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Telangana Rebellion

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For the movement for Telangana's statehood, see Telangana movement.

The Telangana Rebellion also known as the Telangana Uprising,[1] or the Telangana Armed Struggle,[2] was an insurrection of peasants led by the Communist Party of India and the Andhra Mahasabha,[3] against Mir Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the zamindars (transl. feudal landlords) of the Hyderabad State,[4] and the Razakars, a radical paramilitary group organised by the Ittehad (transl. Coalition).[5] The insurrection occurred in an area of over 16,000 square miles (41,000 km2), covering 3,000 villages and involved over 3 million people.[1]

Telangana Rebellion
Hyderabad state from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909.jpg
Map of the State of Hyderabad
Date4 July 1946 – 1951
Location
Telangana, Hyderabad State
Result Withdrawal of Rebellion
Belligerents
Telangana peasants
Andhra Mahasabha
Communist Party of India
Supported by:
Congress socialists (Tirtha Group) (1946–1948)
Socialist Party of India (1948–1951)

1946–1948:
Hyderabad State
Durras of Hyderabad
Razakar movement (1947–1948)

1948–1951:
Hyderabad State
Durras of Hyderabad
Commanders and leaders
Localised leadership
Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri (Military Governor)
Mir Osman Ali Khan (Rajpramukh)

Background

Feudal system

The princely state of Hyderabad retained a feudal system in its agrarian economy, it had two main types of land tenure, diwani or khalsa and a special category of land called jagirs. Sarf-e-khas were jagir lands held as the crown lands of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the remaining were granted to aristocrats called jagirdars based on their rank and order. The civil courts had no jurisdiction over the jagir lands which allowed the jagirdars to imposes various forms of exorbitant arbitrary taxes on the peasants and extract revenue through private agents. The diwani tenures resembled the ryotwari system introduced by the British in other parts of the country, it had hereditary revenue collectors; deshmukhs and deshpandes who were granted land annuities called vatans, based on past revenue collections. The system turned them into a hybrid of a feudal lord and a bureaucrat, whose influence enabled them to frequently acquire more lands and push peasants into the status of tenants and landless labourers. The jagirs and diwani tenures respectively comprised around 30% and 60% of the territory of Hyderabad State.[6]

The feudal system was particularly harsh in the Telangana region of the state. The powerful deshmukh and jagirdar aristocracy, locally called durras additionally functioned as money lenders and as the highest village official. The durras employed variants of the jajmani system called vetti and baghela which forced families of peasants into bonded servitude by means of customary and debt obligations respectively. The jagirdars were predominantly Brahmin, supplanted by the emergence of Kamma and Reddy deshmukhs. Markets and major businesses were controlled by Marwadi and Komti durras.[7] In contrast, the bulk of the peasantry came from disparate caste backgrounds and even included Brahmins, Reddys, Kammas and Komtis.[8][9] The tribals such as Chenchus, Koyas, Lambadis, Konda Reddis, etc and untouchables like the Malas and Madigas were among the most impoverished and particularly vulnerable to severe forms of exploitation by durras including agricultural slavery.[7] The anti–slavery legislations were largely unenforced in the British Indian Empire and officials instead reprimanded for mentioning slaves in documentation.[10]

Telangana had higher concentration of land in the hands of a small group of landed magnates than the other regions, they owned vast tracts of lands covering several villages and thousands of acres. The land concentration was most pronounced in the districts of Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Warangal, which later become the epicenter of the insurrection.[6] The peasants were largely dependent on affluent urban interests, mostly composed of Marwadis, Komtis, Brahmins and upper caste Muslims, who controlled the centralised markets in Telangana. Land alienation continued to increase between 1910 and 1940 as more land was passed to either to the urban interests and aristocratic durra landlords or to Marwadi and Maratha sahukars (money-lenders), peasants with small landholding were pushed into landless agricultural labour or tenancy at will. The system of subsistence farming gave way for commercial crops strengthening the hold of traders and sahukars over the peasants, which was particularly worsened during the Great Depression. The period saw also the rise of a section of well-to-do pattadars, landowning peasants who began employing landless labourers of their own although it largely did not change the landlord–tenant relations in the region and they too were severely affected after the depression.[9]

