Poetry is an open secret That destroys the disquiet Stirring in my heart. It reaches in a trice Those it is meant to reach. Suddenly the ones who need to, Will understand. Rising in my thoughts, It inspires movements. The secret is, My poetry was born From the pangs of struggle. Cover it if you must – You will see it escape through The spaces of your fingers, Its vibrant, anguished notes Snapping in anger, Setting tears on fire And flowing forth – A river of blood-red syllables.
–Varavara Rao
Varavara Rao is a communist, activist, naxalite sympathiser,renowned poet, journalist, literary critic, and public speaker from Telangana, India. He has been writing poetry for the last four decades.
On an average, at least two farmers have been committing suicide a day in Telangana State just this Kharif (harvested during the monsoon) season that is set to come to a close in the next 2-3 weeks. Trapped with insurmountable debts, In the last four months, nearly 250 have died.
The Times of India, November 2 2014, HYDERABAD: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) announced its return to action in Telangana on Saturday by calling for a one-day bandh on November 8 to protest the ‘inept policies’ of the TRS government that is resulting in farmer suicides. Continue reading →
22 April 2012, Hyderabad, Telangana –PRESS RELEASE
The historic first conference of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) – a federation of revolutionary mass organisations working among different classes and sections of the society at the grass-roots level – went underway today on 22 April 2012 in the Sundarayya Vignana Bhavan in Hyderabad with the hoisting of the RDF flag by Goru Madhav Rao, the veteran fighter of the Srikakulam Armed peoples’ uprising and the founding president of All India Peoples’ Resistance Forum (AIPRF). The red flag was hoisted with slogans hailing the ongoing revolutionary movement and condemning the Indian state’s repressive class violence in the form of Operation Green Hunt and now Operation Haka and Operation Vijay. The martyr’s column was unveiled by Mallamma, the mother of the martyred revolutionary leader G. Shankar, also known as Sheshanna and Shamsher, state committee member of the North Telangana Special Zonal Committee (NTSZC) of the CPI(Maoist). Resistance songs were performed by members of Jharkhand Abhen, Praja Kala Mandali and Revolutionary Cultural Front.
In the inaugural session, B. S. Raju, the Secretary of the Reception Committee of the Conference welcomed the delegates and participants, and declared that the RDF stands resolutely in favour of a democratic and separate Telangana state. M T Khan, chairperson of the Reception Committee, condemned the Chhattisgarh government for preventing the 34-member team of delegates from that state coming to attend the conference.
Professor Jagmohan, noted democratic rights activist and the nephew of shaheed Bhagat Singh, inaugurated the 40th issue of Samkaleen Jan Pratirodh, the magazine of RDF, dedicating it to the people of India and the Indian revolutionary struggle. Pankaj Dutt, the renowned people’s intellectual and academic presented the Keynote address on economic crisis and possibility of revolutionary upsurge in the country. He analysed the confluence of imperialism and feudalism in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial reality like India, which then generates what is usually understood as ‘growth’ and ‘development’ which is so disastrous for the vast masses of the country. He noted that it is the poor and landless peasantry – so far denied the power to exercise their labour creatively – who holds the key to the change of property relations and thereby turn the present world economic crisis into a revolutionary upsurge for a complete social transformation. Continue reading →
The first Conference of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) is going to take place at a time when the imperialist forces and their props – the ruling classes of various colonial and semi-colonial countries – are going through an unprecedented economic depression resulting in a worldwide economic crisis, a condition which is of their own making. The reactionary Indian ruling classes, being agents of imperialism, have transferred the burden of the world economic crisis to the people of this country – the masses of the people who are already grappling with acute exploitation, poverty, unemployment and deprivation of the basic necessities of life. Their purchasing power has come down drastically. They have been denied the right over jal-jangal-zameen (water, forest and land resources) and other resources. Such conditions have generated disaffection amongst vast sections of people of the subcontinent manifested as a multitude of peoples’ struggles.
Despite every effort of the Indian state to hide the gravity of the crisis in which it is, the Indian economy has been severely shaken by the worldwide economic crisis due to its increasing dependence on the imperialist economy. The exploitative ruling classes, who never tire of making tall claims about outstanding ‘growth’ and ‘development’ riding on the fortunes of an export-oriented economy aided by imperialist globalisation, have lost their sleep over the present crisis. Those who used to wax eloquently of ‘development’ citing the speculative growth in the sectors of information technology, outsourcing, real estate, etc. has now been put on the dock. Due to the imperialist domination and dependence prevalent in the Indian economy, lakhs of workers have been rendered jobless and thrown out of sphere of production. Workers in hundreds of thousands have been at the receiving end of lay-offs and pay-cuts as a result of the closure of a large number of firms in the real estate industry, export-based industries, textiles, brass industry, jewellery and metal industry, mining, and so on. Now, the introduction of Foreign Direct Investment in retail trade will render more than 50 lakh people jobless by bringing Wal-mart and other imperialist players in retail business. Students particularly in the professional courses like engineering are finding little avenues of employment even through placement agencies. At the same time, however, imperialist forces such as foreign institutional investors are siphoning off the hard-earned wealth of the working people through speculative trading in the share market which are completely cut off from the real economy.
