REC Warangal of the 1970s — Part 2
Continuation from part 1, a conversation with two alumni from the infamous era of the 70s. Names have been changed.
“So the elections came up. There was obviously a polarization at that time — that’s when it started. We were in third year. Engineering was five years then. The communists were very confident that they will win. They had some grass root support and there was also the fear factor. There were these five posts — the so called union — president, vice president, general secretary, joint secretary and film secretary. The film secretary was a fun post — this guy had to bring two movies into the campus a week; one on Wednesday and one in the weekend. You guys have TV now but we did not have anything. Our movies were screened in the Metallurgy Auditorium in that open quadrangle with one small projector. There was a grill there that people used to climb through to sit on the terrace. They used to smoke their chillums and joints and watch the movie. By the time when we were in final year we were sitting in the ground floor and doing it!”
“Anyway, most of the commi leadership was intelligent. They had good GPAs and stuff. On the other side there were people who drank, who smoked, and who’d go for a movie and have a fight somewhere in Hanamkonda and do all that crap. Commis used to come across like decent people but internally bad ones. Our luck, other than these five positions I mentioned, there were another five positions — class rep, one for each year. And each mess had a rep — so that was a total of five mess representatives. So altogether there were fifteen positions. The president and the general secretary were the most important, but the others became a part of it.”
“That election became a frenzied b***h. This guy who stood on behalf of RSS or ABVP or whatever was a brilliant guy. He did some debating, dramatics and was good at extra-curricular. At the same time he was kind of a topper in ECE. He got some sympathy votes. That day elections got over around 2 or 3 o clock. There was a commi panel and a non-commi panel. They started counting in the mechanical department. Public was gathered around there. We were getting pulled into it that time because we had friends who were in the panel — we did not realize the political implications. We had no option than to line with them because of friendship. We did not have any leaning with RSS or ABVP. But afterwards we were branded RSS. We had to be with them; otherwise it’s your head. Results started coming and out of fifteen positions, we had won fourteen. One mess secretary was lost to commis. For the commis it was an insult. They had to show to the world that REC Warangal was their kingdom, but in the election you get wiped out like this, that was a really defacing act. That made them crazy. Then it started. Small skirmishes, just like that. It intensified. It came to a situation where both sides were guarded.”
“There was one incident that year. We were walking with a senior after a movie. Then suddenly my senior was surrounded by commis (including Azad (Maoist) — he was a brilliant student doing his M.Tech) and they started hitting him. I didn’t know about the problem they had before. I thought we were not going to survive this and ran to call the others who had walked ahead. They came and whacked these commis. The commi crowd immediately dispersed. They got beaten again…heavily”
“One day, out of the normal, we found students with lattis everywhere. Some shit happened in Russia and the commis wanted to protest. That day we come down to the mess in the morning and these buggers had put up posters in the mess saying to boycott classes because somebody farted in Russia. China and Russia were fighting then. That Russian guy was coming to India so they wanted everybody to boycott the classes. In fact that night we wrote a poster “China’s chairman is our chairman” and stuck it around the messes just to piss the commis off.”
“We normally never went to class. That day after seeing this we decided. “Aaj class jaana padega”. Near the dispensary, all the commis were standing with lattis to send the students back. All the toppers and 9 pointers were returning back by the time we reached the mess. We never went to mess on time and when we saw this absurdity we decided we need to go to class today. We went up near the dispensary. There was a huge altercation.”
“It was verbal. It didn’t become physical because it was daytime. We said ‘F*** you saale. This is your party’s problem, not the students’ problem. We are going to class.’ We all went to class — probably the prof had never seen us before! Seeing us leave, the floodgates opened. The toppers and the studious kids came to class as well. There was 30 to 40 percent attendance. Again the commis had a loss of face. They called for a bundh and it never happened. Whenever they were doing something we’ll just do the opposite. These simple things made the divide bigger and bigger.”
“In our fourth year, they cancelled the election — because of the incidents during the Darga Festival. Behind the back gate, if you go further, there is this village darga. Every year a huge Muslim festival happens there. That darga is a famous one, it has some healing power, they say, and there will be record dances too. It’s like one record playing in the background, and you know, you’ll have a woman dancing around! It was open air and you pay a rupee or so to see a woman up so close those days.”
“So in that festival some guys misbehaved with a girl. Cops caught them, beat them up and put them in a random house and locked them. Then our general secretary tried to talk to them, saying you cannot keep these guys locked up in a random house and it’s not right. The cops were like ‘oh so you are the general secretary’ and caught him, beat him up and locked him too. Then everybody got to know — then the whole bunch of students went, beat the cops, broke the door and rescued all the students. They were so angry at the police atrocity and said ‘No Darga Festival will happen this year.’ They closed the road behind the back gate. Students stood there blocking the road. They knew the cops will try to run through, so they put a whole bunch of stones and stood in front of the pile. Obviously the cops couldn’t see the stones. They came in those vans with grilled windows and drove down at the standing students at full speed with flashing lights and blaring horns. At the last minute the students took flight. They ran off. Then the cops saw the stone pile and tried to brake and turn. It was a thunderous crash! There were sparks flying and the public also started to throw stones at the van. There was a cop car hidden in the darker side of the road and there was one guy reporting all the incidents on the radio. We yanked the cop out and saw the keys inside. The guys got into the car and drove into the campus. This was the one with the speakers — the ambassador car. When students saw a cop car coming inside the campus, they split and ran. Only later they realized it was just students inside the car. The car was parked in between 3rd and 4th block. Everybody jumped on the car and, in two minutes, the roof was touching the seat. The commis stripped the radio out and wanted to burn the car.”
