Do You Know Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud?

14/09/2026

Countercurrents / by Manish Azad

The much-acclaimed documentary film Prisoners of Conscience, made by Anand Patwardhan in 1978, also mentions the two Adivasi revolutionaries, Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud, who were hanged on 1 December 1975 during the Emergency.
… At the time when Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud were being held in Mushirabad Jail [Secunderabad] awaiting execution, revolutionary poet Varavara Rao was also imprisoned in the same jail under the notorious MISA [Maintenance of Internal Security Act] along with other comrades of Virasam [Revolutionary Writers’ Association]. When he learned that Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud were waiting for death in the gallows located on the other side of the prison kitchen, he became desperate to meet them. He requested the jailer, who eventually allowed him to meet them for a short while.
Read more

---

Also read:
▪ Let us abolish this executioner’s system: Varavara Rao makes the case as only he can (South First / Aug 2026)
▪ Court Rejects NIA’s Plea to Put Elgar Parishad Accused Back in Jail (The Wire / Aug 2026)
▪ Charge of Maoist link in Press Club meet ‘mere assumption’ – Varavara Rao opposes NIA bail repeal plea (The Print / Jul 2026)
▪ Bombay High Court seeks NIA’s reply to Varavara Rao’s plea to permanently reside in Hyderabad (The Indian Express / Jun 2026)
▪ Captive Imagination – Letters From Prison

Author: Varavara Rao
Publishing Date: 2010
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Pages: 208

Poet, Marxist critic and activist, Varavara Rao (VV) has been continually persecuted by the state and intermittently imprisoned since 1973, but he never stopped writing during all these decades, even from within prison. When he was subjected to ‘one thousand days of solitary confinement’ during 1985­-89 in Secunderabad Jail, a leading national daily invited him to write about his prison experiences.

Read more/order