The Telangana Peasant Movement — also called the Telangana Armed Struggle — was one of India’s most significant agrarian uprisings. It unfolded between 1946 and 1951 in the princely state of Hyderabad, under the rule of the Nizam. To understand this movement, one must first understand how the rural system worked: the rule of deshmukhs and doras, the structure of land, and the everyday lives of peasants and labourers who lived under feudal control.
Life Under Deshmukhs and Doras
Before 1946, Telangana’s countryside was dominated by powerful hereditary landlords — called deshmukhs, jagirdars, or doras — who controlled large tracts of land, resources, and political authority. These landlords were intermediaries between the Nizam’s state and the rural population.
1) How the Feudal System Worked
- Land ownership: Most of the fertile land was concentrated in the hands of a few families of deshmukhs and jagirdars. Peasants cultivated the fields but had no legal ownership or security.
- Revenue system: The landlords collected land revenue, often far exceeding official rates. Peasants paid in grain or labour rather than money.
- Administrative control: Deshmukhs acted as the local rulers — controlling police, justice, and taxation within their estates. They could imprison peasants or confiscate property at will.
2) Labour and Exploitation
- Vetti (forced labour): Every household had to send at least one person — often a man or a young boy — to work free for the dora’s household, fields, or cattle sheds. Women were forced into domestic service, cleaning, or carrying loads without pay.
- Service castes: Barbers, washermen, potters, and artisans were required to serve the landlord’s household as hereditary obligation, not as paid workers.
- Physical punishments: Peasants who failed to appear for work or resisted orders could be whipped, publicly humiliated, or evicted from their huts.
3) Social Hierarchy and Caste Structure
- Caste segregation: Villages were divided into hamlets — upper castes (landlords and priests) lived near temples; Dalits and lower-caste labourers were confined to the outskirts, often forbidden to draw water from common wells.
- Gender oppression: Women were doubly burdened — working in the fields and under threat of sexual exploitation by landlords or their agents. The concept of “dora’s rights” (arbitrary authority) symbolised this abuse.
- Untouchability and humiliation: Lower-caste peasants had to bow, remove footwear, or kneel before landlords; they could not speak freely or sit in their presence.
4) Living Conditions
- Housing: Mud huts with thatched roofs; entire families often slept in single rooms. Most did not own cattle or ploughs — they borrowed from landlords and paid interest in grain.
- Food and health: Diet was mostly coarse grains and foraged greens. Droughts and levies led to frequent hunger; medical care was unavailable in rural areas.
- Debt and dependency: Landlords acted as moneylenders, keeping peasants permanently indebted. Interest rates were arbitrary and could be settled through forced labour.
Why Peasants Rebelled
By the early 1940s, economic hardship and social humiliation reached a breaking point. The Andhra Mahasabha (AMS) and later the Communist Party of India (CPI) began organising peasants around concrete demands: end of vetti, fair rents, and protection from eviction. Village meetings taught peasants about rights, dignity, and collective strength — a direct challenge to centuries of feudal dominance.
Key Turning Points and How the Movement Evolved
1944–1946: Organising for Dignity
Between 1944 and 1946, Telangana’s villages witnessed a quiet but powerful transformation. The movement had not yet turned militant — it was a period of education, organisation, and courage-building. The Andhra Mahasabha (AMS), once a moderate reform group, became radical under the influence of young Communist Party organisers who entered villages to awaken peasants to their rights.
1) Mobilisation through Village Sanghams
Village committees known as Grama Sanghams were formed across Nalgonda, Warangal, Khammam, and Karimnagar districts. Each sangham represented farmers, labourers, and artisans from all castes. They met secretly under trees, in barns, or temples to discuss exploitation, forced labour, and illegal taxes.
- Sanghams taught peasants to say “No” to vetti (forced labour) and to demand wages for every task.
- They kept records of each family’s land, dues, and debts to landlords, creating the first “people’s registers.”
