1 Description of the Module Items Description of the Module Subject

Description of the Module Items Description of the Module Subject Name Sociology Paper Name Agrarian Relations and Social Structure in India Module Name/Title Telangana Movement Objectives This module introduces you to the nature of the peasant mobilization through the case study of Telngana movement. It focuses on the agrarian structure of the region during the insurgency, and oulinesthe structural coordinates of feudal exploitation in Telangana. Key words Feudal Exploitation, Land Tenure System, Agrarian Economy. Module Structure TelanganaMovement Introduction,The Historical Setting,Types of Land Tenure, Feudal Exploitation, Economic and Caste Hierarchy, Agrarian Economy, The Andhra Conference, the Beginning and Growth of the insurrection, Salient Features of the movement, Decline of the Movement, Principal Participants, Causes for Withdrawal, Comments on the success and failure of the movement, Conclusion. Role Name Affiliation Principal Invesigator Prof Sujata Patel Dept. of Sociology, University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Dr Manish K Thakur IIM Calcutta Content Writer A Chandrashekar Reddy Dept. of Sociology, University of Hyderabad Content Reviewer Manish Thakur IIM Calcutta Language Editor Manish Thakur IIM Calcutta 1 Introduction: Social movements have always been an inseparable part of social progress. Through collective action, organizedprotests and resisting the structures of domination,peasant movements have historically paved the way for new thoughts and actions that revitalizes the process of social change (Singha Roy, 2004). TelanganaMovement was one such movement in the 20th century India which had ended the feudalistic oppression of landlords and the autocratic Nizam rule in the Telangana.The Telangana movement of the mid-1940s and the early 1950s was unparalleled in the 20th century history of India for its intensity, participants’ militancy and the height of revolutionism they ascended. This radical peasant resistance has put forward the question of ‘agrarian revolution’ by which Indian Communists dreamt simultaneously of freeing agrarian society from the feudal stranglehold, and restoring and distributing land to the tenants and tillers. It had compelled the unwilling Congress party leaders to embark upon various agrarian reforms, however, half-hearted and pitiful they were. It was during the course of this struggle that the bhoodan utopia was conceived by VinobaBhave, the sarvodayaleader (Sundarayya, 1973). Another important contribution of this movement was bringing the idea of reorganizing the states on linguistic basis in the country, it was during this struggle that states reorganization on a linguistic basis had come up. It was one of the two post-war insurrectionary struggles of peasants in India. Launched by the Communist Party of India [the then undivided/united CPI] after the shift from its earlier policy of collaboration (‘United Front’) with the congress to a strategy of encouraging or initiating insurrectionary partisan struggles in India, it began in the middle of 1946 [July] and lasted for over five years till it was called off in October 1951. The Historical Setting: The Hyderabad State, which was formed by the Nizam after the death of the last Mughal Emperor, was one of the largest princely states in India before Independence. The Nizam who was the 7th in line was one of the wealthiest rulers in the world, he ruled the state from 1912.The Hyderabad State consisted of three linguistic areas; the eight Telugu-speaking districts with Hyderabad city, the capital of the State, constituting the Telangana area; the five Marathi-speaking districts in the north-west of the State constituting the Marathwada region; and the three Kannada-speaking districts in the south-western part. The Telangana region occupied 50 per cent of the area; as against 28 per cent occupied by the Marathwada region; and the remaining 22 per cent by the 2 Kannada region. The Telugu-speaking population in 1951 was 9,000,000 (50 per cent); the Marathi-speaking population about 4,500,000 (25 per cent); the Kannada-speaking population 2,000,000 (11 per cent); and the Urdu-speaking population 2,100,000 (12 per cent). Since the Nizam was a Muslim, Urdu was made the language of the courts and the administration at all levels, and also the medium of instruction from the primary stage. The language and culture of the overwhelming majority of the people was suppressed by the rulers of the state. The fact that the Nizam of Hyderabad was a Muslim and the vast majority of the people of Hyderabad State belonged to the Hindu religion and its various sects, was reflected in the administrative set-up. Types of land tenure: The agrarian structure of the region was like a page from the medieval feudal history. The basic feature that dominated the socio-economic life of the people of Hyderabad and especially in Telangana was the unbridled feudal exploitation that persisted till the beginning of the Telangana armed peasant struggle.There were two kinds of land tenure system prevalent in the state (1)Khalsa or diwani. (2) Jagirdari. 