Though the organisation formed 50 years ago did not even exist for even 25 years, it remains embedded in the daily memory of the people. Just as the sun's rays are not blocked by clouds, the lives, work, and sacrifices of Radical students live on in the hearts of millions.
Published Feb 20, 2025 | 7:54 PM ⚊ Updated Feb 20, 2025 | 7:54 PM
The Radical student movement is an inseparable, extraordinary, and glorious part of Telugu society's history and the history that people are making.
Synopsis: The Radical Students Union, founded in 1975, had its ears close to the ground, and it encouraged students to stay in villages and have first-hand knowledge of rural life, especially that of Dalits. The Union, which took up issues pertaining to students, however, did not curry favour with the government, and was banned in 1992. Successive governments extended the ban but could not prevent people from having the glorious memories of an organisation that did not exist for even quarter of a century.
When Telugu poet Sri Sri asked, “What is the progression of the human story at the intersections of historical twilight,” he was not posing the question for himself or to anyone else in particular. It was a wake-up call for all of us to engage in a chain of thought.
The development of human history can belong to an individual, a clan, a family, a society, a nation, or all nations. In the evolution of one’s own story, what historical division or what historical twilight periods exist, in which historical developments did one walk, where did one run, where did one stop, where did one fall, and where did one stand still?
Exploring, excavating, remembering, and sharing one’s past with others — what was recalled and what slipped away — has perhaps always been an instinct for humanity since the dawn of self-awareness. All our folk tales, literature, and arts are expressions of that aspect.
As another poet said, “The earth laughed aloud reading its history; the earth wept bitterly recollecting its history.” How can anyone not think of the grand story of joy and sorrow?
However, although history is something we constantly remember and reflect upon, certain moments and events bring that history back to our memory in a special way. For the Telugu people and Telangana in particular, 20-21 February marks one such unique moment — a special occasion for recalling the glorious events, transformations, individuals, leaders, and heroes.
The dates have much significance that — among many others — turned the course of Telangana’s history and, for that matter, the history of united Andhra Pradesh.
Exactly 50 years ago, in 1975, on these dates, the Andhra Pradesh Radical Students’ Union (RSU) held its first conference at Sarojini Devi Hall at Ramkote, Hyderabad. As the saying goes, ‘The rest is history.’
How did a particular date and a particular association’s conference acquire such historical significance? No date or event is inherently stand-alone. Every date, every event, has a prelude; creation doesn’t happen without labour pains. The culmination of the long history of student revolts in Telugu-speaking regions was the formation of the Radical Students’ Union.
Both in the Telugu districts of Madras State, during the anti-British colonial movements, and in the Hyderabad State, during the anti-Nizam movements, students played a significant role, and they organised under associations. But after 1947, and particularly after 1956, people’s movements and, especially, student movements were on a wane.
In the latter half of the 1960s, during the agitation for the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and the Telangana separate statehood movement, student power was revived once again. The vibrant student power that participated in these movements was naturally influenced by the Naxalbari uprising.
By 1969-70, student groups across the state were being shaped under the influence of Naxalbari politics. Digambara Kavulu (naked poets), Tirugabadu Kavulu (defiant poets), and questions posed by Visakhapatnam students to the litterateurs, the formation of the Revolutionary Writers’ Association, art lovers, Srjana, Vidyullata, Prabhanjanam, Velugu, Long March — all these literary and social stir-ups expressed the anger of the youth.
However, due to the understanding of Naxalbari politics at that time, the belief that building mass organisations were wrong and that mass organisations meant revisionism that undermined class struggle led to the call for students to directly join the revolutionary struggle.
The poem written by Shivshagar (KG Satyamurthy) in 1972 asking, “O student, will you become a fugitive to this slavish education, or will you become a warrior in the revolutionary struggle?” exemplified this trend.
But soon, the revolutionary movement recognised that this country, with its diversity and multitude of struggles and processes, needs the creation of as many mass organisations in different fields and levels. As a result, student organisations began emerging locally in various cities of Andhra Pradesh.
The assassination of progressive student leader George Reddy by communal fanatics at Osmania University in April 1972 led to the expansion of these progressive student organisations and the thought of consolidating them at the state level.
Thus, in October 1974, the first conference of the Progressive Democratic Student Union (PDSU) was held at Sarojini Devi Hall in Hyderabad. During the discussions about the manifesto of the organisation, students debated whether they should be a part of a broader social movement or limit their struggle to student issues alone.
