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.appropriate for the government to constitute a committeeconsisting of unbiased experts and public spirited citizens. We'should like to suggest that the services of people likeDr. Shivaram Karanth, Dr. Madhav Gadgil, Prof. D.K.Subramanyam, Fr. Cecil Saldanha and Prof. L.T. Sharrna, beutilized for reorienting the programme.

Some of us who are working with the rural poor throughvoluntary organizations would be bappy to extend our-cooperation to the government in implementing social forestryprogrammes for the benefit of the local community for meetingtheir basic needs of fodder, fuel, raw-material for village artisansetc.

We strongly appeal to the Government to reconsider andwithdraw these measures and initiate steps to help the landlessthrough land, financial and technical support, so that they canmeet their basic needs and have a multiplier effect on the localsocio-economic life of the villages.

The letter is signed by fourteen journlists, representatives ofaction groups and farmers associations who have come under thebanner of Save the Soil Movement. Readers can send independanappeals to the Chief Minister with copies to MANNURAKSHANA KOOTA, Gandhi Bhavan, Kumara Park East,Bangalore 560001.

"r--

The State vs. Civil LibertiesOrganisations-The Case OfAPCLC

Even in the rapidly deterioratlng environment for democraticstruggles in the country, the direct assault on civil libertyorganisations and their activists is something rare. The policeattack in Madurai Oil the then PUCL President, V.M. Tarkundeand the PUCL Organising Secretary, K.G. Kannabiran (who alsoheads the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee-u Al'Cl.Cywas the first dramatic instance. The more recent concerted effortsto 'crush' the APCLC, however, acquire new significance. Below, wepresent a brief report on the civil liberties situation in AndhraPradesh culledfrom a number of news reports and memos preparedby the APCLC. We present this report because we believe thatthese events are unfortunately likely to become more common.

We do seem cough t in a strange situation. Civil libertyorganisations, essentially expressions of liberal democraticopinion are now facing a crises. Because, in a worsening and crises'ridden situation, the normal responses of petitioning courts orissuing press-statements based on investigations carried out byreputed persons take on a totally different hue. At one level, theauthoritarian State reacts much more sharply to even 'acceptable'dissent. This can and does lead to a process of polarisation withinthese essentially liberal bodies-forcing organisations with ajuridical concern towards an activist orientation. Partly this trend'is strengthened because the civil rights activists are tiring oj theslow, tortuous, often frustrating process of appealing to the law.This is also qasituation where the concept of civil liberties itself isbeing redefined. The anti-Sikh 'riots' in Delhi, to a large degree

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-engineered by the State, bring home such issues very sharply.What do we do when the State itself becomes criminal?

The brief report on the APCLC does not claim to raise all suchissues-much less answer them. But it disturbs. As do thesubsequent reports of further attacks on its General secretary,Dr. Balgopal, or the arresting of the editors of the Telgumagazine-Srijna (Eventually culminating in the arrest on April 18of Hetnlatha its editor on charges of sedition). Letus not forgetthat our 'democratically elected' Parliament has just passed anewanti=Terorist legislation which can convert eren raising suchissues into a crime.

Does Andhra show our.future? This is a question thatconcerns us as we think it does you. We appeal to all our readersexpress their to solidarity with the 'beleaguered' APCLC andappeal to the A.P. government to stop its anti-people activity.

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Beginning January this year, the police have stepped uptheir campaign of repression %gainst civil liberties' actvists inAndhra Pradesh in a determined effort to once and for allemasculate bodies like the APCLC. The Committee has overthe last eight years exposed the organised violence by thepolice and vested interests against the struggle [or justice bythe rural poor in the Telangana districts of A.P.

With the apparent blessings of the Telegu Oesamgovernment, the police has engaged in a policy of terror, arrests,false cases and even murder of APCLC actvists in Warangaland Karimnagar. The targets include well known public figureslike Or K. Balagopal, General Secretary, APCLC and the Telegupoet Varavara Rao. BalagopaJ, a lecturer in Mathematics atKakatiya University and known to many through his brilliantlycaustic writings, was summarily arrested on January24 oncharges of conspiracy and placed in solitary confinement. Bail

was finally granted after a couple of weeks solitary detention,but no sooner did he step out of the jail the police were readywith fresh charges-this time accusing him of sedition againstthe State. He was eventually released on February 12.

