Arise Bharat

Movie Review by Pradakshina

The new movie ‘Jitender Reddy – his story needs to be told’ is an important movie which sheds light on the naxal violence which shattered the society, especially the youth in the turbulent 1980s in United Andhra Pradesh. The movie is produced by the brother of late Jitender Reddy, Sri Mudiganti Ravinder Reddy and his family, and is excellently directed by Virinchi Varma, who became famous with his movie Uyyala Jampala. Actor Rakesh Varre powerfully portrays the lead role of Jitender Reddy.  Well-known actors, Subbaraju plays his mentor Gopanna while Ravi Prakash plays the pivotal role of his security aide Gattayya. Vaishali Raj, Rhea Suman play the female leads. The dialogues and music are good, befitting the mood of the movie. The lyrics by Rambabu Goshala, especially the anthem in the finale, are gripping. 

The movie narrates the heart-wrenching real life story of young idealistic Muduganti Jitender Reddy, full of patriotism, social consciousness and people’s welfare, owing to his family background and his own growing up years in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in Jagityala, Karimnagar district. From childhood, his parents and mentors instilled patriotic fervor and Chatrapati Sivaji’s valor in him. One of his mentors, farmers’ leader Gopanna (played by well-known actor Subbaraju) and his aide Ramanna are brutally targeted and killed by naxal leader Sayanna and his group. Jitender Reddy who emerges as the ABVP       (Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) leader, witnesses the extreme violence and takes on the radical leftist student unions in college, he becomes the prime target of naxal groups and begins to confront them on their own turf, taking the battle into the deep jungles. He is ultimately martyred in the ambush by naxals where he goes down fighting. The movie pays tribute to over 40 persons, most of them in their youth, who were killed by naxals in the turbulent decade of 1980s. 

The movie authentically depicts the socio-economic-political scenario of the naxal affected districts of Andhra Pradesh in the 1980s. It shows the open collusion of some of the elected leaders with the naxals, the failure of the law enforcement agencies in tackling the naxal violence; in a scene a police officer himself says that the system is too slow to respond and therefore Jitender Reddy can take the law in his own hands. The movie shows how lawyers trap helpless people and recruit minors into the naxal movement, violating all human rights conventions. ‘Urban naxal’ professors too are shown with their slogans of ‘unshackling the bonds of slavery’, a ubiquitous and euphemist tool of indoctrination.

ABVP student leaders were the prime target of the radical Maoist groups, as they were in the forefront of questioning the endemic and perpetual naxal violence in the state. There are a couple of scenes of the protagonist Jitender Reddy with Sama Jaganmohan Reddy, another martyr of naxal violence who dared to fly the national flag in Kakatiya University. It is a sad comment that radical groups even attacked students for upholding the dignity of the national flag in the campuses. In an interesting scene which depicts the real-life happening, Jitender Reddy tells the then Chief Minister NT Ramarao that ‘naxalites are not patriots, those who kill others are not patriots,  if they wished to work for the people, they would not be holed up in jungles’, alluding to NTR’s previous statement that naxals were ‘misguided patriots’. It could be assumed that this bold statement may have been one of the factors in NTR’s decision to wipe out naxal violence from the state. After the killings of Sama Jaganmohan Reddy and Madhusudan Goud, another ABVP leader in 1982, open Red terror is unleashed by naxals to kill Jitender Reddy; Reddy captures a naxal henchman, finds out their jungle hideouts and battles them on their own turf. `Tiger’ Jitender Reddy prevented the radicals from entering Jagityala for many years, he emerged as a people’s leader resolving their issues and announced his candidature for the local Mandal Parishad elections. Unable to see his political rise, naxals decide to finish him off; in the ensuing deadly ambush, a huge naxal gang rains bullets on him, he goes down fighting all alone, killing all of them. On 9th April 1987, Jitender Reddy was found in a sea of blood with 72 bullets piercing his body, he was barely 27 years of age. 

The naxal / Maoist violence (left-wing extremism) was perpetrated primarily by the People’s War Group and their affiliated organizations. The Maoist extremist ideology was well entrenched in the society, especially in universities and colleges which were fertile grounds for indoctrination and recruiting gullible youngsters into the naxal movement, taking them away from their families, into the jungles and training them in deadly guerrilla warfare. Thousands of youth fell prey to this communist Maoist ideology, which was and is present in the form of radical students’ organizations. The movie also portrays how the system has been subverted from within, with leftist influence in all segments of the society; it is well-known how Human Rights and Civil Rights organizations would fight naxal cases through their influential lawyers. Major parts of Telangana and North Andhra adjoining the Dandakaranya region continued to be hotbeds of naxal violence for decades. Organizations like Praja Natya Mandali and Jana Natya Mandali through their popular icons like Gaddar promoted the naxal movement through their songs and skits. Telugu cinema continued to make a special segment of left-oriented movies, colloquially called the Red Films. Naxal violence was justified and normalized in the garb of social justice and fight of the proletariat against the `state’. People who grew up in the 1980s will recall the daily headlines of naxal violence, civilians and tribals being brutalized and killed by labeling them as ‘police informers’, the frequent ‘Praja courts’ where jungle law and killings prevailed, the exploitation of the poor tribals by the naxals in the jungles, the rampant destruction of roads, railway lines, electricity transformers, even bore water pumps were not spared. The violence was designed to ensure that poverty and under-development remain so that naxals can wage their ‘war against the state’.  

It is extremely alarming that the Congress govt in Telangana headed by CM Revanth Reddy brazenly renamed the iconic Nandi cinema awards after Late Gaddar who was singularly instrumental in ruining hundreds of youth by mobilizing them into naxal cadre through his `revolutionary’ songs. It is equally galling that the Telugu movie industry which has produced world-class cinema through several decades is totally silent on this leftist move, and shows how the movie bigwigs wish to be in the good books of the Congress Govt. Significantly, it was another Congress Govt, the YSR Govt’s ill-advised move of lifting the TDP govt-imposed ban against PWG, as also their invitation for talks in 2004; this move was criticized by all naxal-affected states, and gave time for PWG to regroup under the CPI (Maoist) banner.

 Yet again at a time when Telugu movies which glorify naxalism are making a comeback – George Reddy, Dear Comrade, Virata Parvam and Acharya to name a few, the movie Jitender Reddy is a timely reminder of the lawless decades when naxal terror prevailed, and makes us aware of what we must guard ourselves against. It also reminds us to pay homage to martyrs who died for the cause of a free and democratic society.