On March 31, a hail of bullets silenced Gummadivelli Renuka, alias Chaite, 55, an insurgent whose pen was as mighty as the rifle she carried in the dense forests of Bastar, Chhattisgarh.
She was killed by the District Reserve Guard (DRG), a specialised police unit formed in 2008, to fight Maoist insurgents; and her death has raised some serious questions. Renuka, who had a combined reward of Rs.45 lakh from the Chhattisgarh and Telangana police, was among approximately 150 women Maoist rebels killed in the region over the past year. Rights activists allege her death was a result of the government’s “surrender or be eliminated” policy, aligned with the Central government’s declared objective to eradicate Naxalism by March 2026.
Renuka represented many things to many people: a fearless author, a leader of a women’s liberation movement. But to the state, she will always remain a terrorist, her killing an elimination of a threat.
The police claimed Renuka was killed during an exchange of fire at 9 am in the forested hills spanning Nelgoda, Ikeli, and Belnar villages, near the border of Dantewada and Bijapur districts in Chhattisgarh where DRG personnel were out on an anti-Naxal operation. After two hours of gunfight, her body was reportedly recovered from the site along with an INSAS rifle, ammunition, a laptop, and Maoist literature, the police said. There were no police casualties during the alleged exchange of fire.
But the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has called the encounter a staged execution. In a press statement, the party alleged, “Comrade Chaite had gone to Belnar village in the Bhairamgarh block, where she was staying alone in a house because she was unwell. Acting on a tip-off, the police laid a cordon around the house at 4 am on March 31 and arrested her. CID officials from Chhattisgarh and the Telangana police interrogated her for at least 2–3 hours. Between 9 and 10 am, she was taken to the Indravati River, where she was killed in cold blood.” A publication, Andhra Jyothi reported allegations that she was tortured to death.
A law degree and press in-charge
A resident of Telangana, Renuka held a law degree and played a key role in Chaitanya Mahila Sangham, a women’s rights organisation operating in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh since 1995. She later joined the Maoist movement, and in 2004, went underground.
Renuka served as the press and publication in-charge of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, a key operational unit of the banned CPI(M). She oversaw activities in the Dandakaranya region, a sprawling forest that extended through Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
She is believed to have authored over 30 short stories, using multiple pen names, portraying strong female characters; some of these stories were translated into English and published in Viyyukka—The Morning Star, a collection of stories of Maoist women insurgents. She was known as Midko among Telugu readers.
Renuka is said to have authored articles and a book on people’s participation in the Narayanpatna struggle of 2000. Tribal communities in Narayanpatna, in Odisha’s Koraput district, have for long been facing dispossession of their land by non-tribal landlords despite legal protections under the Fifth Schedule and Odisha’s land laws. The government’s failure to restore these lands has left impoverished tribals trapped in bonded labour.
Under the name B.D. Damayanti, she is said to have documented the violence perpetrated by Salwa Judum, a state-backed militia which was declared unconstitutional and banned by the Supreme Court in 2011.
For her, politics and personal life were deeply intertwined. She married Santosh Reddy, also known as Mahesh, a central committee member of the party, who she had known since childhood. After his death in a police encounter in 1999 in Telangana’s Karimnagar district, she later married Shakamuri Appa Rao, alias Ravi, who reportedly met a similar fate in a police encounter in Telangana’s Warangal district in 2010. Her brother, Gumudavelli Venkatakrishna Prasad, known as Gudsa Usendi, surrendered to authorities in 2014.
She was tasked by the party with editing and publishing several clandestine magazines, including Awami Jung, People’s March, Jhankar, Mahila Margam, Sangharshkar Mahila, Pituri, Midangur, Bhumkal Sandesh, and Prabhat.
“Boycott fake Lok Sabha and Assembly elections” screamed a lead headline of a page one articlein the Hindi quarterly magazine Prabhat last year, rallying support for the insurgency. Its deck read, “Oppose INDIA bloc including Congress, which is responsible for enforcing the economic policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization.”
Referring to an Oxfam study, another article in the journal, titled “Modi’s Ten Years—An era of fear, repression, and corporate loot” pointed to a sharp rise in the economic inequalities in past decade.
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In the 38-page edition, another article titled “Raise Your Voice Against Operation Kagar—A Counter-Revolutionary Surajkund Strategy”, discussed Operation Kagar, a joint counter-insurgency initiative launched in January 2024 by the Central and Chhattisgarh State governments to eradicate left-wing extremism. Initiated after the BJP came to power in Chhattisgarh, political observers linked the operation to the “Chintan Shivir” of State Home Ministers, held in Haryana’s Surajkund in October 2022. The two-day event was a brainstorming session aimed at strengthening internal security, enhancing coordination among States and promoting cooperative federalism in law and order matters.
Addressing the conference via video, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the “Panch Pran” (five resolves) to build a developed India by 2047. On Naxalism, Modi stated: “Every form of Naxalism, whether through guns or pens, must be uprooted to prevent the youth from being misled.”
On April 3, Renuka’s funeral was held in her native village, Kadavendi in Telangana’s Jangaon district. Her body, draped in red and carried atop a tractor trolley adorned with flowers and CPI(M) flags, moved through the village as slogans rang through the air—there were voices of grief, declarations of resistance, tributes to her legacy, and a resolve to fight class inequality.
Villagers turned out in huge numbers for the solemn funeral procession. They were joined by civil society members, activists, writers, student leaders, former Maoists and even leaders from several mainstream political parties.
Source:https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/obituary/gummadivelli-renuka-maoist-writer-killed-chhattisgarh-encounter/article69412576.ece