Born in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh, Gummadi Vitthal Rao, a dalit student, dropped out of his engineering course at Osmania University, took up singing as a career and travelled to remote villages all over India, spreding social messages through his songs and writings. Over four decades, he came to represent the voice of revolution and emerged as the balladeer-comrade GADDAR. In an exclusive interview with Vijay Sai, he reflects on the state of affairs in third world countries, with the rise of global imperialism and the failure of many social movements.

VIJAY SAI: You have been involved in the peace talks between the Naxalites and the Andhra Pradesh government right from the very beginning. How did these come about and why did they stop, just when everybody thought that an age-old dispute was coming to an end?

GADDAR: The peace talks were a strong demand from public, the media and a few intellectuals who wanted to strengthen the democratic process. In the beginning there were so many issues, from increase in wages to health issues to banning liquor. So, the people who started this dialogue thought that this would be a platform to discuss people’s issues. In the first round of discussion,
with the Chandrababu Naidu Government, people came forward with good will. There was no set agenda for either of the - parties. It was like an informal panchayat discussion. But then, suddenly the police conducted fake encounters and killed hundreds of innocent
villagers assuming they were Naxalites. Now there was no need to do that. So the peace talks stopped. Then the Congress came into power by using the Naxalite issue to gain votes. They declared in the state assembly that the Naxalite issue was not a law and order issue but was a socio-economic problem. After they came to power, they realised they were in a fix about whether or not to hold talks. They created an internal debate in the party to show how sympathetic they were to the whole issue. And when it came to talking across the table, they decided not to sign the deal, even though all the demands made in the contract were democratic demands. We asked for reservations for minorities, for women, for tribals and for a separate Telangana State. The government just refused to sign. We even asked for increasing the wages of police constables and they didn’t listen to that either. So that was the end of the dialogue process.

Vijay Sai is a freelance writer and an independent researcher living in Bangalore. Five years ago he wrote a 54-episode serial for Star TV called UTSAV. Currently, he’s finishing the manuscript of a book on the Sufi saints of Karnataka.Gaddar is a well known revolutionary Balladeer and poet from Andhra Pradesh. He has beenassociated with various social movements over the last four decades. He lives in Hyderabad.