A Rebel’s Journey

Harsh Thakor

On March 31, 2025, a shower of bullets silenced GummadivelliRenuka, 55, an insurgent whose pen Midko was equally powerful as the rifle she carried in the dense forests of Bastar, Chhattisgarh. She was a senior communist revolutionary and relentlessly to the very last drop blood dedicated her life for a radical transformation of India for the past 35 years. To the readers of Telugu revolutionary literature, she was popularly known as Midko, a Gondi word for fireflies. The revolutionary world lost a precious jewel. The poetic expression written on her face, told it all-epitomising inner beauty or spiritual essence of a revolutionary.

Renuka or Midko, as a well-known writer, epitomised the role of literature in the revolution, narrating the story of the untold things that were not visible to the eye. During Operation Green Hunt, she became Midco and accurately provided stories of that period to Telugu readers.

Midko symbolised many things to many people: be it a fearless author or a leader of a women’s liberation movement. Still in the eyes of the state, she would always remain a terrorist. Revolutionary movement carries women to explore a wide world. It takes wings to free oneself from the chains of thousands of years. Midco’s life is a perfect example, of untapping or exploring the wonders of what a woman can do.

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.
In a press statement, the C PI (Maoist) party alleged it was a staged execution, “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 that she was tortured to death. In the party she was also known as Bhanu or Chaite

Renuka or Midko hails from Kadivendi village (in Warangal district. While engaged in her LLB studies in Tirupati, she integrated in the women’s movement as a member of “Mahila Shakti.” In 1995, when Mahila Shakti merged with nine other organizations to form Chaitanya Mahila Sangham, she played the role of a key organiser in the state-wide women’s movement, operating from Tirupati until 2000 and from Visakhapatnam until 2004. She was also a member of the editorial board of MahilaMargam magazine.

Midko who first wet her feet into the revolutionary women’s movement in the 1990s, realised that women’s liberation is an integral part of humanity’s liberation. Throughout this time, the women’s movement conducted many experiments as part of the revolution. She underwent many experiments with her own life throughout this process. Her incredible combat stories will remain a never-ending saga.

Renuka was barely in college when her parents married her off out of fear that she, like her brother G V K Prasad, might resort to armed struggle. The marriage was terminated soon and Renuka, who had borne the burden of her husband’s constant violence for a considerable time, just walked out.

Then 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.

Renuka later joined the Maoist movement, and in 2004 chose to go underground and worked in the Andhra-Odisha border zone and Dandakaranya. Renuka served as the press and publication in-charge of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, a key operational unit of the banned CPI (Maoist). She monitored activities in the Dandakaranya region, a sprawling forest that extended through Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

She 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 popularly known as Midko among Telugu readers.

Renuka 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 trapped impoverished tribals into bonded labour.

Under the pen name B D Damayanti, she articulately documented the violence perpetrated by SalwaJudum, a state-backed militia which was declared unconstitutional and banned by the Supreme Court in 2011. Damayanti, a young girl was killed in fake encounter.

She was tasked by the party with editing and publishing several clandestine magazines, including Awami Jung,People’s March, MahilaMargam, Sangharsa, Pituri, Midangur, Bhumkal, Sandesh, Jhankar and Prabhat. In a nutshell, the relationship between revolution and woman is her theme.

 She always projected the female experiences as part of this whole system, whether it was a city, village, or forest area. That’s why the female experience she shows seems to be a human experience as a whole and was an integral part of the revolution.

Nobody can read Midco’s writings just for the mere sake of pleasure.Her story seeks to unravel the historical nature of the places and unravel its interpretations. The underlying reality of these twenty years of social movement changes was deeply explored in most of the stories. She adopted an inseparable point of view from public practice with this. Therefore, the events and consequences that appear to be destructive at the face level appear to be constructive in Renuka’s stories. Midko’s stories vividly illustrate the humanity, love, and creative nature inherent in the so- called ‘violence’ that is projected to the outside world.

All the villagers shed tears after seeing Renuka’s dead body that reached Kadavendi village at midnight. Revolutionary societies, public leaders, revolutionary writers’ association leaders and ex-Maoists paid grand tributes to Renuka’s dead body on April 9. Leaders and fans from other states along with the people of several villages in the DevaruppulaMandal attended in large numbers and paid their tributes in the last journey.

 It is said that 475 people have been killed in ‘encounter’ with this name till today. With the death of GummadavelliRenuka, PuritigaddaKadavendi village resurrected its red fervour. Many activists have died in the struggles starting from the Telangana armed struggle to date. Leaders saluted Renuka’s spirit and ambitions to continue by chanting JananiRajanam at every step and shouting slogans against the ruling groups in the final journey of KagaRenuka. More than six thousand people participated in the last journey and bid farewell.

Leaders of civic society said that Chhattisgarh forests were like the lungs for India. After paying tributes to Renuka’s dead body, they said that Renuka had written many poems and books with her dream and made the tribal people aware to sustain the people’s movement.

 Tribal people are being killed in the name of encounters as mining activities were blocked in the forests situated in the border areas of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. They asked to stop operation Kagar.

In Kadavendi village, former minister ErrabelliDayakar Rao, Janagama constituency MLA PallaRajeswar Reddy along with local BRS leaders laid garlands and paid tribute to Renuka’s dead body.

[Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist]

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Vol 57, No. 45, May 4 - 10, 2025