Communist mobilisation

Communists had been active in the Telugu speaking Godavari–Krishna delta region of the neighbouring Madras Presidency since 1934 and largely organised through peasants organisations such as the Andhra Mahasabha (Madras), the All India Kisan Sabha and the Indian Peasant Institute.[11] The first incursion of the communist movement in Telangana as a result occurred in the Madhira–Khammam area of Warangal district, through peasants who had settled down at Wyra and Paleru irrigation projects, from influence of their relatives in coastal Andhra on them.[note 1] The first communist organisation were established in Warangal and Nalgonda districts through the efforts of Chandra Rajeswara Rao, a peasant working in Mungala.[note 2] The Regional Committee of the Communist Party of India in Telangana was established under the leadership of Pervaelli Venkataramanaiah in 1941.[12]

The students movement contributed significantly to the growth of the communist movement, disillusioned with Gandhian satyagraha politics and having gained experience through the Vandemataram protests, a number of radical progressive student organisations were established which eventually merged together to form the All Hyderabad Students Union in January 1942. Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, a former student agitator during the Vandemataram protests was instrumental in building up the Communist Party in the districts of Warangal and Nalgonda. The nationalist, progressive and secular intelligentsia in the city of Hyderabad turned towards political radicalism as well, through the influential Naya Adab (New Salute) which promoted communism in literature,[note 3] and through the Comrades Association initially formed in reaction to the growth of communal sectarian organisations,[note 4] which became communist under the leadership of Raj Bahadur Gour and Makhdoom Mohiuddin.[12]

Andhra Conference

In the meantime, the Andhra Conference which was a cultural-literary forum acting as a mask organisation for the Hyderabad State Congress, was overtaken by communists. It recruited students from colleges,[11] but was controlled by a conservative liberal and moderate leadership over whom the Hindu durra aristocracy had a strong influence and who advocated restraint opposing activities against the "law and order" of the state.[13][14] Following the withdrawal of a satyagraha movement for constitutional reforms in 1938–39 as a result of instructions of the national leadership,[11] the Congress was largely discredited for its younger left wing members.[note 5][15] Convinced that the expulsion of the Niizam along with all the elites was a necessity for effective democratic gains,[16] the left wing faction decided to fight against the feudal system, began embracing communism and started building up the organisation in the villages from 1941 onwards. They reduced the enrolment fee by one-fourth, encouraged participation from the landless and impoverished sections of the population and took up causes of peasants such as the abolition of vetti, prevention of rack-renting and eviction of tenants, occupancy (patta) rights of cultivating tenants and reduction in taxes, revenue demands and rents, among others.[11][13]

The Andhra Conference which was previously seen as a durra's organisation grew in popularity among the peasants and started being referred to as the Andhra Mahasabha (AMS) in Telangana,[11] while prominent feminists disillusioned with the Congress formed the Mahila Navjeevan Mandali in 1941, joined the AMS and eventually became members of the Communist Party by 1943. Venkateshwara Rao directly recruited disillusioned Congress members and sympathisers into the Communist Party during the same period.[12] Initially faced with opposition from the moderate leadership, landlords organisations such as the Agriculturalists Association and through heavy political repression from the government,[13] the AMS was slowly transformed into a militant mass organisation opposed to the Nizamate with a coalition of peasants, the working class, the middle class and youths as its member.[11] The process was completed in the 1944 Bhongir session of the AMS when two young communists, Ravi Narayan Reddy and Baddam Yella Reddy were respectively elected as the president and secretary.[11][17] The moderates expecting a rout, resigned from their offices, boycotted the election and later formed a marginal splinter organisation, giving the communists free reign over the primary AMS.[18][17]

Agitations of 1944–46

Between 1944 and 1946, the communist movement became widespread in the Telangana countryside. The Andhra Conference controlled by communists substantially increased its membership in the districts of Nalgonda, Warangal and Karimnagar. The movement formed a class alliance between disparate caste groups, the middle peasantry with small landholdings and the rural poor and landless labourers. Numerous villages were enmeshed with communist organisations, agrarian radicalism was heightened and a mass movement developed with a series of agrarian agitations against the durra aristocrats since 1944.[11][17] The agitations were non-violent and employed tactics such as non cooperation, withdrawal of services and refusal to pay technically illegal taxes, usually demanding the implementation of existent laws which were unenforced.[17][19] The very presence of large organised groups within the villages intimidated the durras and the administration, and private militias of the landlords and the police started to increasingly conduct violent attacks on the agitators.[19] Hyderabad State passed a legislation for minimum tenurial security in 1945, which only worsened conditions as landlords resorted to frequent mass evictions to prevent accrual of tenancy rights.[9] The agrarian distress was further aggravated by price rise and food scarcity after the Second World War.[11]