This, fresh spate of repression has its origin in the murderof Gopi Rajanna, the A PCLC Vice President, J agtial unit, OnJanuary 12, returning home from a cinema with his family andfriends, he was pounced upon by assailants associated with theRSS and ABVP and killed. Gopi Rajanna (30) came from alandless labour family and had through sheer will graduated inlaw in 1981. It was cases of the rural poor that he argued in theJagtial taluka which had been declared a distrubed area in 1978.

BJP/RSS elements are influential among the landlords in thearea and in view of the Telegu Desam-BJP understanding in thestate, BJP political leaders, the landlords and the arrackcontractors work in close collusion with the police.

It is noteworthy that, the day after the murder, althoughAPCLC leaders approached the SP with the names of theassailants, the police declined to take action.

Within a week of this murder, Varavara Rao, generalsecretary of the Revolutionary Writers Association and anAPCLC activist was arrested on the morning of January 18.Armed police raided his house and without giving him a chanceto change his lungi, bundled him into the waiting police jeepand then subjected him to the additional hurnilitaion of makinghim walk down some distance to the Hanumankonda policestation. January 18 was the day of the bandh announced by theradical students in protest against the earlier death of RadicalYouth League activist Sudarshan at the Kazipet police station,

Alarmed at the audacity of the police ill parading thehighly respected Varavara Rao through the streets in his nightlungi, Or Ramanathan (48) Vice President of the APCLC stateunit and Seethrama Rao (30), an executive member of theWarangal unit, rushed to make a representation to the SP.They were promptly arrested. According to the SP, at a pressconference called at 4 : 30 p.m., all three were arrested as apreventive measure. However, the FIR lodged at theHanumankonda police station stated that all three had beenarrested at 5 : 30 p.m., under Sections 4 and 5 of the ExplosivesAct. The police claimed to have recovered two country madebombs in Varavara's house. Their case was that on the night ofJanuary 17 all three were present at Varavara's house anddistributed bombs to the radical students to attack theCircle Inspector. At 11 the morning of the arrest of Vara vara,the police claimed that the Circle Inspector's office was attackedand property damaged. The PI R also named "other" asinvolved.

It was under this umbrella clause that Balagopal was alsocharged under the same sections including consipracy to murderand intimidate-Sec. 120 and 506. Meanwhile, Balagopalreturned from Hyderabad to Warangal late on January 23 tobe arrested at 3 : 30 a.m., January 24. He had on his return beenInvestigating the death of Sarangapani (I8), a college studentwho had been wanted in the case of assault againt the CircleInspector. The police claimed that he had fallen into a watertank while fleeing from them. His body, except the head, was

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not shown to his parents, and the police insisted upon cremating.it themselves.

Within hours of Balagopal's arrest, the APCLC movedcourt and he was produced before a magistrate by the afternoonthereby removing the fear that the police would torture him.Varavara and the two eo-accused were sent to Central prison,Warangal, while Balagopal was kept in solitary confinement.Varavara protested that it was illegal for an undertrial to beplaced in solitary. He was transferred to Hyderabad jail whileBalagopal remained in solitary, his first experience in jail.

It has been during the period of Balagopal's generalsecretaryship of the APCLC that this civil liberties' organisttionhas particularly attracted the ire of the police and vested interests,During this period, the APCLC conducted a nation widecampaign against the deployment of CRPF battalions in theTelengana area and called for the withdrawal of armed policecamps. As a culmination of this drive a writ petition was filedby APCLC and the People's Union for Democratic Rightschallenging the constitutional legality of the armed policecamps. The APCLC stated that there were 100 camps in thevillages. It also alleged atrocities by the police. Balagcpal wasthe key figure investigating into this matter and his removalfrom the scene was seen by many as an effoft by the A.P.government to ensure that the case before the Supreme Courtdoes not go against the government. Significantly, the ABVP,the student wing of the BIP was authorised to intervene in thiscase substantiating even further the suspicion of the TeleguDesam-BIP-police nexus in the several Disturbed Areas of thestate.

The APCLC has also through painstaking investigation ofnearly 100 cases over the last two years established that in1984 alone, there were 24 cases of police custody deaths and 9cases of custodial rape. Interestingly, the first case of theclassic police encounter occured in Jagtial talaka just days afterthe murder of the APCLC Vice President. Serveral suchencounters have subsequently taken place, after an almost twoyear lull.

The police and administration have unsuccessfully soughtto discredit the APCLC by dubbing it as Naxalite or anti-national. While it is a fact that the peasant movement in the

'\ areas of Warangal, Karimnagar and Adilabad has been) mobilised by CPI M-L groups, a closer look at the demands of

the Ryotu Coolie Sangham reveals that the demands are wellwithin the declared policies of the government.