Frontline / by Vipanchika S. Bhagyanagar

How Varavara Rao’s new book traces the political economy of capital punishment in India, and why his call for its abolition deserves renewed and urgent attention.
On November 30, 1975, prisoners at Musheerabad Jail were scrambling to find scraps of paper and pens to record news that had not yet reached the outside world. Desperate to get the information out, they devised a plan to throw the papers over the prison’s boundary wall.
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VV’s association with death is a history in itself. He has experienced what might be called social death through decades of arrests, incarceration, and legal persecution, beginning when he was 34. He has reportedly been implicated in 24 conspiracy cases and acquitted in all of them. 
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Also read:
▪ Varavara Rao’s memorial tribute to Bhumaiah and Kishta Goud (Countercurrents / Sep 2026)
▪ Let us abolish this executioner’s system: Varavara Rao makes the case as only he can (South First / Aug 2026)
▪ Voices From Prison: Alienating A Poet From A Language He Deeply Loves Is Painful, Writes Varavara Rao’s Daughter (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Supreme Court grants permanent medical bail to P. Varavara Rao in Bhima Koregaon case (The Leaflet / Aug 2022)