- Local volunteers acted as messengers, spreading news of successful protests from one village to another.
2) Literacy, Songs, and Awareness
The AMS and CPI leaders realised that peasants could not be politically free without understanding their condition. They organised night schools in huts and courtyards where literacy, basic accounting, and songs of resistance were taught.
- Simple Telugu booklets like Ryotula Katha (Story of the Peasant) explained how landlords exploited them.
- Balladeers and folk singers (especially from lower castes) performed songs about freedom, equality, and the courage of common people.
- Women’s groups emerged — they sang in the fields, mocked the landlords’ cruelty, and encouraged men to join meetings.
3) Early Resistance to Vetti and Rents
By mid-1945, peasants began practical acts of resistance. Entire villages decided to stop free labour and refuse excessive grain levies demanded by deshmukhs and their agents.
- In Nalgonda’s Munugode and Neredugommu regions, peasants collectively refused to send bullocks for the landlord’s harvest — marking the first open defiance.
- In Khammam, groups surrounded granaries and demanded fair division of grain, preventing the deshmukh’s men from seizing harvest shares.
- Some landlords retaliated by evicting tenants, but sanghams helped the victims rebuild huts and fields collectively — creating solidarity.
4) The Role of AMS and CPI Cadres
AMS activists such as Raavi Narayana Reddy, Chakali Ailamma, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, and others coordinated local committees. CPI cadres trained young villagers in communication, secrecy, and collective action. Their slogan was simple: “Mana bhumi, mana hakku” (Our land, our right).
- Meetings often began with readings from Jatiya Geetamulu (national songs) and ended with pledges to reject servitude.
- Village disputes were settled by the sangham instead of the landlord’s court — a symbolic transfer of power.
- Funds were collected in handfuls of grain from each house to support activists and print pamphlets.
5) Women’s Emergence and Social Awakening
For the first time, rural women participated openly in collective action. Women like Chakali Ailamma refused to surrender harvests to landlords and inspired other peasants to stand up. They carried messages, guarded meetings, and cooked for activists hiding from police.
- In villages like Palakurthi and Husnabad, women led delegations to landlords demanding return of seized paddy.
- Lower-caste women sang folk songs ridiculing the doras, breaking taboos of silence and fear.
6) Transformation in Peasant Consciousness
These two years built the moral foundation of the Telangana struggle. Peasants began to recognise that their suffering was not fate but a system designed by landlords and the Nizam’s administration. The slogan “Dorala rajyam, ryotula rajyam kaadu” (This is the landlords’ rule, not the peasants’ rule) spread like wildfire.
By 1946, the sanghams had become the de facto authority in many villages — resolving disputes, distributing grain, and uniting peasants across caste lines. The peasants were now ready for confrontation, and the martyrdom of Doddi Komarayya in July 1946 ignited that transformation from peaceful assertion to armed resistance.
4 July 1946: The Killing of Doddi Komarayya
When peasant leader Doddi Komarayya was killed by landlord mercenaries during a protest, the entire Nalgonda district erupted. His death transformed the struggle from local defiance into a mass rebellion.
Transformation: Peasants armed themselves with sticks and farm tools, began guarding villages at night, and started to punish abusive landlords. The movement became both moral and militant.
1946–1948: State Repression and the Razakar Terror
As the movement spread, the Nizam’s government and his private militia, the Razakars, responded with extreme brutality.
- Razakars: Volunteer militia under Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Kasim Razvi; terrorised villages, looted grain, and attacked peasants.
- Atrocities: Mass killings, rape, abductions, torture, burning of homes and crops to suppress rebellion.
- Peasant response: Formation of armed squads (dalams) to defend villages, ambush Razakar patrols, and liberate prisoners.
- By late 1947, over 3,000 villages were under partial or full control of sanghams, and gram rajyams began operating in liberated areas.
1948: Integration of Hyderabad (Operation Polo)
- 13 September 1948: Indian Army enters Hyderabad; Nizam’s forces and Razakars surrender within five days.