Rebellion

Spontaneous uprising

The post–war economic distress and political developments played a catalytic role in a feudal system already conductive for an uprising.[11] The village level agitations against the aristocratic durra landlords escaladed into an insurrection.[note 6] The influence of the communists in Nalgonda and Warangal districts had become so strong by early 1946 that the administration including the Nizam's firmans (writs) was unable to function in large swathes. The expansion of the movement in these areas was facilitated by the presence of estates with thousands of acres.[note 7] The first militant action occurred with a few instances of land seizures from the estates of durras in response to eviction of Lambadi tenant cultivators for non-compliance with additional taxation and demands of vetti forced labour. The village level communist sanghams (organisations) during the 1944–46 agitations had laid down demands for better wages, disallowance of vetti and baghela slavery, evictions, exorbitant taxation and refusal of a new mandatory post–war grain levy.[20]

One major incident on 4 July 1946 marked the beginning of the rebellion; a procession of over 1,000 peasants was fired at by the men of Vishnur Deshmukh in Kadavendi village of Warangal district,[21][note 8] Doddi Komarayya who was the leader of the local sangham was killed and a number of others severely wounded, the group proceeded to and set fire to the residence of the deshmukh before they were dispersed by the arrival of a contingent of armed police.[20] In the following days, 200 acres of land in a neighbouring village were seized from the deshmukh's estate and redistributed by the peasants. The incident sparked a spontaneous movement where groups of villagers would go from one village to another, people would drop out and return to their village after coming some distances while others would join in as they passed through a new village. In each village they formed drawn out congregations upon their arrival to discuss prevalent local issues and relations with the durra of their area.[21] By the end of July, around 300–400 villages in the districts of Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam experienced militant action by peasants against the local estates and officials.[note 9] In August 1946, the press wing of the Communist Party of India announced that the villages were under the control of the peasants and launched a national campaign to rally support for the rebellion, publicising the demands of the peasantry and highlighting the feudal exploitation and brutality.[20]

Peasants continuously resisted extortive action from officials and agents, refused to perform vetti labour, small landholders refused to hand over paddy crops for the required levy, and landless labourers and tenants continued to occupy lands they had been evicted from.[22] The durras sent their private militias to prevent the seizure of their lands but they were low in numbers and too poorly armed to be able to contain mass unrest.[23] On being unable to control the villages, the durras started fleeing to safer regions, resorted to litigation, and relied on the state police and their private militias to suppress the rebellious peasants.[20][23] The villages adopted a strategy of active defense in response to violent attacks by private militias and the state police. The village level organisations developed a signals network to inform other villages of the position of approaching state security forces and villagers adopted the tactic of gathering en masse armed with slingshots, stones and sticks to ward off reconnaissance units and smaller raiding parties.[19] The rebels neither had firearms or the training to use them. The durras, their agents and local officials became fearful of visiting their own estates or jurisdictions which were known to be established strongholds of the communist rebels without paying "protection taxes" themselves.[20]

 
Convoy of villagers with some armed volunteers during the early stage of the rebellion.

The Andhra Conference was banned in October 1946 and the police had began arresting communists and sympathisers throughout the state. Hundreds of Communist Party activists were arrested and the number of police unit assigned to the rebellious regions were exponentially increased.[19][22] The frequency of raids kept increasing through 1946 but during their attempts at arresting communist activists that were known to the police, crowds of hundreds would gather to obstruct them. The administration started assigning units of the Hyderabad State Forces to assist the police.[19] Some of the villages formed ad hoc volunteer forces for defense.[22] On 16 and 17 November, military personnel killed 3 villagers and wounded 8 others in two raids on the villages of Patha Suryapet and Devarupal. On 27 November, in retaliation to the killing, a police convoy escorting arrested communist activists was successfully ambushed; 4 police personnel were killed and the prisoners released.[19]

