Gita Ramaswamy
Gita Ramaswamy (born 1953) is a writer, publisher, and social activist. She has written autobiography and social commentary essays in both English and Telugu. She played a significant role in fighting for the rights of marginalized communities in Telangana state, working actively in particular on reclaiming land rights for agricultural laborers and Dalit communities. She continues to document the history of ordinary people through her writings.
Birth & Education
Gita Ramaswamy was born in 1953 in Sholapur, Maharashtra, as the fourth of five daughters of Kizhakkemadam Harihara Ramaswamy and Lakshmi. She received her early schooling at the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Bombay. When she was in the ninth grade, her family relocated to Chennai. She studied until the age of fourteen at Rosemary Matriculation School in Santhome, Chennai. At just fifteen years old, she left home in protest against the oppressive norms of the Brahmin family into which she was born. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree from Osmania University.
Personal Life
Gita Ramaswamy married Cyril Reddy, a left-wing activist and her comrade.
Political Life
During her college years, she participated in student movements. Drawn toward left-wing ideology, she worked alongside her friends at the grassroots level for the rights of marginalized communities. She was a member of the Marxist-Leninist party in Telangana and threw herself into active political struggles against the feudal order. During the Emergency of 1975, she went underground together with her husband Cyril Reddy, during which time she was teaching English in the Ghaziabad area of Delhi. Later, having grown disillusioned with left-wing movements and feeling that this was not her path, she withdrew from political activism and turned her energies toward publishing work.
Organizational Activities
After a brief interval, she founded the Vyavasaya Coolie Sangham (Agricultural Labourers Association) in order to return to grassroots work. This was a ground-level farmers' and agricultural laborers' union operating in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, advocating for land rights, minimum support price (MSP), fair wages, and protection against exploitation.
Struggles
- In the 1980s, she mobilized agricultural laborers in the Ibrahimpatnam area of Telangana and led people's movements. Her campaigns against bonded labor and for minimum wages met with success.
- She worked to reclaim hundreds of acres of land that had been illegally seized from Dalit communities and ensured it was restored to them. In doing so, she faced severe threats and violence from dominant power groups.
- She conducted field surveys on land issues and brought together the landless, lawyers, and sympathetic government officials to develop model programs. She continued to fight through law and the courts to establish the rights of marginalized communities. Her work in reclaiming Dalit lands generated political awareness among people in those areas. A defining feature of her field work was that she operated independently, without the backing of any political party.
Publishing
Gita Ramaswamy founded the Hyderabad Book Trust, a non-profit publishing house. She published Telugu literary works with a strong social and political orientation. She translated and published works by many important writers into Telugu, from Alex Haley to Mahasweta Devi - making world literature and historical works available in Telugu at affordable prices. She played a significant role in translating and publishing the writings of Ambedkar into Telugu. This initiative spread the habit of reading and political inquiry widely among marginalized communities. Her publishing work brought about notable changes in the Telugu intellectual world.
Writing
Gita Ramaswamy also devoted serious attention to documenting the history of marginalized communities through her writing. She has authored several books in English as well, spanning autobiography and social commentary essays.
Her English autobiography Land, Guns, Caste, Woman received wide attention. In it, she documents many historical events relating to the workings of Indian left-wing movements and Dalit land struggles. Through her own personal experiences, she describes in detail the caste-based and patriarchal contradictions faced by Indian women. Her field study on the lives of manual scavengers in Andhra Pradesh contributed to some policy changes at the government level.
She translated into English the autobiography of Devulapalli Krishnamurthy - Ooru, Vaada, Padugu - published as Life in Anantharam (2016). She also compiled Prison Notes of a Woman Activist by women's rights activist P. Anuradha, and published a Telugu collection of Gauri Lankesh's writings.
Books
- Jeena Hai To Marna Seekho: The Life and Times of George Reddy (2016)
- The Oxford India Anthology of Telugu Dalit Writing
- Taking Charge of Our Bodies: A Health Handbook for Women (with Veena Shatrugna)
- On their own: a socio-legal investigation of inter-country adoption in India
- India Stinking: Manual Scavengers in Andhra Pradesh (2005)
- The child and the law
- Women and law
- The Lambadas: a community besieged: a study on the relinquishment of Lambada girl babies in South Telangana
- Land, Guns, Caste, Woman: The Memoir of a Lapsed Revolutionary
In Telugu
- Nenu Communistuni (autobiography of C.K. Narayana Reddy)
- Maakoddii candaalam
Translations (from Telugu)
- Life in Anantharam (autobiography of Devulapalli Krishnamurthy)
- Here I Am and Other Stories (P. Satyavathi)
References
Links
- A Conversation with Gita Ramaswamy on Land, Justice, and Friendship - maidaanam
- A shattering of idealism - Gita Ramaswamy - Theweek
- LIFE IN ANANTHARAM - ENGLISH - TRANSLATED BY GITA RAMASWAMY - Internetarchive
- Land Guns Caste Woman: The Memoir of a Lapsed Revolutionary
- India's Future Lies on Ambedkar's Path of Struggle | Gita Ramaswamy | Keraleeyam Web
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