- Mid-September 1948: Peasant-controlled villages continue self-rule; landlords flee; parallel village administrations remain operational.
1949–1951: Indian State Repression, Land Reforms, and Withdrawal
Indian State Repression (1949–1950)
Even after Hyderabad’s integration, the Indian state saw armed peasant committees (Gram Rajyams) as a challenge to law and order. The state launched counter-insurgency operations.
- Thousands of CPI and AMS activists arrested; many village leaders imprisoned or relocated.
- Gram Rajyams declared illegal; armed squads disarmed by Indian Army and police.
- Government forces reoccupied liberated areas in Nalgonda, Warangal, and Karimnagar districts.
- Casualties: Estimated 4,000–5,000 peasants killed, tens of thousands displaced.
- Reasons: Establish central authority, protect landlords’ reclaimed lands, and prevent continued armed rule.
- Impact: Armed struggle ended by 1951, but peasants retained some land and political awareness.
Land Reforms (1949–1951)
- 1949: Hyderabad Jagir Abolition Act passed; jagirs formally abolished.
- 1950: Tenancy reforms and land ceiling acts implemented, though unevenly.
- Many peasants retained land seized during rebellion; landlord dominance permanently weakened.
CPI Withdrawal and Political Transition
- 1951: CPI withdraws armed squads; transition to electoral politics begins.
- 1952: First general elections; former activists participate legally in governance.
Post-1951: Aftermath and Rise of Naxalism
Even after the Nizam’s defeat, the abolition of jagirs, and the implementation of land reforms (1949–1951), Telangana’s peasants continued to face deep socio-economic problems that the reforms could not fully resolve. These unresolved issues contributed to the growth of the Naxalite movement in the late 1960s and 1970s.
1) Limitations of Land Reforms
- Uneven implementation: Many landlords found loopholes or transferred land to relatives, circumventing ceilings and tenancy laws.
- Small plots: While some peasants received land, the parcels were often too small to be economically viable, leaving poverty and dependence on moneylenders.
- Corruption: Local officials sometimes favoured elite families, denying real redistribution to the landless.
2) Social Inequalities Persisted
- Caste hierarchies remained strong — Dalits and lower castes still faced discrimination, eviction threats, and exclusion from village decision-making.
- Women, though more active during the armed struggle, were often sidelined in land ownership and village committees post-1951.
- Local elites retained informal control over resources like water, grazing land, and forests.
3) Economic Hardships
- High dependence on monsoon agriculture and lack of irrigation kept peasants vulnerable.
- Persistent debt cycles with local moneylenders (sahukars) trapped many landholders and tenants.
- Limited access to education, healthcare, and markets prevented upward mobility.
4) Political Frustration and Radicalisation
- The Communist Party of India (CPI) remained influential but was largely absorbed into electoral politics after 1951, leaving a vacuum for militant activism.
- Peasants and youth who expected deeper socio-economic change felt betrayed by slow reforms.
- By the late 1960s, the radical left, inspired by Maoist ideology, capitalised on these frustrations, leading to the emergence of Naxalite groups in Telangana.
5) Legacy
- Weakened feudal landlord power and caste oppression.
- Introduced grassroots governance (Gram Rajyams) with land redistribution and dispute resolution.
- Prepared the ground for future agrarian and political movements, including Naxalism.
The peasant movement left a **culture of militant organisation**, with cadres trained in guerrilla tactics, village committees, and solidarity networks. These provided a **foundation for Naxalite guerrilla cells**, who could mobilise quickly in rural Telangana.
6) Conclusion
In short, while the Telangana Peasant Movement achieved **land reforms, reduced landlord power, and instilled political consciousness**, its incomplete social and economic transformations — combined with lingering inequalities and bureaucratic corruption — **paved the way for the rise of Naxalism** decades later. The cycle of rural insurgency in Telangana was thus not a sudden phenomenon, but the continuation of unresolved peasant struggles that began under the Nizam.
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