K Balagopal on River Disputes in Andhra Pradesh: [Telangana Documentary]

K Balagopal on River Disputes in Andhra Pradesh: [Telangana Documentary]

Kandalla Balagopal (10 June 1952 - 8 October 2009) was an uncompromising human rights activist, mathematician and lawyer who was known for his work on the issue of civil liberties and human rights. He was a staunch civil liberties activist in Andhra Pradesh. He had broken away from the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC), with which he was associated since its inception in ‘80’s, on the issue of violence perpetrated by the erstwhile CPI-ML Peoples War. He was a prolific writer on people’s issues and had recently written about the developments on the Maoist front in west Bengal.

Balagopal founded the Human Rights Forum (HRF) in Andhra Pradesh.

His public criticism of the acts of violence by Maoists attracted severe criticism from the naxalites. Following his comments on the violence in Lalgarh in West Bengal, Maoist Central Committee member, Mallojula Koteshwar Rao had challenged Balagopal to visit Lalgarh resistance area to know the real picture.

He served as a member of the Expert Group on Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas, set up by Planning Commission of India in 2008.He genuinely believed that human rights are indivisible. He was known for his simple living and his extremely sharp analytical articles that appeared regularly in Economic and Political Weekly.His incisive articles in EPW included issues ranging from the regime of Indira Gandhi, Reservations issue, human rights violations from time to time in different places, the Gujarat riots, Special Economic Zones, land acquisition, sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes in Andhra Pradesh, the failure of talks between the YSR Government and the CPI-Maoists and so on. He was a prolific writer in Telugu.

His Telugu essay 'Cheekati Konaalu' was a path-breaking one, in which he directly questioned the violation of human rights by those who claimed that they were working for a radical revolution.

After the formation of Human Rights Forum, he expanded his activities and visited areas undergoing intense social turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, West Bengal and Orissa. In Orissa his fact-finding teams visited Rayagada district and documented the perspective of people displaced by Utkal Allumina Project, Jagatsinghpur district in respect of people affected by proposed Posco steel plant and Kandhamal district, which was affected by communal and ethnic clashes in 2007/2008. Not only was he an intellectual giant,but he had his heart for the deprived and down-trodden. He analysed critically and exposed the hypocrisy in the functioning of most of the mainstream political parties.

K.Balagopal started practicing law nearly a decade ago and has argued dozens of cases pertaining to encounter killings by the police.

K. Balagopal died of lung aspiration following bleeding of stomach ulcer in Hyderabad on the night of 8 October 2009.

RIP Bala gopal.