1) The diwani or khalsa (Governmental land revenue system):Out of the 53 million acres in the whole of Hyderabad State, about 30 million, that is, about 60 per cent, were under the governmental land revenue system known as diwani system. This kind of system was known as the ‘raiyatwari’ system in other parts of the country, i.e. the peasant proprietary system. The land holders were not called ‘owners’ per se but they were treated as ‘pattadars’ (registered occupants). The actualoccupants within each patta were called shikmidars, who had full rights of occupancy but were not registered. As the pressure on land grew, the shikimidar, previously the cultivators of lands, began to lease out the lands to sub-tenants, these sub tenants were known as Asami-shikmis. The Asami-shikmis were tenants-at-will having neither legal rights in land nor any protection against eviction. On Khalsa lands deshmukhsand deshpandeswere the hereditary collectors of revenue for groups of villages. These intermediaries (deshmukhs&deshpandes) were granted vatans (annuities= the right to receive income) based on a percentage of the past collections. Very often the deshmukhlandlord himself became the newly appointed village revenue official or at least had access to land records.The influence of the office of deshmukhpermitted him to grab lands by fraud which, in countless instances, reduced the actual cultivator to 3 the status of a tenant-at-will or a landless labourer.Thedeshmukhs and deshpandes who were earlier tax collectors for the Government, but who were, after direct collection by the state apparatus was introduced, granted vatans or mash (annuities), based on a percentage of past collections, in perpetuity. These deshmukhs and deshpandes, as collectors of taxes, grabbed thousands of acres of the most fertile cultivated land and made it their own property, reducing the peasants cultivating these lands to tenants-at-will. The scale of the acquisition of lands can be judged from the fact that the JannareddyPratap Reddy family had one and a half lakh acres of land, and had laid a mango grove on a plot of 750 acres. (Sundarayya, 1973). These landlords were not only deshmukhs but also village chiefs (patel, patwari, malipatel) with hereditary rights. Each one of them had about five to ten villages under him as vatan. These vatan villages were controlled through clerks or agents (seridars) appointed by the deshmukh. These seridars collected products from the peasants by force (Sundarayya, 1973). They did various other jobs for the deshmukh, including supplying information about the village. In Telangana, the vetti system was all-pervasive, affecting all classes of the people in varying degrees. There was the prevalence of keeping girls as 'slaves' in the houses of landlords. When landlords gave their daughters in marriage, they presented slave girls and sent them along with their married daughters, to serve them in their new homes. These slave girls were used by the landlords as concubines. The vetti system made the life of the Telangana people one of abject serfdom and utter degradation. It ruined man's self- respect completely. The movement for its abolition became widespread.The administrative report of 1950-51 showed that in the three districts of Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Warangal, the number of pattadars or landlords owning more than 500 acres each were about 550. They owned 60 to 70 per cent of the total cultivable land. 2) Jagir tenures: 2.1 Surf-e-khasJagir (Nizam’s personal estate):This was assigned to the Nizam himself as Crown lands. This was scattered in several parts of the State and covered a total area of 8,109 square miles (1,961 villages), and fetched revenues totaling about 20 million rupees which met the Nizam’s household, retinue and other expenses and 4 partly met the cost of his army. 10 per cent of the total constituted the Nizam's direct estate the sarf-e-khas system. 2.2 Non-sarf-e-khasJagirdari (Land given as gifts to noblemen by the Nizam): About 15 million acres, that is, about 30 per cent, were under the jagirdarisystemt.The Jagirdari system of land administration was the most important feature of the political organization of Hyderabad.The Nizam created his own noblemen and bestowed on them one or the other distinguished rank and order—each with a large grant of land. In return the trusted noblemen undertook to maintain an army for the Nizam to rely on in time of need. The Jagirs were typically feudal tenures covering some 40,000 square kilometers in area but scattered in different parts of the State. Nearly 6,500 villages, i.e. about a third of the State’s total area, were under the Jagirdari system. [No. of Jagirdars: 1,167 in 1922; 1,500 in 1949.] The civil courts had no jurisdiction on Jagirlands and therefore the Jagirdars and their agents—or middlemen—were free to extort from the actual cultivators a variety of illegal taxes on them.

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