50 years after Emergency: Encounter killings and a saga of silence

The Hindu

4 days ago

Home Minister Kasu Brahmananda Reddy reached the residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at 10.15 p.m. on June 25, 1975. Within 15 minutes, he drafted a letter with the minutes of the earlier meeting between the PM and the President and appended a draft proclamation for State of Internal Emergency to be signed by Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. By midnight, the proclamation of emergency was out.
On June 22, 1975, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister J. Vengal Rao was summoned to Delhi by then personal secretary to Prime Minister, R.K. Dhawan in time for the verdict on Indira Gandhi's election from Raibareli in Uttar Pradesh. The stage was set in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.
A different face
While it was midnight knocks and detention of political leaders elsewhere in the country, the iron fist of Emergency was felt by student leaders and Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh.
According to the Shah Commission, which inquired into the Emergency period, Andhra Pradesh had 1,135 détenus under Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), 45 under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA) and 451 under Defence and Internal Security of India Rules (DISIR).
These figures also prove that the brunt of the Emergency was felt by those outside the political framework — 512 belonged to banned organisations (350 from CPML) and only 210 were political prisoners while 413 constituted criminals and anti-social elements.
'The bulldozing of shanty towns, encroachments and forced sterilisations happened in the northern part of the country, in Andhra Pradesh however, there were a series of encounter killings. In 21 months, there were 70 encounter deaths. After the 1977 elections, Tarkunde Commission and Bhargava Commission inquired into these killings,' informs journalist and activist N. Venugopal, who had a ringside view of the events due to the detention of his brother-in-law poet Varavara Rao on the eve of Emergency.
Within 24 hours of declaration of Emergency, civil rights activist and lawyer K.G. Kannabiran began receiving calls at his Narayanaguda residence. The first call being that of Pattipati Venkateswarlu, who was the secretary of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, about a raid on his home and detention. 'The calls didn't stop. Our home became an open house as PDSU students, political leaders would turn up at all hours of the day and night seeking help. Either it was a calling bell or the ring of the phone. We knew no privacy,' says Kalpana Kannabiran, sociologist and lawyer who translated the memoir of her father K.G. Kannabiran.
Killing fields
One of the first encounter killings was what became known as Girayapalli encounter. 'Four youths, one of whom was a student of Regional Engineering College, Warangal, were taken in a police van to the Girayapalli forest in Medak district, tied to trees, blindfolded and shot dead on the night of July 25, 1975,' recounts Mr. Venugopal.
After the elections, the Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights sent a list to President B.D. Jatti containing 134 names of persons who were killed in encounters or as the organisation called it 'cold blooded murders'. Among them were Vempatapu Satyam, Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Panchadi Nirmala, Dr Bhaskar Rao, Dr Mallikarjun and Neelam Ramachandra, among others.
Home Minister Charan Singh on the floor of Parliament accepted that 50 persons died while being detained under the Maintenance of Security Act across the country but only one from Andhra Pradesh.
Socialists, members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Ananda Margis and Naxalites were targeted in Andhra Pradesh during the 21-month Emergency period.
Girayapalli encounter was followed by Chilakalgutta incident where Ramanarsiah was picked up from a house in Old Malakpet and killed. It was followed by the Yellandu case where Neelam Ramachandriah and Jampala Chandra Sekhar Prasad were killed.
Months after Emergency was lifted, an independent fact-finding committee under former judge V.M. Tarkunde was constituted with eight other members. This report led to the Union government appointing the Bhargava Commission of Inquiry. 'When Chenna Reddy became chief minister, he wanted the hearings to take place in-camera. This was not acceptable to Bhargava who did not complete the inquiry. Even a request for an interim report was not accepted,' says Venugopal.
With the inquiry into encounter killing scotched, the deaths of so many young men became a statistic that is not logged in the notorious history of Emergency.
Warning on demolitions
In the first year of Emergency (1975-76), Andhra Pradesh underperformed in the sterilisation sector with 1,65,163 operations against a target of 2,94,200 set by the Government of India. The next year, it outdid with performance of 7,41,713 sterilisation operations against a target of four lakh. However, there were 25 complaints about use of force for the FP operations.
Even with demolitions, A.P. accounted for only 1.8% of total with 75 complaints. In contrast, Delhi had 1248 complaints.
The Shah Commission concluded about the excess during Emergency: 'The vast majority of demolitions were carried out by a complete disregard for the sufferings of persons in very humble walks of life and the government could take immediate steps to remedy the wrong and also to ensure that the conditions in the resettlement colonies are rendered safe, clean and convenient.'