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 SAKTI, an NGO was established in 1985 by Dr.Sivarama Krishna who got doctorate degree in 1982 on “Tribal Knowledge Systems”, from Osmania University. Sarada Devi married Sivaramakrishna and joined Sakti in '87
“The candidate has chosen a topical subject, very relevant to our thinking on culture, cognition and language. He has read widely and is familiar with the literature that matters. His linguistic and anthropological reasoning is sound. His language is clear and simple”.
- Report of external examiner Prof. A.Munirathanam Reddy, S.V.University, Tirupati., 6-12-82
School teacher turned activist Sivaramakrishna is easily the one activist who has made a significant impact on marginalised people’s politics this past decade. He is variously known as the director of Sakti (search for action and knowledge for tribal initiative), a voluntary agency working with tribals in the four districts of East and West Godavari, Khammam and Kurnool, as being the initiator of several writ petitions on important issues concerning tribals, and over the past five years, as being intensely involved with tribals assertions over lands in the Agency area. |
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| Lanky and unassuming with heavy glasses perched percariously on his nose, Sivaramakrishna melts into any background, rather than standing out officiously. He is an unlikely looking leader for the tribal movement in West and East Godavari and Khammam districts that conjured up romantic images. He is well-known in administrative and activist circles, yet, remains somewhat of an enigma, both because of his low profile and his distance from the old boys’ network where ‘you-scratch-my-back, I-scratch-yours’ is the rule. He is single-minded (people who are not fond of him would say he’s pig-headed), intelligent (the same people would say he’s devious) and he’s a hard worker (‘he does only his work’, say his detractors). Being a man, he’s at an disadvantage in the field of social activism where he towering figures are women and the agenda of the day is ‘women-empowerment’. A woman is almost ‘always sincere’, a man |
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"Even though I had taught tribals at Geddada for
seven years, I was taken aback when I discovered the
richness of tribal life while documenting
tribal knowledge in their songs and lore." |
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