Title Writer Mod Date & Time St PARTITION: Tape 4 255MODEM 255MODEM Dec 24 06:58 R* TAPE 4 Danial LATIFI interview of 23/12/96 continued: Side B [about Latifi's role, along with D.N. Pritt, in defending the Telangana accused - story told in a chapter in vol 3 of Pritt's autobiography] 4 - in Telangana in 1950 upwards; prising masterminded by local CPI; 'it was the CPI which requested me to go to Hyderabad ... beg of 1950 perhaps, and to take charge of the defence; that was cos no other Urdu lawyers; H'bad laws at that time req knowledge of Urdu' 36 - all 500 people facing execution either acquitted or sentences commuted; 'not a single man was hanged'; had been sentenced for rioting, murder, agrarian uprisings 77 - realised imp of barrister's role; 'a primitve man gets freightened by a black robe and all that' 88 - 'we bamboolzed them with a whole lot of things ... but anyway we succeeded' 96 - sent not to CPI from H'bad 'saying that there was no doubt the uprising had failed, ... and the o'whelmign desire of everybody was for peace, and therefore the party sd change its tactics and set up peace cttess and restore dem liberties' 106 - remember Warangal, where one of trials being held; 'people wd not dare to come and offer you a cup of tea, that's the first time in my life ... everywhere local people come up and support you, they feed you, they give you tea, you feel you have the support of local people; here I felt I had the supprotn of local people, but they were so frightened that they wd not come up and offer you a cup of tea cos they sd dash it, if we do that later on God knows what will happen to us' 121 - 'I reported back {to CPI} ... peiople are utterly cowed, there's military occupn, it's not only police, ... people are frightened and everybody wants peace, and therefore my suggen is that you sd make serious efforts to set up peace cttees and restore dem liberties, that's everybody's demand ... I got back a note from Ranadive saying that I sd stick to legal questions ... that was that ... '; Ranadive - differences, but 'personally not a bad fellow, he might have been a bit fanatical; he was v sincere - in his own way' 143 > the left in Andhra, 'still a pretty strong leftist bastion, and the trouble is among the leftists'; 'I don't think the Talnagana m'ment has died out in anyway' 170 - why CPI gave green light to uprising (and why wrong) 182 > Stalin and India 203 > story about BJP and CPs 210 - story that Jyoti Basu, re PM's post, sd he was 'too old to change his political methods in order to cope