Remembering K Balagopal

Anant Maringanti

As Kaloji, the people’s poet who embodied the finest sensibilities of Warangal once said you dont hold condolence meetings for some people. You hold commemoration meetings – so that in remembering that person you bring out the best in yourself to the fore.

Commemoration meetings are being held in many districts and towns… some organized by the Human Rights Forum – which Balagopal built in the last 10 years, but many organized by teachers, workers and students.

At Khammam, the meeting was organized by CPI-ML New Democracy. It felt odd to be sitting in the meeting. ML groups rarely ever salute anyone who has not been a martyr in their party line.

The most moving part of the meeting came towards the end — an old man – I dont even know his name — everyone called him grandfather — he had to be helped up to the dais. Grandfather said, he came to sing for Balagopal. A song he wrote for Balagopal and he had to sing it himself. He said he has known Balagopal for over 30 years on the streets of Warangal.

I dont remember the words of the song. But I will never forget how two younger men stood on either side of grandfather and lent the strength of their voices to his trembling, trailing voice. And every now and then, grandfather’s voice rose above everyone else’s. Even minutes
before the meeting if anybody had told me that it is possible to fill cliched expressions with conviction, I would have laughed. But I came away humbled that evening.

Balagopal’s 1986 translation of DD Kosambi’s introduction to ancient Indian history has begun to reappear at book sales outside meetings. This book is among the lesser known one’s of Balagopal. But it is one into which he put his heart. In the introduction, he says that he was
first introduced to Marxism when he read Kosambi’s interpretation of the Bhagavdgita in 1976 and he was in a way repaying the debt by introducing Kosambi to Telugu readers.

And in many ways, by doing this, Balagopal has placed generations of school and college teachers in Andhra Pradesh in his debt. He gave them the tools to critically reflect on history and human consciousness.