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Comrade Divakar alias
Dharmanna alias Mukka Venkateshwarlu, Secretary of the CPI (ML) People’s War,
Nalgonda District Committee, who was killed in a fake encounter in Nalgonda
district, along with six of his comrades and a two-year old baby, by the Grey
Hound police of AP on 19th June 2001, was a rare combination of artist and
organiser and an organic intellectual dialectically transforming from a mass
appealing performing artist into a hero of class struggle.
As Mao has said we
have to search among the people for real heroes. Com. Divakar comes from that
wretched of the earth, a dalit family suffering utter poverty, from Guntur
district. Because of his bright performance in his studies, he could pursue his
higher studies with a scholarship. He completed his plus two and joined the
Govt. Medical College, Guntur. During the post emergency period, with the
upsurge of the Jagiatyal Peasant Struggle, the whole country turned its head
towards Telangana and soon the struggle developed into the Karimnagar and
Adilabad peasant movement. It was during the solidarity campaign of the struggle
throughout the state, that Divakar, along with many of those young boys and
girls who later joined the APJNM, was attracted to the revolutionary movement
under the leadership of Yesu alias Satyam, who was responsible for building up
the Jana Natya Mandli in the south coastal Andhra districts.
It was the Indravelli
massacre on 20th April 1981, which caused Divakar to plunge into the
revolutionary cultural movement. Thus Divakar is the product of a CPI (ML)
People’s War after 1980, which was implementing the mass line to take the mass
struggles to higher forms of class struggle extending into Dandakaranya. That is
why and how com. Yesu, popularly known as Satyam, was also drawn into the
underground movement as a professional revolutionary organising the Chandravanka
Squad spreading the movement on the river banks of the Krishna, in Guntur and
Nalgonda districts, and later killed in a fake encounter. Com. Divakar, along
with his fellow cultural activists and artists, organised the Jana Natya Mandli
and gave up his studies in the 3rd year of medicine, following in the footsteps
of com. Subba Rao Panigrahi as an artist and Dr. Bhaskar Rao and Malikarjunudu,
who specialised in medicine in the same Guntur Medical College only to join the
Srikakulum Peasant Struggle.
Divakar never looked
back.
He joined the
campaign against the Indravelli massacre by performing the Ragal Jhanda
ballet by the JNM all over the state. This memorable performance as a Gond
tribal, who lends his thumb (as Eklavya cutting his finger) impression with
blood stuck to the knife-like nib of the blood sucking Patwari, pledging the
land for indebtedness, lives on in people’s memory. His martyrdom after a six
hour encounter in a valley like area, surrounded by hills in the Nalgonda
forest, in the midst of Lambada hamlets, is the culmination of his
transformation to lay down his life for their struggle for self respect and
liberation.
Soon the Guntur
Prakasam team of the JNM rose to great heights to become a part of the central
team. Since Divakar picked up knowledge of Hindi, he also traveled all over the
country, as part of the central team in the campaign for promoting People’s War
politics.
He, along with his
associates, was a student in the workshop organised by VIRASAM in 1984 in
Alakurapadu of Parkasam district for eight days. Divakar wanted to develop the
street play and Burra Katha forms. He thought that these two forms are
particularly essential for the developed coastal areas and urban centers. He
wanted to emulate the glorious tradition of the Praja Natya Mandli during the
Telengana Armed Struggle, in which Sheik Naser’s Burra Katha became immortal.
Likewise he was keen to know the skills of the street play form, on which he
once again concentrated in a one-month cultural workshop in Anantapur district,
conducted by the JNM in 1990. A booklet in Telugu on street plays by the JNM is
the outcome of the workshop. Immediately after the workshop, in Alakudapadu, in
1984 Divakar adapted the Giddha form of Gursharan Singh and performed it
himself. Later, he adopted and improved the Ooregimpu (procession) of
Asththriti Krishna Rao, head of the dept. of Theatre, Andhra University. Divakar
will best be remembered for his performance, creating pathos and anger at the
same time while narrating the Karamchedu massacre (of dalits). Divakar, and his
JNM associates, proved their talent and commitment during the 1985 camp at
Vijaynagar in Chirala after the massacre of dalits at Karamchedu of Prakasam
district. They stayed in the camps for months, organising, leading and keeping
up the morale of the victims and giving cultural performances everyday. Along
with the RSU, RYL and VIRASAM comrades, JNM exposed the opportunist leadership
of Kathi Padma Rao in that camp. After the annihilation of Chinchu Rama Naidu,
the main villain of the Karamchedu massacre, Divakar, along with his associates,
went underground.
