
such, but repression on people's movement leading to fake encounters
and so on. The Committee of Concerned Citizens began at a different
point. That look whatever.. rights and wrongs apart, lives are being
lost. And we would like to have a mode of development, mode of growth,
mode of improvement, progress, where lives are not lost. May be if it
is unavoidable that lives are lost… we will come to that at the end.
Let us not begin there. So that effort… and therefore it automatically
led to a situation where they would address both sides. Why are you
killing? Why are you killing? What is your answer? Then at some point
it boiled down to this. Announce a cease fire and sit and talk. It was
never very clear what they would talk? After all, I mean it's a … if
you have a movement like say Naga movement, there can be a discussion;
we will give you autonomy, not independence. You can't have a half a
revolution, either you have a revolution; you don't have a revolution.
So what could be the talks? This is the part of the joke behind it. We
said there can be talks not about the aims and goals, but about a code
of conduct. That both will agree that even as they fight each other,
they won't harass innocent people. They won't harass unarmed civilians
in between. And the Maoists will allow the ordinary day to day
administration to go on so that schools can run, elections can takes
place whatever, and police also will allow ordinary movements to go
on. The whole problem in lots of areas where Maoists are active is if
farmers agitate for better price the police will call the leader and
say who is behind you? They are behind you. So that should stop. On
both sides ordinary peoples, ordinary life, including ordinary
agitations and movements, including also ordinary politics other than
Maoist politics and also Maoist politics should be allowed to go on.
This could have been a code of conduct agreed upon by both parties,
which would have made things lighter for the people. That is even
today a possible framework of talks.
18.12
But as far as we are concerned we define human rights very widely and
today with the development of the neoliberal variety, displacement is
a very major issue and we are taking it up centrally. Polavaram is a
dam which is coming up, likely to be the biggest disaster in not only
Andhra Pradesh, but one of the biggest India has seen. The difference
with Narmada is Narmada is part of a huge complex of dams. But you
take as a single dam this is as bad as Sardar Sarovar. It's no better,
and two lakh thirty thousand tribals are going to be, I mean, two lakh
thirty thousand people, half of them tribals, are going to be
displaced. That's a very major human rights issue. And all over the
State we have special economic zones which are coming up. Almost every
weekend we are going to various areas and trying to do something about
it. These.. development induced displacement is a very major human
rights issue in the state. Other issues keep coming up, like you had
this proposal to give OBC reservation opposed by the upper castes in
Delhi. Fortunately in South India it didn't pick up. But we had been
campaigning against this upper caste movement that OBC reservation…,
so that kind of activity we are having. But Andhra Pradesh, the
context is, I think, one very important part of the context is
displacement, as far as human rights is concerned. The other is the
mafia type of gangs, the Cobras and Green Tigers who are being
created, police repression. The rest of the problems are routine, they
continue, they are always there. Caste and gender are issues which
continue to be continuously human rights issues and as and when one
has… a major issue comes up, one takes up and it goes on. That's how
things are.
19.46
See the day Dr Ramanatham was killed on September 3rd, 1985, I could
have been killed. It was touch and …. They wanted to kill one. I don't
know why they chose Ramanatham and not me. I still don't know. When
such things happen, how do you say that other than matter of factly.
There is no other way. And it was difficult. I think almost up to
1992, 93, we used to be regularly arrested just to prevent us to go
somewhere, just to prevent a meeting. That kind of arrest, I can't
even give the number. Cases were there only in 1985, 1986. Serious
cases, TADA. I was one of the first TADA detenues in Andhra Pradesh.
At a time when death penalty was the only penalty, not even life
imprisonment. Then kidnapping. Once they engaged a goonda to beat me
up all over the face. Such things have happened to all people who work
for human rights, only the last…. One of the things we achieved is, to
achieve a stature for ourselves, where they don't like us any more
than they did in the past, they don't do anything to us. So that much
of a difference is still there. So we are able to go around more
freely now, than in the past. Hardly ten years fifteen years ago it
would be, if one goes out when one will come back or in what shape
was…it is no longer so now. We are able to move. We are saying the
same things, doing the same things. But over a period they also get
accustomed to you, that's what happens. They get accustomed to your
existence. These fellows are there, they will say these things, they
will talk, we can't stop them. So any new person who feels threatened
by police, the only advice we give is, persevere. After a while
they'll think, there is no point in harassing this fellow, they will
give up. That's what happened to us, you also achieve that status.
There is no other way one can help. That is the only advice we can
give. And it works.
21.36
One can say it is commitment, this, that. It is never so. Ultimately
it's part of, when you… your responses are not part of your mind, they
are part of your personality. Somebody could, in terms of ordinary
kind of analysis say, I can give up this and be an ordinary lawyer. I
can't. Because if I don't have this, I don't live in this world. I
won't have any sense of a reality at all. I'll lose all my touch with
reality. That is my personal explanation. I can rationalize and say
that I have a deep sense of commitment. At a certain level I do have,
not that I don't have. But nobody does anything only because he or she
has abstract commitment. I am not saying there is no such thing as a
commitment. Commitment is there, but there are usually factors linked
to the personality rather than merely intellectual convictions. And
that includes pride. It includes also various dimensions which taken
separately may not be very complimentary aspects of your personality.
But they are there. Some are extremely, you know… what do we say when,
somebody is unflinching. It is not necessarily a good quality, but
it's one of the qualities which helps you to continue in the movement.
Some are stubborn. Stubbornness is again not a great quality
otherwise. It can be a quality which will.. and the more you are
pushed to the wall, the more you feel you must not give up, because
you lose your identity if you give up, and that's where stubbornness
comes in. So most of the people who have continued and not given up
have all these qualities which taken separately are not very admirable
qualities, but they have… but taken with certain commitment of
positive values in life, commitment to human values it has been useful
for them to continue.
Written by chs
February 9th, 2010 at 2:14 am
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