He had broken away from the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC), with which he was associated since its inception in 1980's, on the issue of violence perpetrated by the erstwhile CPI(ML) People's War.

[1] Balagopal was the fifth child of eight children of a middle class Telugu Brahmin couple, Kandalla Parthanatha Sarma and Rallapalli Nagamani.

His father's job in the insurance sector entailed frequent transfers and Balagopal's education was in several towns of AP, from Nellore to Vizianagaram.

An article written by him in Andhra Jyothi, a popular Telugu newspaper on 23 February 2002 was translated into English by Anant Maringanti and published by The Wire on 15 April 2016.

[5][6] He served as a member of the Expert Group on Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas, set up by Planning Commission of India in 2008.

His articles in EPW included issues ranging from the regime of Indira Gandhi, Reservations issue, human rights violations from time to time in different places, the Gujarat riots, Special Economic Zones, land acquisition, sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes in Andhra Pradesh, the failure of talks between the YSR Government and the CPI-Maoists and so on.

After the formation of Human Rights Forum, he expanded his activities and visited areas undergoing intense social turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, West Bengal and Orissa.

Balagopal started practicing law nearly a decade ago and has argued dozens of cases pertaining to encounter killings by the police.