REC Warangal of the 1970s — Part 1
Note: This is a transcript of a conversation with two alumni from the then REC Warangal (NIT Warangal) who studied during the years 1970s, during the state of emergency. Like Dickens would say, “It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.” It is an interesting tale, a melange of experiences that involved fun and terror in equal mix, of education and politics mixed up so much it was hard to separate one from another. The alumni who came out of those fiery times turned out alright and in fact, doing really well, rich with stories and drenched with experience. It was a very critical batch considering it saw the metamorphosis of the college due to state of emergency and due to the repercussions of the emergency at a time when the commis and naxals were trying to take hold of the famed REC as well. One thing was for certain, the college was run the way students wanted it to be run. Student was king. Names have been changed.
It was 8:00PM, July 2014. We sat down around the table with a few snacks and some beer. What was to follow was the first-hand experience of RECW during the 1970s. A no-holds barred narration from one of the most radical colleges in India at the time. We present it to you, uncensored.
“My friend and I played a prank on the third roommate (with skulls and stuff) which eventually made him shift his room. The two of us became friends for life too.” And so they were, with innumerable stories about the emergency, the mess that was shut down, naxalism, teacher-inquisitions, weed grown underneath the windows of hostels and other tales that contemporary students will find hard to believe or digest. There were some tragedies too, a student having lost his life trying to protect a batch mate.
“The only thing I remember in first year is that all the dining hall lights were switched off from 7 O’clock in the night and nobody would go in to the mess. First week or second week after we joined, a student of the second year was caught ragging somebody. They rusticated him because it was state of emergency. It was ’76. Students wanted to go on strike to protest but they couldn’t as it would be reason enough to be sent to jail. Quite a few were already in jail under MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) for their association with Jan Sang(JS)/RSS and communists (referred to as commis) — political prisoners. They took their exams in jail. In fact there are text books in the library and in circulation, passed on from batch to batch that still say ‘Property of Warangal Central Jail’.
“This was evident in all student regions; everywhere. Anybody who causes trouble, they put them in jail. So anyway, they couldn’t go on strike. All the students then decided to turn off every light in the hostels. All our room lights were off. And they did not eat food in the mess. All the food went to waste. But the messes had to prepare the food. The idea of this well-coordinated silent protest was to get publicity. Any sign of trouble in REC, which was the cynosure of attention in AP, would only translate to the news reaching the higher echelons and eventually the Chief Minister would come to know about it. That was one of the stranger protests that we were part of.”
“This silent strike lasted for four or five days and RECW was being noticed. The principal was under pressure. Other colleges in the state were quiet. The technology education minister was from Hanumakonda. Any small thing that happened in the area would come to his attention and he would come running. He couldn’t afford to have all these incidents happening in the state. Eventually, the rustication was taken back”
“We were new. We didn’t know what was happening in those days. You see, in those two years (emergency) there was a so called truce between RSS/JS and communists because they couldn’t do anything. Most of the top guys were in jail. There were only a few low-level guys from the RSS/JS and commis left around. But that was enough to make trouble. That was a time of exceptional unity among students. After emergency was over, the fight between RSS/JS and commis resumed again.”
“Our Second and Third year was during the emergency. There were police atrocities as well. During emergency there was a local sub inspector in Kazipet.”
“He’d ask, are you an REC guy? Then he’d say, ‘bhaag saala, station tak bhaag’. We’d be walking on the road or sitting on a wall. If the bugger got you, you had a terrifying experience to recount. He was quite a big built bull of a guy. He had his own way of doing things. He’d ask ‘REC saale? Bhaag bhench*d’. Then he’ll keep the students in the station overnight and send them away in the morning.”
“When election dates were eventually announced, everybody was campaigning for the Janata party. It was still state of emergency, so you couldn’t campaign in the day time. We used lai (glue made from wheat flour) to stick up posters. We took EG sheets to write ‘Vote for Janata party’ and stuck them on the village walls in the night. You’d be locked up if you tried anything else.”
