Sunday, July 24, 2011

Telengana Movement


Landlords like Jagirdars, Deshmukhs, Ijaradars etc monopolized 60 to 70 percent of land in the Telengana region of Hyderabad. It was against this land grabing, extraction of illegal levies and exaction of ‘vetli’ and ‘vettichakiri’[free labour and free service] that the Telengana peasantry rose in revolt. Their discontent was given expression by the communists through the organisaion of the Andra Mahasabha.

By 1945 the opposition to the landlords’ exactions turned into resistance. The peasants of Telengana resorted to arms. The actual fighting between the landlords and the peasants started on 4 July 1946. When the armed retainers of Visunuri Deshmukh of Nalgonda district fired upon a protesting mob of peasants and killed Doddi Komarayya. Komarayya’s martyrdom was a signal for widespread armed resistance of the peasants.

The Nizam’s government declared the Communist Party and the Andra Mahasabha unlawful. The government undertook full scale military operations against the peasants. But the armed struggle of peasants continued till 1951.

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