Revathi@revathitweets
Have You Heard of Belli Lalitha?
Belli Lalitha was one of the seven siblings in her family, she had no formal education and in fact worked as a labourer in a spinning mill.
At the age of 25, she became so powerful that governments and people in power feared her.
So much so that she was chopped into 17 pieces and her body was strewn across in Bhongir, Telangana.
Belli Lalitha was a traditional Oggu Katha singer. She was fondly called “Telangana Gana Kokila”; Nightingale of Telangana. She founded the Telangana Kala Samithi.
Though not properly educated, she used her lived experiences of being a labourer in a spinning mill & wrote and sang songs that reverberated amongst Telangana public, especially women.
She became voice of the oppressed Telangana public and questioned the existing Andhra rule.
Demanding for a separate state, she sang with her heart in “Daga Padda Telangana” Sabha. She became an icon for separate Telangana movement in Bhongir, Warangal, Medak, Mahabubnagar.
She also rescued many women who have been pushed into prostitution in Hyderabad.
On 26th May 1999, Lalitha came back home from wok and stepped out for a meeting and never came back home. Police refused to acknowledge her missing case. When people started agitating a district level police officer went to the extent of saying they would have encountered have they caught her and wouldn’t simply arrest her.
A fake letter in her name was circulated. Her character was assassinated by a few media houses. Entire 10 districts of Telangana people started coming on to the streets and questioning the government.
After four days, a woman’s dismembered body parts were found in an agricultural well. Police denied they are Belli Lalitha’s. For 13 days police kept recovering a woman’s body parts across Bhongir.
Finally! On 10th June 1999 midnight, Lalitha’s head was found.
Thousands attended her funeral and people raised slogans against the then CM Chandrababu Naidu and Home Minister Alimineti Madhava Reddy. People till today believe that Madhava Reddy started getting jittery about Lalitha’s rising popularity in Bhongir, his constituency. She was to contest in the elections too.
And it is widely believed that they wanted to even silence the Telangana statehood voices.
Police and government tried to pass her murder as a murder of passion. They demeaned her character and spread vicious stories about her. But her brother Krishna fought and filed a case on gangster Nayeem who executed similar murders earlier.
Much later, police said gangster Nayeem’s brother Alimuddin and his associate was behind Lalitha’s murder. Her brutal murder angered and inspired many to join the separate Telangana movement.
She was as powerful as Gaddar but being a woman from golla-kuruma community, her story was largely remains untold.
Belli Lalitha was a voice of resistance, a voice that made powerful people uncomfortable.
Wanted to share Belli Lalitha’s song and story on her birth anniversary.
