Augustine V. Williams at 16:36, 29 March 2026

2026-03-29T16:36:42Z

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{{short description|Civil conflict in British India}}
{{distinguish|Rampa Rebellion of 1879}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2017}}
{{use Indian English|date=August 2017}}
{{Infobox military operation
| name =
| partof = [[Tribal revolts in India before Indian independence|Tribal revolts in India before independence]]
| subtitle =
| image = Bust of Alluri Sitharamaraju at Addateegala Police station.jpg
| image_size = 260
| alt =
| caption = Bust of Alluri Sitarama Raju at Addateegala Police station
| scope =
| type =
| location = [[Rampachodavaram|Rampa Agency Tract]], [[Godavari district]]
| location2 = [[Gudem Kotha Veedhi|Gudem Agency Tract]], [[Vizagapatam district]]
| location3 = 
| coordinates = {{coord|17.4398|81.7752|display=inline}}
| coordinates2 = {{coord|17.8624|82.1978|display=inline,title}}
| coordinates3 = 
| map_type =
| map_size =
| map_caption =
| map_label =
| map_label2 = 
| planned =
| planned_by =
| commanded_by = [[Alluri Sitarama Raju]]
| objective =
| target =
| date = 1922–1924
| time =
| time-begin =
| time-end =
| timezone =
| executed_by =
| outcome =
| casualties = Unknown
| fatalities =
| injuries =
}}
[[File:Agency tracts of Godavari and Vizagapatam districts.jpg |thumb|right|300px|Agency tracts of [[Godavari district|Godavari]] and [[Vizagapatam district|Vizagapatam]] districts (shaded brown); among the marked villages are [[Rampachodavaram|Chodavaram]] (Rampa), [[Addateegala|Addatigala]], [[Gudem Kotha Veedhi|Gudem]], [[Koyyuru]], [[Chintapalli, Alluri Sitharama Raju district|Chintapalle]], and [[Krishnadevipeta]].]]
{{Rebellions in British India}}

The '''Rampa Rebellion of 1922''', also known as the '''Manyam Rebellion''', was a [[tribes of India|tribal]] uprising led by [[Alluri Sitarama Raju]] in [[Godavari District|Godavari district]] of [[Madras Presidency]], [[British Raj|British India]]. It began in August 1922 and lasted until the capture and killing of Raju in May 1924.

== Background ==
The three northern districts of [[Godavari district|Godavari]], [[Vizagapatam district|Vizagapatam]] and [[Ganjam district|Ganjam]] in the erstwhile [[Madras Presidency]] of [[British India]] (presently in northern [[Andhra Pradesh]] state and southern [[Odisha]]) consist of strips of coastal plains bordered in the west by [[Eastern Ghats]] (hills). The hills are thinly populated by tribal communities, whose ethnic and cultural traits, differing from the plains people, were regarded as "primitive" in the British view. The hill tracts were thus put outside the purview of the general law applicable to the districts and lightly administered by the District Collectors in their capacity as the "Agents to the Governor" or "Government Agents". The areas themselves were referred to as "Agencies" or "Agency tracts".<ref>{{citation |title=Imperial Gazetteer of India – Provincial Series: Madras, Volume 1 |publisher=Superintendent of Government Printing |location=Calcutta |year=1908 |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.03018 |via=archive.org |pages=2–3}}</ref>{{sfn|Godavari District Gazetteer|2000|pages=1–2}} In local parlance, the regions were referred to as the ''Manyam'' forest. Indian political traditions led the kingdoms to manage them via granting of autonomy rather than direct conquest,<ref>{{citation |title=Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India |first1=Velcheru Narayana |last1=Rao |first2=Sanjay |last2=Subrahmanyam |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=43 |number=1 |date=January 2009 |page=198 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X07003368 |jstor=20488076}}</ref> which was essentially continued by the British Raj. Officials called ''muttadars'' were appointed to manage groups of villages, who were responsible for maintaining peace as well as revenue collection.<ref>{{citation |first=Surendra Kumar |last=Pachauri |title=Dynamics of Rural Development in Tribal Areas |publisher=Concept Publishing Company |year=1984 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mb6YDaxa_e0C |pages=93–95}}</ref>

The Rampa administrative area, situated in the hills of what are now the [[Alluri Sitarama Raju district]] of [[Andhra Pradesh]], comprised around {{convert|700|sqmi|sqkm}} and had a mostly [[tribal]] population of approximately 28,000. They traditionally met their food requirements through the use, in particular, of the [[Podu (agriculture)|podu system]], whereby each year some areas of forest were [[shifting cultivation|burned to clear land for cultivation]].{{sfn|Murali|2017}}

The [[British Raj]] authorities had wanted to improve the economic usefulness of lands in Godavari Agency, an area that was noted for the prevalence of [[malaria]] and [[blackwater fever]].<ref name="Arnold">{{cite book |first=David |last=Arnold |chapter=Disease, Resistance and India's Ecological Frontier, 1770-1947 |title=Issues in Modern Indian History: For Sumit Sarkar |editor-first=Biswamoy |editor-last=Pati |publisher=Popular Prakashan |year=2000 |isbn=978-8-17154-658-9 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S2Yn4LlujqsC&pg=PA14 |pages=14–15 |archive-date=27 July 2024 |access-date=30 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240727061739/https://books.google.com/books?id=S2Yn4LlujqsC&pg=PA14 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{relevance-inline|date=July 2025}} With the [[Madras Forest Act, 1882|1882 Madras Forest Act]] authorities took control of the forests, mostly for commercial purposes such as produce for building railways and ships, without any regard for the needs of the tribal people. The act restricted the free movement of [[Adivasi]]s in their forest habitats and prevented them from practicing their traditional form of agriculture called [[Podu (agriculture)|podu]]. A 1923 government memorandum recorded one Agency Commissioner's opinion from June of the previous year that "the country had suffered from too severe restrictions on jungle clearance, that various restrictions had been overdone and much population and food grains lost for the sake of forests of doubtful value".{{sfn|Murali|2017}}

