TELENGANA PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE AND ITS LESSONS P. SUNDARAYYA DECEMBER 1972 PUBLISHER: Desraj Chadha, on behalf of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), 49 Lake Place, Calcutta-29 PRINTER: Samir Dasgupta, Ganashakti Printers (Private) Ltd., 33 Alimuddin Street, Calcutta-16 1 The deep yellow/brown is – Original Strong base of Movement. The light yellow is – Expansion of Guerilla's movement after 1948. 2 CONTENTS PART I CHAPTER A FEW WORDS INTRODUCTION I HYDERABAD STATE – ITS SOCIO-POLITICAL BACKGROUND Multi-lingual state; conflict between Muslim ruler and Hindu subjects; feudal oppression; wretched conditions of workers and middle class employees; beginnings of the Andhra Mahasabha; second world war and people’s struggles II THE PEASANT UPSURGE AND COMMUNIST PARTY The spark that set afire the Telangana agrarian revolt; Doddi Komarayya’s martyrdom, July 4, 1946-36; Government resorts to mass arrests and police terror; armed police raids on villages and people’s resistance; aftermath of raids; lessons of this phase of the movement III ARMED RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AGAINST NIZAM AND RAZAKARS Distribution of land, establishment of people’s rule (August 15, 1947 to September 13, 1948); our agrarian programme; the new upsurge; collection of arms, formation of regular guerrilla squads for armed resistance; some notable armed actions; destruction of military and police camps; the story of martyrs IV TELANGANA PEOPLE’S ARMED LIBERATION STRUGGLE AGAINST NIZAM – ITS ACHIEVEMENTS Land to the tiller; was it right to have taken to land distribution?; formation of gram raj committees; agricultural reforms; increase in wages of agricultural workers; equal rights for women; abolition of untouchability; cultural progress; the military aspect of the struggle; weaknesses V THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN ANDHRA: TERROR REGIME (1948-51) Elections and after; repression begins; independence and after; two years of terror rule; people fight back; mass butchery by Government; statements on repression PART II I ENTRY OF INDIAN ARMY AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER 3 On the eve of the Indian army intervention; decision to continue the armed struggle; India’s “police action”; people’s relief short-lived II TERROR REGIME AND RESISTANCE Terror methods; rape and vandalism on women; sadistic murders; terror fails III THE KRISHNA FOREST (NALLAMALA) REGION Disastrous effects of dissolution of squads; agricultural labour struggles; lambadi people’s support; Party organisation; after the re-formation of regular guerrilla squads; November Day and Peace Day; situation in the plains of Nalgonda – around the military centres at end of 1950; Amarabad area: new extension on River Krishna border; Kurnool district; Vikarabad area; position at the time of withdrawal of struggle IV THE GODAVARI FOREST REGION Khammam-Kothagudem (Palvancha) area after “police action”; movement among the koya people; burning of villages and organisation of concentration camps; hard life of guerrillas; Manukota-Mulugu-Warangal area; during 1951, extension to Chennur-Siripur area in Adilabad district V ACTIONS OF GUERRILLA SQUADS On police and military patrols and camps, on hated landlords and their agents; Godavari forest area; Khammam-Palvancha area; Ibrahimpatnam-Devarkonda-Amarabad area; Karimnagar-Janagaon area; raids on police stations in Union territory; enemy agents and hated landlords killed VI PEOPLE’S UPSURGE IN KARIMNAGAR AND OTHER NEW AREAS Police attacks and people’s resistance; people seize grain and land; extension of movement into Adilabad district VII MOVEMENT IN CITIES AND OF THE WORKING CLASS Students’ demonstrations and battles; working class struggles; discontent among NGOs; food problem; mounting repression in Hyderabad city VIII STRUGGLE INSIDE JAILS IX WOMEN IN THE TELANGANA MOVEMENT Women defend their land; fight for wage-increase; resist police repression and attacks; some sketches; raping of women and fight against it; in guerrilla squads and secret offices; koya women to the fore; marriage and new social problems 4 X BRIEF SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE SQUAD AND PARTY LEADERS WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES AFTER THE ENTRY OF THE INDIAN ARMY Suryapet taluka; Madhira taluka; Mulugu-Manukota; Jangaon; Huzur-nagar-Miayalagudem; Munagala; Bhuvanagiri; others including after withdrawal of struggle XI WITHDRAWAL OF TELANGANA ARMED PARTISAN RESISTANCE India’s path to revolution; assessment of the immediate situation and tasks; partisan struggle: a Marxist-Leninist understanding; May 1951 Central Committee meeting and its decisions; factors that led to withdrawal decision; resolution on withdrawal of armed struggle; development of events after withdrawal; differences persist EPILOGUE PART