Following the ambush, the police and military forces started attempting to arrest entire villages and by December, the Suryapet prison alone was holding 600 prisoners from the consequent raids. The military crackdown increased in its intensity in December and resulted in heightened militancy in the villages; the sangham earlier known as chitti sangham due to their distribution of chittis (receipts), common after the enrolment fee for AMS was reduced, started being known as the lathi sangham for their distribution of lathis (heavy sticks or batons) in this period.[19] By the end of 1946, the police had reported 156 cases of assault by peasants and four major police peasant battles had occurred but neither the actions of the military, the police or the private militias were able to dislodge the communists. Most of the confrontations occurred in the Suryapet and Jangaon taluqas of Nalgonda district, and pockets in Khammam, Karimnagar, Nalgonda and Warangal districts had fallen under rebel control,[22] while 4,000 army troops were deployed in Nalgonda district.[24]

The military equipped with modern firearms made it much harder for the rebels to operate and the movement became more clandestine in the presence of military camps near their villages; the Andhra communists in Madras Presidency started discussions with the rebels to make preparations for open warfare with Hyderabad State in the future. Meanwhile, the military camps were withdrawn in January 1947 after a period of absence of any visible disturbances.[25] Despite some instances of armed confrontations, the uprising had started as a spontaneous upsurge and were spasmodic in their actions with no systemically planned offensives, the organised Andhra Mahasabha and the Communist Party acted primarily in an auxiliary capacity in this period.[22]

Reactions

The Hyderabad State Congress was divided into two factions of moderates and leftists since 1938–39, while left wing members of the Andhra Conference had gravitated to the Communist Party, the ones in Maharashtra Parishad in the Marathawada region of Hyderabad State had aligned themselves with the Congress Socialist Caucus, influenced by their presence in Bombay Presidency.[note 10][26] In late 1945, the Indian National Congress had adopted the policy of expelling all communists from its organisations, it convened the All India States Peoples' Conference (AISPC) containing delegates of regional organisations which boycotted the communist predominant Andhra Conference and instead invited the marginal splinter organisation formed by the moderates. The socialists had protested against the policy leading to further friction with the moderates in Hyderabad.[note 11][27]

On the onset of the rebellion and in light of post–war negotiations between the Congress and the British administration, the Nizam of Hyderabad legalised the Hyderabad State Congress in July 1946. The three mask organisations; the non-communist Andhra Conference, the Maharashtra Parishad and the Karnatak Parishad were merged and a provincial working committee was formed. 164 delegates from the three organisations voted in an election for the president of the committee, the socialist candidate Swami Ramananda Tirtha from the Marathawada delegation won against the moderate Burgula Ramakrishna Rao from the Andhra delegation by a narrow margin of 3 votes. The moderate–left divide persisted with the moderates, mostly affluent lawyers with durra backing, refusing to budge and eventually reaching a crisis point over their position with respect to the communists following the Nizam government's military crackdown on the peasants in late 1946.[27]

In November 1946, the two factions sent separate fact finding teams to Suryapet, led by Tirtha and J. Keshav Rao respectively. Tirtha's group searched for police atrocities while Rao's group searched for reasons to condemn the communists. Tirtha praised the actions of the communists and leftist faction wanted to not only admonish the government for repression but also to convert the party into a more militant mass movement but were prevented from doing so by the moderates who were adamantly opposed to any further move to the left. The working committee drafted three resolutions demanding the government to end their repression in Nalgonda, to lift the ban on the Communist Party and criticising the communists for a secterian approach towards the Congress. The moderates were dissatisfied with it, filibustered it and did not allow it to pass,[note 12] the State Congress stopped functioning due to consequent resignation from the left and mediations with the national leadership till March 1947. The left issued a statement denouncing "barren constitutionalism" of "feudal elements" in the State Congress.[27]

Wilfrid Vernon Grigson, Revenue and Police Minister for the Viceroy's Executive Council conducted his own investigation in December and reported that the peasants had legitimate grievances and that it wasn't communist propoganda as previously assumed. The report stated that raiding villages and arresting communists would not be able to stop attacks on government officials by villagers without an administrative overhaul in the princely state, which according to him the Nizam's officials were incapable of conducting.[19] The AISPC also passed a resolution on 27 December to condemn the activities of both the government and the communists, based on a report from their president Dwarkanath Kachru who was had arrived in Hyderabad to conduct his own investigation. In a private letter, Kachru stated to Tirtha that despite their official stance the grievances of the peasants were genuine such that "no organisation worthy of its name could put up with" and admitted that the communists had simply outflanked them through their mass mobilisation. The activities of the Congress in the state were being marginalised as the conflict between the Nizam's government and the communists engulfed Telangana.[27]

