Getting blankets in Yerwada jail was also a big challenge. Had to wait for court order
My father Varavara Rao was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2018. Then his age was 78 years. He was released on medical bail in August 2022, but due to the stringent bail conditions, he had to live in Mumbai, as if he was living a life in exile. He is not allowed to meet his co-accused. There is no one there to talk to him in Telugu, he is not allowed to go to Hyderabad for treatment. His literary activities are banned and he is not able to meet his loved ones in Telangana.
This was not his first arrest. Even before this he had been arrested many times. Due to his political activism, he was arrested even before the Emergency in 1973. I was an infant (barely a month old) when my father was arrested. Since childhood, I have seen him repeatedly arrested as a political prisoner. My mother Hemlata used to visit him in jail.
Mostly he remained lodged in the jails of Andhra Pradesh. There was a ‘Class-B’ category for political prisoners, under which they were given facilities like cot, table and chair inside the jail. He was deprived of these facilities for the first time during his imprisonment in Maharashtra. We had to file petitions in the court so that they could get basic necessities. Every petition turned into a long legal battle.
When a person is imprisoned hundreds of kilometers away from home, writing letters remains the only means of communication. The jail administration did not allow him to write letters in Telugu. They insisted that letters be written in Hindi or English, so that they could read them. My father is a Telugu writer and poet. It was extremely painful to deprive him of the opportunity to write in a language he loved deeply.
I remember, when he was in Yerwada jail in Pune, even getting him a blanket was a big challenge. For this also we had to apply to the court and wait for permission. He spent most of his life in a state like Telangana, where the cold is not severe. The cold of Pune was very harsh for him. His health deteriorated in jail. The pandemic proved to be a nightmare. He got Covid infection thrice.
He was shifted to Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai after his final Covid treatment. My mother and I went to the hospital to meet him. His condition broke us. It seemed as if we were seeing them alive for the last time and they would not survive. But they are warriors. His indomitable will and the love and prayers of the people saved him. Gradually he became healthy.
My father comes from an ordinary family. He was born in 1940 in Chinna Pendyala village in Warangal district of present-day Telangana. Upbringing in a politically aware family played an important role in his intellectual and ideological development. His early exposure to books, debates and progressive literature helped shape him as a poet, professor and political activist.
My elder uncles were also arrested during the freedom struggle. This tradition of political activism has been in his family. The struggle for human rights and the poor stemmed from his own experiences of poverty. Many times he had to walk several kilometers to go to college.
My father has been a very active poet and writer. He started a magazine named ‘Srijana’ and formed ‘Virasam’ (Revolutionary Writers Association), a group of revolutionary writers in Telugu. It has a glorious contemporary history of radical and progressive literary activities in the Telugu language.
We three sisters grew up in an environment where magazine meetings were held at our home. Political discussions took place and poetry was an integral part of our childhood. He never imposed his values on us, but it was difficult to escape his influence. All three of us embraced the values he always stood for. Simple living and political commitment became an integral part of all our lives.
My father worked hard, edited magazines and took active part in literary and political movements, including the separate Telangana movement. Along with his academic career, he emerged as a major pillar of modern and revolutionary Telugu literature. From 1966 to 1992, he founded and edited the magazine ‘Srijana’, which became an important platform for progressive and radical writers. He also played a leading role in establishing the Revolutionary Writers Association (Virasam) and was associated with many other cultural and democratic organizations. During his imprisonment my mother Hemlata was the editor of ‘Srijana’ magazine.
But all this came at the cost of constant fear and arrests in his life. Our magazine was banned twice. In the magazine case, my mother was sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment and was sent to jail as a convict, but after appealing in the High Court, she got bail in eight days and was ultimately acquitted. The police would knock on our door any time, looking for my father. It had become so common that many times he would be at home at night, but would not be found in the morning. When I asked, I was told that the police had arrested him. Knowing this I would go back to sleep.
The people of our neighborhood in Warangal respected him a lot. They knew that if he was arrested, he must have done some good work for the poor. But in Maharashtra, political prisoners were viewed differently and treated discriminatory.
Meeting them in jails or courts meant traveling from Hyderabad to Pune and later to Mumbai and incurring huge expenses. Even today, he is on bail but is forced to stay in Mumbai due to the conditions. It is extremely difficult for my mother Hemlata to live with them, especially in a city where she had to struggle a lot to get a house on rent.
Since the early 1970s, my father faced continuous state repression, regardless of which party was in power. Over a period of 45 years he was arrested several times and implicated several times on serious charges such as treason. He could not be convicted in any case, but remained in jail as an undertrial for years. This time spent in jail was also associated with his most creative period of writing and translation.
I am proudly carrying forward his legacy. I remember an incident when he taught me to be simple in front of students as a lecturer. He used to say, “You can develop any style in your dress or appearance, but maintain simplicity. The day students start paying too much attention to your clothes or style, their studies can get distracted. A good teacher should ensure that the students concentrate on what he is teaching and not on anything else.” This is the biggest lesson of my life, which I follow.
His steadfastness towards the truth is also a big lesson for me. He says, “Do everything with conviction and truth, there is no need to hide the truth for fear of consequences.” Nothing was given to us as a sermon. These were simple everyday experiences. My father was never afraid of his political identity, no matter what. He knew that a regime that suppressed dissent would eventually land him in jail, but that never deterred him.
After a long legal battle, he got bail in May 2024 and was allowed to move from Mumbai to his home in Delhi till the completion of the trial.
Despite being repeatedly jailed as a political prisoner and facing state repression, he still smiles as bright as the sun because of the values he and we believe in. His steadfast socio-political stand and work became an inspiration for hundreds of young people. Prisons can break a person physically, affecting both body and mind and the oppressive realities within prison are one reason for this but they cannot capture the spirit, the spirit of struggle for truth and values. No prison in the world can imprison my father’s dream of a society based on equality.
(Poet and activist Varavara Rao was sent to jail in connection with the caste violence that broke out in Bhima Koregaon. He was 78 years old at the time. He was released on medical grounds in 2022. He is still forced to live in Mumbai due to strict bail conditions. He is not allowed to go to Hyderabad for his treatment, his literary activities are banned and he is not even able to meet his family in Telangana. Detained under UAPA Due to this, he had to face a lot of difficulties in getting a house on rent in Mumbai, due to which his wife is also not able to live with him in the city.