The tribal people of the forested hills, who now faced starvation,{{sfn|Murali|1984}} had long felt that the legal system favoured the [[zamindar]]s (estate landowners) and merchants of the plains areas, which had also resulted in the earlier [[Rampa Rebellion of 1879]]. Now they objected also to the Raj laws and continued actions that hindered their economic position and meant they had to find alternate means of livelihood, such as working as [[coolie]]s. In particular, they objected to attempts at that time to use them as forced labour in the construction of a road in the area.<ref>{{cite book |title=Mapping the Tribal Economy: A Case Study from a South-Indian State |first=Bandlamudi Nageswara |last=Rao |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-44386-735-1 |page=79 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hhhQBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 |archive-date=1 January 2023 |access-date=30 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101195250/https://books.google.com/books?id=hhhQBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Simultaneously, there was discontent among the muttadars, who had been hereditary tax collectors and ''[[de facto]]'' rulers in the hills prior to the arrival of the British. They had acted on behalf of the rajas, the traditional rulers who lived in the plains, and essentially had unlimited powers until the [[United Kingdom|British]] subsumed them into the colonial administration, leaving them as bureaucrats with no substantive power and no automatic right of inherited position. Their economic status was now dictated entirely by [[British Raj]] policy, where previously they had enjoyed the flexibility to levy and to cream off tax income and to use the land of others as they saw fit. Where once the tribal [[hill people]] and muttadars would have been antagonists, they now shared a common foe.{{sfn|Murali|1984}}

== Revolt ==
{{OSM Location map
| float = left
| coord = {{coord|17.8555|82.27}}
| zoom = 11
| width = 330
| height = 300
| caption = Villages around [[Gudem Kotha Veedhi]] ("Gudem New Town") and [[Chintapalli, Alluri Sitharama Raju district|Chintapalli]]
| mark-coord = 
| label = Triangle 
| label-pos =
}}

Raju was a charismatic [[Sannyasa|sannyasi]], believed by many tribal people to possess magical abilities and to have an almost messianic status. He saw the overthrow of colonial rule in terms similar to a [[millenarianism|millenarian event]] and he harnessed the discontent of the tribal people to support his anti-colonial zeal, whilst also accommodating the grievances of those muttadars who were sympathetic to his aim rather than merely narrow-minded in their pursuit of a revived status for themselves. This meant that his followers were mostly from the tribal communities but did include some significant people from the muttadar class that at one time had exploited them, although many muttadars were ambivalent about fighting for what Raju perceived to be the greater good.{{sfn|Murali|1984}}

It was the prevalent diseases, to which the tribal people had acquired a tolerance, that hindered the Raj suppression of the rebellion.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}} It broke out in August 1922 and took the form of [[guerilla warfare]], ending in May 1924 with the capture and execution of Raju.<ref name="Arnold"/>
{{clear left}}
== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{cite book |first=David |last=Arnold |chapter=Rebellious Hillmen: the Gudem-Rampa Risings, 1839-1924 |editor=Ranajit Guha |title=Subaltern Studies 1 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1982 |pages=88–142 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.12743/page/n102 }}
* {{citation |last=Hemingway |first=F. R. |title=Godavari District Gazetteer, Volume 1 |publisher=Asian Educational Services |year=2000 |orig-year=1915 |url=https://archive.org/details/godavaridistrict01frhe |via=archive.org |ref={{sfnref|Godavari District Gazetteer|2000}}}}
* {{cite book |first=Mridula |last=Mukherjee |title=Peasants in India's Non-Violent Revolution: Practice and Theory |publisher=SAGE |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-76199-686-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7pUJ0qmvYDkC}}
* {{cite journal |title=Alluri Sitarama Raju and the Manyam Rebellion of 1922-1924 |first=Atlury |last=Murali |journal=Social Scientist |volume=12 |issue=4 |date=April 1984 |pages=3–33 |doi=10.2307/3517081 |jstor=3517081 }}
* {{cite journal |first=Atlury |last=Murali |title=Manyam Rebellion: A Rejoinder |journal=Social Scientist |volume=13 |issue=4 |date=April 1985 |pages=50–56 |doi=10.2307/3517518 |jstor=3517518}}
* {{cite book |first=Atlury |last=Murali |chapter=Tribal Armed Rebellion of 1922-1924 in the Madras Presidency: A Study of Causation as Colonial Legitimation |editor1=Crispin Bates |editor2=Alpa Shah |title=Savage Attack: Tribal Insurgency in India |pages=140–166 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-35158-744-0 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PEcrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA140}}

[[Category:1922 in India]]
[[Category:Rebellions in India]]
[[Category:Conflicts in 1922]]
[[Category:Alluri Sitharama Raju district]]
[[Category:Alluri Sitarama Raju]]

Rampa Rebellion of 1922 - Revision history

Augustine V. Williams at 16:36, 29 March 2026