About The Author

K. Balagopal was the fifth child of middle class Telugu Brahmin couple Kandalla Parthanatha Sarma and Nagamani. His father’s job in the insurance sector entailed frequent transfers and Balagopal’s education was in several towns of AP, from Nellore to Vizianagaram. After Pre-University education in Kavali and BSc in Tirupati, he took an MSc and PhD in Mathematics from the Regional Engineering College in Warangal before proceeding to Delhi for a post-doctoral at the Indian Statistical Institute.K. Balagopal was a brilliant mathematician, he began his career as a teacher in Warangal but soon turned full-time human rights activist. He was a Mathematics professor at Kakatiya University before quitting in 1985.He did his Phd in Kakatiya University. He chose to become a lawyer much later, after getting fully associated with the human rights movement.K.Balagopal served as the general secretary of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) between 1983 and 1997. Following sharp differences of opinion within the APCLC on how to respond to revolutionary violence he left APCLC and formed the Human Rights Forum.Over a period of 26 years, he documented and took up cases of thousands of extrajudicial killings by government forces in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. When the erstwhile people’s war cadres resorted to a rash of kidnaps in late ‘80’s, a vigilante organisation ‘Praja Bandhu’ abducted him demanding the release of two policemen from naxalite custody. The ‘Praja Bandhu’ which was suspected to have been floated by the state police had released him only after the abducted policemen were let off.First introduced to Marxism through reading DD Kosambi, K. Balagopal followed a dialectical Marxist method in scores of articles published in the Economic and Political Weekly until the early 90s. Deeply disturbed by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Balagopal began to explore humanist traditions in Marxism for answers. His articles in the 90s especially in Telugu reflect this shift.