On November 1, 1967, which is celebrated as the Andhra Formation Day, T. Sanyasi Rao, then in his mid twenties, was discussing with his friends about how the agitation for the setting up of a steel plant in Visakhapatnam was shaping up and the success of the rail roko, when they stopped the Madras Mail near Gopalapatnam for over 24 hours, two days ago (October 29), a message came to them that a hotel in the One Town area was serving meals to the police and CRPF personnel deployed by the State government to quell the protest under the banner ‘Visakha Ukku – Andhrula Hakku’ .
Mr. Sanyasi Rao and his friends rushed to the Old Town where thousands of people gathered on the road . They found their way to the front , only to be met with bullets fired by the police. Hearing about it, Rajnala Pranakusha Das, a second-year student of Mrs. AVN College, the second officer in the college NCC, joined another set of protesters . He took four bullets fired by the owners of private arms dealer, who thought that the mob was coming to loot the store.
In total 12 persons, including a nine-year-old boy , had died on that day and the locals termed it as ‘Vizag’s Jallianwala Bagh’.
But to the surprise of the police and the district administration, the incident did not create any fear among the locals, but pepped them up instead. Women and young children, came onto the roads shouting the slogan ‘Visakha Ukku Andhrula Hakku’. This iconic slogan shook the Centre, which finally accorded permission for the setting up of the country’s first integrated shore-based steel plant in Visakhapatnam.
Andhra was on the boil and the firing was the triggering point and it only motivated the people to take the agitation further. “Though we were very young, the undercurrent was palpable in every house and it cemented the resolve. The dead become the martyrs ,” says P.V. Sudhakar, Principal of Andhra Medical College, who is the nephew of Pranakusha Das.
The agitation spread like a fire across the State. In the next one week, 20 persons were killed in police firing including five in Guntur, five in Vijayawada, two in Vizianagaram, one each in Rajahmundry, Kakinada, Palasa, Warangal, Jagtial and Sileru and one each in two other places.
“The VSP has not come without sacrifices. In total, 32 people had died in police firing,” says CPI (M) State secretariat member Ch. Narasinga Rao, who had not only been part of the protest as a teenager, but has authored a book titled ‘Visakha Ukku-Andhrula Hakku Mahodyamam’. The slogan is reverberating once again, as the Centre has decided to put up the VSP for 100% strategic sale and the employees have agitating since the last 260 days.
Students take the lead
Ever since, Tamanampalli Amruta Rao took up the fast unto death for the casue on October 15 the same year, the agitation took a different turn. Students of Andhra Medical College, Andhra University and Mrs. AVN College, joined the movement. It was the students, led by Kolla Rajmohan, the then president of the AMC student union, who staged the roal roko.
“The rail roko was peaceful. Thousands had joined us. The protesters carried food, water and milk for the children stranded in the train. Even the passengers, who listen to our cause joined the agitation by standing in front of the train with posters. The then District Collector Abid Hussain and the then SP met us,” recalls Mr. Rajmohan. The prominent students leaders included M. Venkaiah Naidu, the Vice-President of India now, who was then a student at AU Law College and B.V. Raghavulu, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Tenneti Viswanadham and Gouthu Latchanna.
Roller-coaster ride
In 1963, Member of Parliament C. Subramanian announced the setting up of a steel plant in Visakhapatnam, however it had been a roller-coaster ride sicne then. After the sustained agitation, the foundation stone was laid by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1971 and the plant was dedicated to the nation by the then Prime Minister V.P. Singh on March 20, 1990.
Due to the delay in construction, the initial estimate of ₹1,900 crore had shot up to ₹8,000 crore, at the time of commissioning. The Centre had given only ₹4,986 crore and the rest was raised from the market at a high interest. The VSP is yet to wriggle out of the debt and this has been contributing to its losses. In 2,000, the plant was referred to the BIFR and in 2014, 10% disinvestment was proposed. Agitation by employees and trade unions could save the plant.
“This plant has always been given a step-brotherly treatment. No government has sanctioned a captive iron ore mine to the plant till date, despite the consultant M.N. Dastur recommending a couple of blocks in Bailadila reserves,” says CPI State assistant secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy.
Almost all leaders and activists who had visited the striking employees such as D. Raja, Mr. Raghavulu and Medha Patkar have said that not allotting mines was a ‘big mistake’ by the Centre, as the VSP has a potential to become a 20 million tonne plant from the existing 7.3 million capacity. “It has been 55 years since the firing took place and that is why this plant is emotionally rooted to the people. The Centre must revisit the proposal,” they say.