Communist–Left Congress alliance

In February 1947, the British administration announced the transfer of power to the Indian leadership and gave the princely states the option of either joining India or Pakistan or becoming independent. The Nizam of Hyderabad, the Muslim aristocrats and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen wanted Hyderabad to become an independent state but the vast majority of people wanted the state to merge with India in hopes of political freedoms and participation in self-government. The Communist Party added merger with India into its list of demands and aligned themselves with the Indian National Congress which had started pressuring the Nizam to accede.[28] In March 1947, the working committee of the State Congress was restored and Swami Ramananda Tirtha was reelected with a wide margin of 751 to 498 votes against B.G. Rao, enabling him to completely exclude the moderates. He praised the communists for their revolt and suggested the incorporation of a more revolutionary policy for the State Congress.[29]

The Congress went on satyagraha seeking the merger of Hyderabad with India and the State Congress under Tirtha launched a civil disobedience campaign. The communists joined up with Congress workers in their agitation although they held reservations over the effectiveness of Gandhian methods. Due to the organisational weakness of the Congress, most of the Congress agitation in Telangana especially in the rural areas was carried out instead by communists, the police were unable to differentiate between the two and assumed that they had entered into a league.[29] In the urban areas, communists and Congressmen held joint meetings and demonstrations which provided material benefits to the rebels in the countryside.[30] The general understanding among the communists was that the "rightist congressmen" were backed by the durras and opposed to any form of alliance with them while the "leftist congressmen" wanted an unification with the Communist Party but were too irresolute and timid to carry it forward.[29]

The communists started disassociating with the satyagraha as a consequence of incorporation of Gandhian ethics in the agitations, one key point of discontent became the symbolic cutting down of toddy trees as Gandhian ethics prohibited toddy drinking. The symbolism lay in the toddy plantations also being a major source of revenue for the state but toddy trappers who were subjected to untouchability, were a significant section of the communist activists and base of support, and relied on toddy for their livelihoods.[31] Some degree of co-ordination continued to occur especially with increase in police repression and as the agitations became interspersed with instances of violent confrontations. One major incident occurred in Warangal district where a crowd of 2,000 armed with spears and lathis stormed a police station and released two Congress workers who were being subjected to torture, in the process killing an inspector and injuring several policemen.[29] In Nalgonda, the epicenter of the rebellion, the communists toured across the district, releasing and redistributing grains hoarded in markets, burning down checkpoints on the border and the records of officials and sahukars in the villages, while raising Indian flags in those locations.[30]

Rise of the Kasim Razvi

Meanwhile, the Ittehad was spreading sectarian propaganda and attempting to promote fanaticism among Muslims, along with the Arya Samaj and the Hindu Mahasabha attempting to do the same with Hindus in reaction to it. The situation created widespread fear and uncertainty, leading to political instability and a sudden deterioration of law and order across the state.[28] The Nizam who had isolated himself from the common population and their politics for years, perceived himself to be surrounded by a hostile Hindu population and started to increasingly rely on the Ittehad for support. The leadership of the Ittehad had by then passed to Kasim Razvi, a small time lawyer from northern India who had supported the Pakistan movement and wanted Hyderabad to become a refuge for Muslims in the south.[32] Gradually the Ittehad under Razvi, was able to wrestle control over the Nizam government and was managing its day to day functioning. Razvi formed a paramilitary wing for the Ittehad called the razakars who were deputed alongside the police and grew to 150,000 men, double the police force itself, which contributing significantly to public disorder and a complete collapse of civil authority as they embarked on a campaign of political repression.[31][32]

Hindu–Muslim tensions and communal violence in Hyderabad reached its highest point with independence of India.[28] The razakars grew to 200,000 men by the end of August with the recruitment of Muslim refugees from India who had arrived in Hyderabad on the invitation of the Ittehad.[24] The Congress agitations also peaked with complete shutdown of the state accompanied by flag hoisting, meetings, processions and protests on 7 and 15 August. Tirtha was arrested in mid August and violent repression of agitators continued to increase over the following period. The Congress leftists of Hyderabad under a new leadership,[note 13] organised themselves through the Committee of Action which set up camps outside the state and started conducting armed raids into Hyderabad. The camps were allowed by the Home Ministry of India, now under Vallabhbhai Patel and reluctantly approved of by Mahatma Gandhi. The moderates were completely opposed to the armed raids and excluded from the committee.[33] In the following year, the Congress socialists would split from the party under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan to form the Socialist Party of India taking with them much of the leftists of the Hyderabad State Congress.[34]

Escalation and territorial expansion

 
Ad hoc training ground of a rebel unit in an open field.