“During the day, there was some canvassing as well. That is the time I realized how bad the living conditions of the people in the villages were. There was a Forward Caste candidate from Janata Party and, surprisingly, the villagers were not going to vote for him. They said ‘you don’t know what they (Forward Caste people) did to us’.”
“This was around thirty years ago. Untouchability existed. These ‘untouchables’ had to tie palm leaves to their backs so that the leaves wiped off their footprints while they walked, to clear the way for forward caste people who’d walk afterwards.”
“And when they slept — the untouchables — you had to flip the bed around; the four legs pointed at the sky. It was considered offensive to sleep in the regular way if a forwards caste guy happens to cross by. There were quite a few movies on the way of the feudal system and we happened to see them in real, meted out to the poor villagers during those days, who were perpetually in debt of the landlords, passed on from father to son to grandson and so on. One of the worst atrocities that we heard about was with regards to women, who after marriage had to first sleep with the “dora or landlord” and then only could resume married life with her husband. This was happening around Warangal. These incidents helped us also understand the other side of the coin as to why, how and where a movement like Naxalism took roots. You know, you are young, 18/19 years old and you hear blood-boiling stories. Then you feel — hey, I can be a part of this and I can help society — and before you know, you are too deep into it.”
“There was this Naxal who was killed recently, about a year and a half ago by the police. He was there when we were in campus. He was doing B.Tech that time.”
“How many times we’ve had discussions with that guy! I knew that guy; suave fellow. He came from an affluent family who were big landlords. He did not have any shortcomings in his own life, but he got caught up in this. He could speak English, Hindi and Telugu and he could study any subject under the sun. A very well-read guy. During MISA time, he saw some kind of potential in us. He would come and sit with us and try brainwashing me — to join the communists. He was an excellent debater and an excellent student — the 9 pointer types. And he was very heavily into the Naxalism stuff.”
“The Commis had an interesting way of recruiting students for their movement. Those first year kids who come from villages, the commis would protect them from ragging. The unwritten rule we had was, if a fresher is with a senior you cannot rag him. They would take a group of 15–20 freshers and a final year would always be with them.”
“It was actually sad. Those kids would be brilliant students who get into REC from a poor family, and next thing they knew they were neck deep into the ideals of Naxalism. A fresher would get a group of friends first. Then they would introduce them to their kind of literature — amazing, nice and well written pamphlets but filled with stories of atrocities. When you are an intelligent kid, you understand that these guys are protecting you from ragging. Then you get introduced to these kinds of stories. Next they take you on a raid.”
“There was a guy I knew who came from Hyderabad. He told me that first few days it will be literature and reading. The next part happens quite later. They take you on a night trip (raid) to the nearby village to witness what was happening. And then they would murder somebody. Now you are part of an accused group and you become an accomplice. You are trapped in the web and there is not a way out.”
“This state of emergency was a unique time in Indian History itself, I think. Nothing was in order. There was so much turbulence everywhere. Even on campus some professors would behave very badly. It was like an autocratic rule. The students were very angry but couldn’t do anything.”
“Those two years were very bad. Students wanted vengeance. Eventually when the Congress lost the elections things changed quite drastically. I remember the first thirty seats that were announced, everybody was in the open air cafeteria where we had a room with a student made amp along with a radio for music. Anyway, then the students were happy with the election results and they planned an inquisition for the teaching staff. They gave dates and times to those professors who took advantage of emergency state to trouble students. Some members of the teaching staff were made to stand on tables and explain their case and actions in the cafti, before being humiliated by students who threw paper balls and chappalsat them. Some got slapped too.”
“There were respected senior professors who were not done any harm. Only those who took advantage over the students for those two years were brought into the inquisition and troubled — because Warangal was always a student driven campus.”
“Then later, after the major elections, the college announces that we are going to have student elections. We said don’t; in our final year we were very vehement about it. The principal though felt he had no choice and had to conduct student elections. The elections were not good news. The commis lost and it was loss of face for them, considering REC was the hub for communists in the state. That was when things turned ugly…and dangerous.”
To be continued.