“That sub inspector I told you about earlier, took a transfer and disappeared the minute emergency state ended. He knew he cannot survive with the REC students. A new sub inspector replaced the old one. Unfortunately, his face looked very much like the old guy! During the same Darga hassle students grabbed the chance and kidnapped the new sub inspector and took him into the hostel. They took away his pistol and locked him in a bathroom. They beat him up. Only later they realized it was not that sub inspector who tortured the students but was some innocent guy. But we had got him in now so couldn’t let him walk off just like that — the commis were responsible for that but we also had a part in it. Whatever the students had done, we had to bring our boys back and do anything we could to protect our own. So now, the sub inspector was locked up in a bathroom and the cop car was also inside — completely destroyed. We made sure commis didn’t get the pistol though — we didn’t want it become a different type of problem. Later we gave that pistol back to the police.”
“At that time there was this thing called the Special Reserve Police. There was one SP there. He later became the DGP. He was from a well off family and he was well educated. Twenty minutes later this guy came inside college — their SI was kidnapped which meant that they had to do something. They came and encircled the back gate. They didn’t know what was happening inside but only knew that SI was locked up. Around 300 police were standing outside. People were pelting stones at them as well. Then SP announces in the loud speaker that this can’t go on, we are going to come in and you have no option. As far as we were concerned, the matter was over. Students had gone for the festival, had their fun; we got them back and got our revenge on the old SI in a perverse manner and in that we beat up this innocent guy — whatever — but we had our fun. He said that we had five minutes and if we didn’t stop pelting and didn’t let them in, he was going to start firing. Nobody had that much of guts to let that happen. So we kept quiet and let them in”
“The SP came in. Even the collector arrived. We also made the collector stand on the inquisition table and answer the students. This SP was an intelligent and sensible guy. He came; made his speech so we said fine, take the guy and go. The principal was there and everybody else was there as well but the commis had vanished. By evening everything was back to normal. But two days later the cops filed a case against 16 students with their own stories. The commis were trying to frame some students and they gave the names. One of the sixteen was a guy who was out far in the north playing basketball for the institution at the same time.”
“They had to file an FIR. Then a whole bunch of us went to meet the chief minister. These guys went on a hunger strike in front of the admin block. It was a frequent sight though. We went to meet the chief minister. He said he didn’t want trouble in the campus. We said we would create a lot of trouble if you don’t withdraw all these cases — we said that to the chief minister.”
“Those days were different. We had the technical education minister eating out of our hands. He came into the campus when the hunger strike was going on. He was like ‘Babu, please’ and gave orange juice to all.”
“These were actually the troubled times. We used to sleep with bicycle chains and iron rods, you know, because the commis could attack you anytime. That time all the hostel windows missed the curtain rods. These were hollow rods anyway, so we broke the lead pipes under sinks, melted them using candles and then poured the liquefied lead into these hollow pipes. And chains! These buggers used to have sophisticated chains!”
“We always carried these chains when we went back home too. Because you could be attacked on the way home as well”
“Usually the fights were among commis and non-commis only. Except for one incident with outsiders — there was this one dada. He was the biggest Gunda in Warangal, Hanmakonda. We just had this thing, ‘Saala tu kaun hai’. He used to hassle with the REC guys who go around to watch movies or eat outside campus. And these Gundas had a connection with the commis too. Students would walk back after a movie or cycle back or even get lifts from Lorries. They didn’t like it. These gundas used to stop the students and say, saala, you mind your business in Kazipet, don’t come to Hanmakonda.”
“The commis had issues with one of our mess secretaries. They wanted to do something to him. At that time it was usual for the mess secretary to go to the market early in the morning to pick up vegetables and other stuff. Once when he went over, he got stabbed by someone. Thankfully nothing critical happened to him. Actually, the guys who attacked him were commis. One of the attackers there called out a first name that was the same name as the Gunda’s.”
“When we heard the news we got onto the college bus, asked the driver to take it out. By 8 am the entire college know what had happened. Then we went to the hospital to see this guy. When he told us what happened, the RSS folks concluded that it was the Gunda who attacked. Later around 11 am we set out to Hanmakonda to this adda where the Gunda and his gang stay — near the bus stand. Some guy spotted the Gunda — then we stopped the bus, picked that guy up and set off. The whole town saw this happen.”
“Actually it was the commis who stabbed our friend, not the Gunda. When we drove into the campus the news spread as ‘the culprits are caught!’ Some of the commis who were involved got scared and ran away. Then we were wondering what to do with this guy. Anyway he was the town’s thug, so we dunked him in the pond, shaved his left half of the head and right half of the mustache. He was soaking in the pond for two, three hours and every person walking by hit him! Later we had to let him out because police requested us to. The guy had some political connections. Then for some time Hanmakonda was out of bounds for us. Still students used to go in large numbers like 10 or 15. But whatever said, no outsider dared to come near REC Warangal then.”
To be continued…
