The red revolt

by Amarnath K Menon

December 20, 2007

Visit any village deep in the dusty drylands of Telengana and encounter an unlettered elder. The instant greeting of submissive welcome will be “I am your slave.” This is the last remaining psychological scar of an insurrection that took place during the mid-’40s. The armed struggle against the feudal landlords—the jagirdars and deshmukhs—in the princely state of Hyderabad with exactions and forced labour, called vetti-chakiri, was responsible for the peasant uprising not only against the feudal landlords but also against the Nizam of Hyderabad himself.

The worst forms of exploitation followed by the landlords provided ideal conditions for an armed rebellion led by the communists with the slogan “land for the tiller”. One of the most vociferous demands of the movement was waiving the debts of the peasants.

The revolt in Telangana was sparked by the murder of Doddi Komarayya, a worker of the nascent nationalist movement called the Andhra Maha Sabha (AMS), in July 1946. The struggle took place at a time when the Nizam was trying to resist the efforts of the Indian government to merge his state with the Indian union.

The attacks by the Nizam’s police on the communists and the resultant counterattacks led to a ban on the Communist Party on December 3 that year. The Razakars— the newly formed fundamentalist militia of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen— joined the Nizam’s army and the police in suppressing the peasantry.

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