III APPENDIX I: MARTYRS OF THE STRUGGLE NALGONDA DISTRICT: Suryapet taluka; Huzurnagar; Munagala Pargana; Miryalagudem; Nalgonda and Ramannapeta; Bhuvanagiri; Ibrahimpatnam; MAHBOOBNAGAR DISTRICT: Madhira taluka; Khammam; Kothagudem (Palvancha); Manukota; Illendu; Narsampeta-Karimnagar-Adilabad; EAST GODAVARI DISTRICT; WEST GODAVARI DISTRICT; KRISHNA DISTRICT: Divi taluka; Gannavaram; Gudivada; Bandar town and taluka; Vijayawada town and taluka; Nandigama; Tiruvuru; GUNTUR DISTRICT: Sattenapalli taluka; Narsaraopeta; Vinukonda; Guntur; Palnad; Repalli; Tanali; Bapatla; ONGLE DISTRICT; CUDDAPAH DISTRICT; Telangana (continued) APPENDIX II: THE CONDITIONS OF AGRICULTURAL WORKERS AND OF THE POOR PEASANTRY Huzurnagar taluka; Devarkonda taluka; Questions and answers; equal wages for women; Adilabad taluka; false propaganda of enemies; how to convince people of our demands; the political goal; our slogans; Resolutions: on land; on grain levies; on the food question on agricultural labourers; our land slogan in Manukota area; on other revolutionary people’s struggles APPENDIX III: PRESENT SECRET ORGANISATION – OUR TASKS On what basis do we adopt secret methods?; Provincial Committee Circular; technical circular APPENDIX IV: TALES OF TELANGANA 5 A FEW WORDS ABOUT THIS BOOK 1. At last, after 20 years’ delay, we are able to place this book on “Telangana People’s Struggle and Its Lessons” in the hands of readers. Our effort has been to give the reader a comprehensive narration of the development of this struggle, and all the relevant details available to us, in order to point out the most important political lessons that emerge from the experience of this movement. 2. We are conscious that many other details of actions of people and of guerrillas and cadre which should have found a place in this book may not be there. It is due to lack of those details with us, due to the failure of all those participants in that great struggle, to record their experiences, their knowledge of people’s reactions and their own feeling during the period or later. 3. Whenever those accounts become available, it will not be difficult to include them and have a fuller and more comprehensive history of the Telangana People’s Struggle. In this narrative, there may be many factual discrepancies with regard to minor details but those, too, can be corrected, if the participants or readers point them out. 4. We have avoided narrating the activities and the role of various participants, their positive and negative features, especially of most of the living personnel, for obvious reasons, except when it becomes absolutely essential to pinpoint political generalisations and that, too, in very general terms. 5. Certain colleagues of ours have pointed out to us that the narrative and the book could have been more vivid and graphic and this book does not bring out fully the rich experience and the heroism of the movement. We are acutely conscious of this weakness but it can be remedied only if the participants themselves write out or recount their experiences, even after this lapse of time. 6. There has been criticism that there are too many minor details, many a repetition, and some accounts appear to be exaggerated and appear unreal. The exact number of killed and wounded and number of participants in many an encounter cannot be verified now after the passage of so much time, when the Government records are not yet available, and the truth is sought to be suppressed by the authorities. We have not tried to edit the narration of the events, as given by some of the chroniclers, or as recorded in the available reports from the lower units to higher centres. It was difficult even at that time of actual occurrence, leave alone now, to verify the exact details. So we tried to stick to chroniclers’ narrations and to the recorded reports in the files without going into them deeply. We feel that if we tried to avoid giving many details or “repetitions”, it would have made this narration too general without bringing the mood, the feelings of the participants and of the people at that time, or of what they felt and believed then. 7. In giving brief sketches of Martyrs, we tried to give whatever was available in the records and from accounts comrades have given us. There are many omissions of many key cadre, squad members, whose deeds and activities need special narration. We would appeal to all 6 those old participants to compile the reminiscences of all those Martyrs, so that the future generations can be educated by their example. 8. Similarly, though it is generally estimated that about 4,000 were killed by police, military and landlord terror during 1946-51, excluding thousands of koya people who died of diseases in concentration camps, some investigators say that the figure is nearer 6,000. We do not have the names of all of them, nor even the names of villages from