A Unique Personality

K Balagopal was unique in many respects. To my mind, he can be counted along with E M S Namboodiripad, A K Gopalan and such others, who had given up all personal possessions and aspirations and struggled for the oppressed poor. Balagopal straddled the intellectual and activist domains in an amazing and most effective way. But that effort took him away from us: he literally worked himself to total exhaustion. Following K G Kannabiran, another fighter in the same mould, he worked tirelessly to strengthen a movement for civil liberties in Andhra Pradesh, and later extended his domain of activities to the whole country through the Human Rights Forum.

Balagopal had the courage to raise serious questions about how Marxism is practised in India by all those who call themselves Marxists. He raised questions about basic human values, about social concerns that transcend ideology, and as a consequence became something of an outcast in Marxist circles. But to the last breath he worked for the poor and the oppressed.