He, along with his
associates, including com. Kumari, who later became a martyr in 1997, organised
the peasant struggle in coastal Andhra from Nellore to Guntur from 1985 to 89.
He came out in 1990 Feb. to organise the 18th anniversary of the JNM in which
the JNM team, which was underground during the dark days of "Aata, maata
Paata bandh" (no cultural performance, no public meeting, no song) came out
to give open performances. But it was only for a short period from Feb 90 to say
May 90, till the 3rd Rythu coolie Sangham’s historical state conference at
Warangal. Com. Divakar and his JNM associates performed a drama also during this
conference for which they took the training of a professional director. During
this training, they also gained confidence that these professionals have to
learn more from the people’s artists than to teach them.
Com. Divakar went
underground during the mid 90’s after the JNM was expelled from Madhya Pradesh
after the cultural performance in Jagdalpur, Kanker and Bhilai. During the
performance before the Bhilai Steel Plant the 20 member team of the JNM was
arrested and was forcibly driven to Bhadarachalam, after being served an
extermination notice. The enforced return journey was memorable as all along the
way JNM gave cultural performances, with the police van following behind, and
the people looking on with curiosity and interest. Divakar and his associates
put a red flag on the top of a hill in the thick forest of Dandakarnya, before
reaching Kunta, by singing a song on the red flag brightened with the blood of
the sacrifice of known and unknown revolutionary martyrs. He was, by then,
determined to be one amongst those dedicated professional revolutionaries.
After preparing a
perspective for the Jana Natya Mandli, com. Divakar, along with other leading
associates of the JNM, went underground to organise JNM among the squads. It was
part of the advancement of the struggle by arming the people. The cultural army
from the underground was one with the guerilla squads giving performances in
armed uniforms among the people.
The latest cassette
produced by the JNM on the 4 years performance of the Chandrababu Naidu
government, as the lackey of American Imperialism (1995-99), will remain a
lasting tribute to Com. Divakar’s histrionic talent and political grasp. Comrade
Divakar himself played the role of Chandrababu Naidu, even imitating his
mannerisms, making people laugh at the paper tiger and also arousing people’s
anger and class hatred for him.
The report on the
South Telangana JNM performance and the book brought out in memory of Com. Mukka
Venkateswarlu and Prabhakar after their martyrdom in an encounter, immediately
after the successful raid on Yadagiri gutta police station, are the touchstones
of Divakar’s cultural leadership.
If Dr. Chagnati
Bhaskar Rao and Subba Rao Panigrahi were to be the ideal models of intellectuals
and artists during the Srikakulam struggle, Com. Divakar would be the model for
the ongoing Telangana advanced revolutionary movement under the leadership of
the CPI (M-L) [People’s War]. In his ten years of underground life from 1991 to
2001, besides the first five years (85-90), he rose to the leadership upto the
regional committee level in South Telengana. He proved a valiant and worthy
successor to Com. Mukka Venkateswarlu alias Kiran, who was the secretary of the
Nalgonda district committee till Oct. 98. Com. Divakar popularly known as
Dharmanna in the revolutionary masses became the secretary of the district
committee in 98 and not only kept up the morale of the cadre and the people
after the martyrdom of Kiran but took the class struggle a step forward.
It was during his
tenure as secretary of Nalgonda district that the most hated enemy of the people
Madhava Reddy was killed in a landmine explosion at Bibinagar of Nalgonda
district.
The enemy tried to
malign the image and personality of com. Divakar from 1998 itself. When Belhi
Lalitha was kidnapped and heinously killed, cutting her into seventeen pieces at
the instance of Nayemuddeen, the traitor, the state mafia tried to throw the
blame on Diwakar. Even the press could not believe it and it was one of the
Telugu dailies which brought out, with evidence, that it was Nayeemuddeen the
conspirator who forged a letter in the name of Dharmanna to malign Lalitha and
Divakar,
Divakar was a
dedicated, spotless warrior, both in the peoples army and peoples cultural army.
With his organisational and leadership qualities he could rise to the level of
leadership of South Telengana in both the fields.
He himself was
martyred while conducting a meeting of all the squads of Nalgonda district to
pay homage to the Kanagal martyrs who were killed in the 10th June ‘Encounter’
and to organise a district bandh on 20th and 21st June. He joined that glorious
path of martyrdom.
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