The crisis of authority in Hyderabad had also enabled the influence of the rebels in the countryside to expand rapidly, who set up a parallel administration composed of gram rajyams (village communes) in the areas that came under their control.[35] The parallel administration provided more stability and became a refuge from the violence in the rest of the state.[24] Roving bands of razakars active across Hyderabad to quell agitations, were instructed by the government to protect the durras and suppress the communists in Telangana after the withdrawal of the British. Initially attached with police and military forces, the razakars had come to supersede them when the Ittehad assumed power and started operating independent of the state forces. They plundered and looted villages, killed and arrested people on mere suspicion of them being potential agitators and employed rape and torture to quell the villages into submission.[24][31] The communists who had previously largely relied on defensive measures and unarmed resistance began to openly endorse offensive warfare. The national leadership of the Communist Party officially approved armed rebellion in September 1947.[33]

Volunteer squads called dalams were organised by the communes which was joined en masse by villagers frustrated with police, military and razakar atrocities, particularly in the districts of Nalgonda, Warangal and Kammam which were communist strongholds.[35] The Communist Party was better organised in the neighbouring Andhra region of Madras State (previously Madras Presidency) and started sending volunteers into Telangana which considerably bolstered the organisational, tactical and logistical capabilities of the rebels, transforming the peasants uprising into an organised rebellion. The rebels equipped with firearms went on guerilla warfare targeting infrastructure, supplies and garrisons of the government and the estates of the durras,[24] while organised mobs were assigned to low risk targets such as the forest department and offices of village officials, who would burn down their records, take away their lathis and grain stocks. In December the armed assaults became excessively frequently, the police recorded 45 attacks on major targets within the span of 11 days in Warangal and Nalgonda districts.[33]

 
Rebel with a Sten Gun.

The government in response authorised the police, the military and the razakars to indiscriminatly target entire villages for harbouring sympathies for the sangham (communists) or Congress. The attacks involved reprisals in which the entire populations on some of the villages were killed and there was widespread use of torture against villagers and rape against women as a tactic of terror. The extreme measures deployed by the state forces pushed otherwise skeptical people in the peripheral areas of the rebel dominated territories to be draw towards the communists and the rebellion.[33] In some cases, the razakars who the government was unable to control attacked the estate of the durras themselves and plundered them. Consequently, some of the durras entered into agreements with the communes to supply them with resources and abide by their governance in exchange for protection from the razakar bands.[24] The reprisals made the communes strengthen their organisation and co-ordination, the Andhra and Telangana communist set up a joint revolutionary headquarter was set up on Mungala estate, located in an enclave of Hyderabad State within Krishna district of Madras State.[35] By early 1948, much of Telangana was beginning to rebel in an all out revolution as more of the rural poor and the peasantry organised themselves under the communists and took up arms against the durras and the Hyderabad State. It triggered a large scale displacement of durras who fled to the cities, abandoning their private militias and properties. The communist influence was chipping away at the entire social hierarchy with a quasi divine Nizam at the top since the early 1940s, and had eventually enabled the mass uprising to occur.[36]

Against the government forces, the rebels suffered from a persistent shortage of modern firearms and had to constantly rely on raids to gain more.[37] The rebels as a consequence were severely outnumbered as the communes refused to deploy more recruits as they were unable to arm them. Despite the shortage, the rebel forces were highly motivated, being entirely composed of volunteers, increasingly ideological and antagonised by years of repression.[36] The rebels were also better adjusted to the terrain and shaped their organisation on lines of geography and the strategic considerations of guerrilla warfare as they built it from the ground up, which made them much more effective in terms of tactics and logistics. The rebel forces were organised into two categories, garrisons consisting of village dalams who would continue their civilian lives while maintaining hidden arms and mobile guerrilla dalams who would become full time operatives and engage in offensive across large distances.[38] The revolutionary headquarter in Mungala became a key source of supplies, arms, literature and organisers as they were smuggled in through the border. Some demobilised war veterans also joined the communists during this period.[35]

 
Members of a guerilla dalam dressed in ghillie suits with an assortment of firearms including muskets.