With differing opinions, some 400 of the 570 delegates present, according to then media reports, boycotted the meeting and went to the Andhra Saraswatha Parishad Hall, located a furlong away, to announce the formation of the Radical Students’ Union.
The next day, they scheduled their meeting at Maharashtra Mandal, but the police prevented it.
The Radical Students’ Union held its first conference in February 1975. By then, student organisations in various universities, colleges, and even some schools across the state were part of the Union. The term Radicals became an indelible mark in the history of Telugu society.
Radicals didn’t just refer to students but to youth in general. That is why, in July 1975, the Radical Youth League’s first grand meeting was scheduled to take place in Guntur, but due to the Emergency imposed on 25 June, the RYL conference was not held.
During the Emergency, the RSU was also not allowed to function. Further, its leadership was imprisoned. Students who escaped arrest went to villages to study the socio-economic conditions and began to raise awareness for mass struggles.
After the Emergency was lifted, the RSU held its second conference in Warangal in February 1978. It was at this meeting that, for the first time in the country, students were given an extraordinary call: “Students, Go to the villages!”
The call was for students to organise in groups, go to villages during summer vacation, study the problems of the villagers, organise struggles for their resolution, and, wherever possible, form associations of peasants and landless agricultural workers.
The first conference of the RYL, held in May 1978 in Guntur, also joined this call.
From then until 1985, when the NT Rama Rao government enforced the ‘No Song, No Dance, No Speech’ policy, thousands of students in hundreds of groups across the state spent 10 to 15 days every year propagating revolutionary politics in thousands of villages.
They studied the people’s problems, suggested different forms of struggle for their resolution, and established peasant-agricultural labor associations in hundreds of villages. It was mandatory for student groups to stay in Dalit neighborhoods, eat with Dalits, and understand the issues of social justice.
Thousands of students, for the first time, understood and experienced the concept of social justice. They rewrote the history of people’s movements in Andhra Pradesh.
The ‘Go to the Villages’ programme, held annually during summer vacations, was complemented by the RSU’s constant participation in struggles for various student issues . Issued taken were like fees, amenities in educational institutions, syllabus problems, corruption in administration, conduct of teachers and non-teaching staff, hostel facilities, corruption in hostels, scholarships, transportation issues, charges of both private and public transport facilities, canteens, laboratories, sports and recreational facilities in educational institutions, consciousness-raising activities for students, sexual harassment against girl students by teachers and co-students, ragging, lumpen activities by rowdy elements, erroneous trends of communal and revisionist student unions, price rise, unemployment, capitation fees, student union elections, inaugural days, college days, so on and so forth.
There was not a single student issue left unaddressed by the RSU.
In addition to addressing these day-to-day issues, the RSU took up weekly or more frequent actions, such as putting up wall posters called ‘Radical Voice,’ which served as a platform for enlightening students, teachers, and staff about both educational and social issues.
The RSU’s commitment to bringing social awareness to students and the people and involving them in struggles for their community’s rights, along with building relationships with the masses, was crucial. Without the RSU, the Telugu society and Telangana would not have been as socially aware as they are today.
Thanks to this social awareness, the Radical Students’ Union stands out with distinction in the history of student organisations in the country, a distinction not achieved by any other organisation. It represents an unprecedented tradition of sacrifice, with leaders and activists giving up their studies or joining the revolutionary movement after completing their education, and more than 300 of them losing their lives in fake encounters with the state.
The fact that the people they worked with still fondly remember and honour them decades later proves the uniqueness of their lives and actions.
Even though no other student organisation has been banned, even under authoritarian regimes across the country or the world, the Andhra Pradesh government imposed a ban on the Radical Students’ Union in 1992, which continues to be extended by the governments of both Telugu states after 2014.
Though the organisation formed 50 years ago did not even exist for even 25 years, it remains embedded in the daily memory of the people. Just as the sun’s rays are not blocked by clouds, the lives, work, and sacrifices of Radical students live on in the hearts of millions.
In a nutshell, the Radical student movement is an inseparable, extraordinary, and glorious part of Telugu society’s history and the history that people are making.
(The writer is the editor of an independent, small Telugu monthly journal of society and political economy, running for the past 23 years. Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
