Hyderabad: “It is quite a discomfort, but I shall bear it,” quipped Ramakrishna alias RK referring to the comforts of the materialistic world like air-conditioned rooms and sleeping on well-laid-out beds into which he walked in from the dense forests.
Time was when he came to hold the first-ever peace talks with the ultras’ enemy number one — state – sometime in the mid-October 2004.
RK, whose original name was Akkiraju Haragopal, reportedly died of illness in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh on Wednesday. The end of his four-decade armed struggle comes as a big jolt to the outlawed Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Following the call given by Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, then chief minister of the combined Andhra Pradesh, to engage in a dialogue, the Naxalite outfit People’s War Group, which later merged with the Maoists to become the Communist Party of India (Marxist), reciprocated with “temporary” ceasefire and sent a delegation to the capital city.
Ramakrishna was the natural choice to lead the delegation of the outlawed group in view of his strong commitment to the armed struggle, deep insight into people’s issues and the greater skill of articulating the group’s view point.
So much was his commitment that he was elated when his son Munna joined the armed struggle and he welcomed him into the dalam, stating that family members too should take the struggle forward.
RK along with his colleagues made a dramatic entry into the mainstream from two decades of guerrilla warfare, handing over his weapon and switching over to civilian clothes from the PWG’s uniform at Guttikondabilam in Guntur district.
He went underground in an equally dramatic way by walking into the dense Nallamala forest near Srisailam after formally receiving his weapon from the fellow dalam members.
Significantly, both the sides -- the state government and the Naxal outfit -- did not begin the exercise with any hope of finding a solution to the decades-long armed struggle. But they wanted to use the temporary truce to their respective advantage. The Maoist outfit, however, suffered a lot post the peace talks that it almost got wiped out of the two Telugu states in the subsequent years.
RK, sporting a pleasant smile always, interacted with mediapersons all through his stay at Manjeera guest house in Begumpet. He indeed made the announcement of the merger of PWG and Maoists and formation of the new outfit CPI (Maoist).
“We could sense the State’s strategy in inviting us, but it’s a fact that the administration was under pressure from people to hold talks,” RK said when asked about the possible outcome of the talks. He defended the talks, saying this would help in not only highlighting people’s issues but finding solutions to at least some of them.