In contrast, the state forces and the paramilitary razakars lacked co-ordination, the former was demoralised as a consequence of the induction of the latter and having to serve in a subordinate role to them.[24] The rising tensions between the Dominion of India the Nizam made it more difficult for the government as they had to deploy more troops at the frontiers. One critical advantage the government forces had was in terms of transportation as they could use trucks, jeeps and railways to quick move troops through the few hard bed roads that existed in the region while the rebels were largely restricted to foot, even captured vehicular transportation was not useful to them as they could operate in a clandestine manner with them nor did they possess heavy armament like artillery to engage in conventional warfare. In order to mitigate this advantage, the villages dug trenches around them and roads were either blocked, breached or planks with nails placed on them. The military would often respond by forcing a group of villagers to refill the trenches and shooting some of them while they worked on it. On 26–27 February, the rebels conducted a major operation with twenty simultaneous co-ordinated attacks on infrastructure targets including important telecommunication facilities, bridges and sections of railway tracks which paralysed the transportation and communication capabilities of the government forces from thereon.[39]

The rebellion went on successful campaign of territorial expansion and effectively routed the government forces by mid 1948; more than 75% of the Telangana countryside had come under their control, covering the entirety of Nalgonda, Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar districts, more than half of Medak and Adilabad districts and a significant portion of the remaining three districts of Telangana namely, Mahabubnagar, Hyderabad and Nizamabad. In Adilabad, Medak and Karimnagar, the Tirtha Group of the Congress had established some bases that defected towards the communists.[40][41] Around 4,000 villages were being administered by communes and the rebel forces had reached a peak with 10,000 troops in garrisons and 2,000 in guerilla forces. There were additional 3–4 million active workers and non-combatant supporters of the rebel forces.[42] In August 1948, the number of razakars stood at 100,000 men even as it recruited 30,000 more in January, down from 200,000 in September 1947. They were increasingly sent by the government to engage with the communists as the rebellion expanded across Telangana but they proved to be ineffective against them.[24][35] In turn they became the victims of torture and retribution killings for their atrocities in the preceding months and year, which continued until the sanghams instituted a ban declaring it to be primitive.[43]

Communes and guerilla squads

Structure and organisation

Role of women

Financing and arms supplies

Decline of the insurrection

In popular culture

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ The first communist connection likely established between Veerlapadu village (Nandigama taluq) in Krishna district and Allinagaram village (Madhira taluq) in Warangal district.[12]
  2. ↑ The first communist units were formed in 1940 after Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, Pervaelli Venkataramanaiah, Sarvadevabhatla Ramanadham, Chirravuri Lakshminarasaiah established contact with Chandra Rajeswara Rao.[12]
  3. ↑ Naya Abad developed around the newspapers Rayyat edited by Mandumulu Narsing Rao and Payyam edited by Khaji Abdul Gafoor.[12]
  4. ↑ The Muslim supremacist organisation of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and reactionary Hindu nationalist organisations like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Arya Samaj were influential in the city of Hyderabad.[11]
  5. ↑ The left wing faction within the AMS was led by Ravi Narayan Reddy, Baddam Yella Reddy and Arutla Ramachandra Reddy.[12]
  6. ↑ The agitations of 1944–1946 were primarily located in Nalgonda district on the estates of jagirdars and deshmukhs of the largest landholdings.[20]
  7. ↑ 550 estates with over 500 acres of land owned 60 to 70% of the total cultivatable land in Nalgonda, Warangal and Mahbubnagar districts.[8]
  8. ↑ Vishnur Deshmukh had an estate of 40,000 acres covering over 40 villages.[8]
  9. ↑ The initial militant actions of 1946 were sometimes carried out without approval from sangham leaders.[20]
  10. ↑ The socialists of Maharashtra Parishad had led agitation around 1944, similar to that of the Telangana communists and gained a mass following in Marathawada.[26]
  11. ↑ The leader of the Marathawada socialists, Swami Ramananda Tirtha became embroidered in a controversy when their internal correspondences with Mahatma Gandhi on the communist question were verbatim released by the Communist Party. Tirtha was widely assumed to have leaked it himself.[27]
  12. ↑ K.R. Vaidya, a moderate veteran was insulted that the younger committee had not taken his recommendations and distributed a letter condemning Govind Das Shroff and the Marathawada leftists of being overtly sympathetic to the communists.[27]
  13. ↑ Following Tirtha's arrest, a new line of leadership was established by the Hyderabad State Congress leftists in Bombay led by Govind Das Shroff, Gopaliah Subbukrishna Melkote and Digambarrao Govindrao Bindu.[33]

Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Motta, S.; Nilsen, A. Gunvald, eds. (2011). Social Movements in the Global South: Dispossession, Development and Resistance. Rethinking International Development. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-230-30204-4.
  2. ↑ Ratnam, S. Venkata (2016). Role of Women in Telangana Armed Struggle. Research India Press. pp. 1–12. ISBN 978-93-5171-038-7.
  3. ↑ Welch, Claude Emerson (1980). Anatomy of Rebellion. State University of New York Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-87395-441-9.
  4. ↑ Omvedt, Gail (1 September 1980). "Caste, Agrarian Relations and Agrarian Conflicts". Sociological Bulletin. 29 (2): 142–170. doi:10.1177/0038022919800202. ISSN 0038-0229 – via SAGE Journals.
  5. ↑ Gossman, Patricia (1992). Police Killings and Rural Violence in Andhra Pradesh. Human Rights Watch. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-56432-071-1 – via Stanford Libraries.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Dhanagare 1983, p. 180-184.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dhanagare 1983, p. 184-186.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Sundarayya 1973a, p. 8-13.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Dhanagare 1983, p. 186-189.
  10. ↑ Chatterjee 2005, p. 137-154.
  11. ↑ 11.00 11.01 11.02 11.03 11.04 11.05 11.06 11.07 11.08 11.09 11.10 Dhanagare 1983, p. 189-193.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 Thirumali 1996, p. 164-168.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Thirumali 1996, p. 168-174.
  14. ↑ Benichou 2000, p. 164-165.
  15. ↑ Benichou 2000, p. 128-131.
  16. ↑ Benichou 2000, p. 164-166.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Thirumali 1996, p. 174-177.
  18. ↑ Benichou 2000, p. 147-153.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 19.6 19.7 Roosa 2001, p. 66-68.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 Dhanagare 1983, p. 193-194.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Pavier 1981, p. 96.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 Dhanagare 1983, p. 194-195.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Gupta 1984a, p. 14.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 24.4 24.5 24.6 24.7 Elliott 1974, p. 43-45.
  25. ↑ Pavier 1981, p. 100.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Roosa 2001, p. 61-66.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 27.5 Roosa 2001, p. 68-73.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 Dhanagare 1983, p. 195-196.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 29.3 Roosa 2001, p. 73-75.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Pavier 1981, p. 111-112.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 Dhanagare 1983, p. 196-197.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Elliott 1974, p. 41-43.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 33.4 Roosa 2001, p. 75-76.
  34. ↑ Ralhan 1997, p. 82.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 35.4 Dhanagare 1983, p. 197-198.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Roosa 2001, p. 76-77.
  37. ↑ Gupta 1984a, p. 15.
  38. ↑ Pavier 1981, p. 115-116.
  39. ↑ Pavier 1981, p. 112-114.
  40. ↑ Gupta 1984a, p. 16.
  41. ↑ Dhanagare 1983, p. 182.
  42. ↑ Dhanagare 1983, p. 197-199.
  43. ↑ Dhanagare 1983, p. 198-199.
  44. ↑ Ravikumar, Aruna (14 September 2019). "The Yoke of Oppression". The Hans India. Retrieved 20 August 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  45. ↑ Dhanaraju, Vulli (2015). "Voice of the Subaltern Poet: Contribution of Suddala Hanumanthu in Telangana Peoples' Movement". Research Journal of Language, Literature and Humanities. 2 (7): 6–7. ISSN 2348-6252 – via Semantic Scholar.
  46. ↑ Kishore, E Sai (15 March 2015). "35years on, still a benchmark". The Hans India.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  47. ↑ Dundoo, Sangeetha Devi (15 June 2019). "Behind the scenes of 'Mallesham', the Telugu biopic on an ikat weaver". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 20 August 2021.

Sources

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