The impact of the economic crisis is evident in each and every sector of the Indian economy. The worst ever economic depression since the Great Depression in the 1930s has further deepened the agrarian crisis. As the demand of ‘Land to the Tiller’ remain yet as a tall promise with the ruling class bereft of any political will to fulfil the demand, the impact of the economic crisis on the working people engaged in agriculture has been very severe. The growing dependence of the rural masses on the agrarian sector has strengthened the landowners and moneylenders in the countryside, and has given them the opportunity to continue their exploitation and oppression. This exploitation and oppression takes the concrete form of caste-atrocities and caste-violence, the number of which is on the rise all over the country. Khairlanji, Lathor, Mirchpur incidents provide glaring evidence of this fact. More than 2.5 lakh peasants and agricultural workers have been forced to commit suicide in the last fifteen years due to the anti-peasant policies of the Indian state. In spite of this devastation, the imperialist stranglehold over Indian agriculture is being further tightened in the name of Second Generation Reforms and the Second Green revolution. Continue reading →
[In India, the gap between rich and poor is huge and continues to grow. And in Andhra Pradash, the gap can be defined by the way the state’s economic, political, and cultural resources have been denied the people of the Telangana region. In recent times, the long historic Telangana movement has sharpened its struggle for a separate state. This week, things have intensified with a complete shutdown of rail, bus, autorickshaws, roads, and schools. Various political forces are involved and have joined this massive people’s movement. — Frontlines ed.]
Telangana stir hits rail, road services
newsxlive on Sep 23, 2011
The Telangana agitation is once again peaking. This is the 12th successive day that the agitation has been building up and the situation is heading for complete shutdown in all 10 districts including Hyderabad. Several trains passing through the region have either been cancelled or diverted for the 48-hour duration of the rail roko call given by the Telangana agitators. One by one, several services like bus, auto, schools and power have been hit.
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Pro-Telangana activists sleep on railway tracks during the rail roko agitation near Hyderabad on Saturday
2-day rail blockade in Telangana begins
Indo-Asian News Service
Hyderabad, September 24, 2011
Schoolchildren raising slogans in support of separate Telangana State at Moula Ali Station in Hyderabad
Transport services in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh came to a halt as a two-day ‘rail blockade’ and strike by auto-rickshaws began Saturday morning, adding to the woes of people already reeling under the impact of protest by the state-owned Road Transport Corporation (RTC).
In an unprecedented situation, commuters have no access to any mode of public transport.
As over 10,000 RTC buses remained off the roads in Hyderabad and nine other districts of the region for the sixth day, all trains were cancelled for Saturday and Sunday.
500,000 autorickshaw drivers joined the people's strike
Moreover, 500,000 auto-rickshaws also joined the ‘people’s strike’ demanding a separate Telangana state. Over 60,000 three-wheelers in Hyderabad are participating in the strike.
South Central Railway (SCR) cancelled over 72 express and 264 passenger trains originating from or coming to Telangana or passing through the region.
“In view of some incidents that took place during similar protests earlier, we are not operating train services this time,” said SCR chief public relations officer K Sambasiva Rao.
Leaders and activists of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) squatted on railway tracks at hundreds of places across the region.
Leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India-ML New Democracy squatted on the track at Kazipet in Warangal district, the main junction connecting south and north India.
The railways have cancelled all 222 (Multi-Modal Transport System) services or local trains in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and 102 DHMU (Diesel Hydraulic Multiple Unit) trains in other parts of Telangana.
The SCR authorities have also short terminated, diverted and rescheduled many long-distance trains in the north-south and east-west corridors. The rail link between Hyderabad and rest of Telangana and also between the state capital and other regions of Andhra Pradesh has completely snapped.
Telangana supporters have lunch on the rail track as part of their “rail roko” programme, in Nalgonda on Saturday
All the trains between Hyderabad and destinations like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati, Patna, Rajkot and Balharshah have been cancelled.
Hundreds of policemen, personnel of railway police and central paramilitary forces were deployed at stations to protect railway property.
Secunderabad and Nampally (Hyderabad) railway stations — two of the busiest railway stations in south India — wore a deserted look.
All the trains were cancelled from Friday midnight while some long-distance trains coming to Hyderabad were stopped earlier in the day.
Maoists have made inroads into northeast Andhra Pradesh bordering Orissa
Times of India, October 24, 2010
HYDERABAD: More than four years after they were thought to have been driven out of Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists have begun to rear their heads once again in the state. Sources say that Maoists are now active in six of the 11 mandals of Visakhapatnam district in northeast corner of Andhra. They are also flexing muscle and mulling over the prospects of activating themselves in the north Telangana districts. Intelligence reports suggest that balladeer Gaddar entered the Telengana movement recently only after being cajoled and coaxed to do so by the Maoists.
As of now, the activities of the Left ultras in north-coastal AP is restricted to felling trees, digging up roads, blasting government property and damaging road transport corporation buses. Presently, they are operating in the interior areas that can be accessed by kutcha roads. They operate out of Orissa and come walking between one to three hours on undulating terrain, indulge in violence and go back, an informed source said. He added: ”They have local support in these basically tribal villages.”
Right now, the activities of the Maoists are manageable from the law and order point of view. But sources say that the police zeal in combing these godforsaken places for Maoists is very low. This has been so since June 2008 when in the Balimela operations, scores of policemen lost their lives at the hands of Maoists. Ever since, the police have been on the backfoot. There is combing in these areas, but it is not that serious. Exchange of fire takes place once in a blue moon. In the last year-and-a-half, only seven times has there been an exchange of fire, a source said. If Maoists get caught, it is only by accident, the sources reveal citing the example of an ultra, Nilesh alias Jaipal. Continue reading →
Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle 