Ramulu, fearless dada of civil rights
May 17, 2011
By Kancha Ilaiah
May 16: With the untimely death on May 14 of Burra Ramulu, 57, who was
well known to people of Warangal district and Telangana, the area lost
a different breed of civil and human rights activist. Not just an
activist, in a district of ruffian police and rabid Maoist battles, he
was the dada of civil rights.
Born in an illiterate toddy tapper's family, members of which perhaps
had been in the profession even during the days of Kakatiya rule from
the same fort, Ramulu resembled Lenin, with a similar beard on a
rugged but smiling face. He could have easily passed off as a street
dada of West Fort Warangal. He grew up in the West Fort village in a
tiled house that represented the Kakatiya primitive architecture. From
a government school of the Fort village he moved on to higher
education combining street fights and book reading. From his student
days itself he was resolving difficult disputes in the Fort villages,
always trying to be on the side of justice.
Even after becoming known as a civil liberties leader, one who would
walk and talk about the rights of the poor in the villages, tribal
areas and among slum dwellers of Warangal city, he did not give up
resolving disputes. He would even threaten if somebody did not obey
the just resolution he and the village headmen had worked out. He
would say in his rustic language, "Has your bottom fattened? Go and do
accordingly". But he was never corrupt.
While the Maoist revolution was needed for changing agrarian Warangal,
it was cooked in a neo-Brahmin colony called Kumara Pally. That was
one reason why it never succeeded. Like many of us he was drawn into
it in his student days. He organised KU students and became the
president of its student union as a representative of the Pulla Reddy
group while Puli Anjaiah, another Gouda boy from Nalgonda district,
became its general secretary as representative of the Kondapally
Seetharamaiah group. Anjaiah later went underground and became the
secretary of the People's War Group's ( PWG ) state committee and was
finally shot dead by the police. In the 1980s and 90s Warangal was the
place for killing and counter killing.
The PWG killed a number of landlords and police officials and in turn
the police killed two civil liberties' leaders, Ramanadham and
Prabhakar Reddy, apart from hundreds of PWG cadres. There were several
occasions, when Ramulu himself was about to be killed by the Warangal
police. While other civil liberty and literary leaders like Varavara
Rao, Balagopal and Jeevan Kumar left Warangal and settled down in
Hyderabad, the rugged Ramulu, like the civil liberties' dada that he
was, remained behind.
Ramulu could not leave his teaching (economics) job in Kakatiya, as he
could not sustain his illiterate wife and two daughters otherwise. Nor
was he willing to give up his civil rights dadagiri in the villages
and police stations. If a police officer shouted he would shout back;
If a street goonda threatened an innocent rickshaw puller Ramulu would
in turn threaten him with dire consequences. He never beat anybody,
but he was feared. Ramulu was never known for Telugu or English
intellectualism. His economics was common sense economics and his
activism was based on common sense justice.
He would never enter into theoretical debates. When there were heated
debates on caste and the question of leadership in the organisation,
he would silently agree with the upper caste nuanced negotiation and
would go with the view that "all that matters was class
consciousness".
Dalit/OBC issues never bothered him much, except in a marginal way.
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