This is a chronological list of revolts organized by peasants .
121-463: 18th century 19th century 20th century The Guo Huaiyi rebellion (also romanized as Kuo Huai-i rebellion ) was a peasant revolt by Chinese farmers against Dutch rule in Taiwan in 1652. Sparked by dissatisfaction with heavy Dutch taxation on them but not the aborigines and extortion by low-ranking Dutch officials and servicemen, the rebellion initially gained ground before being crushed by
242-785: A durra 's organisation, grew in popularity among the peasants and started being referred to as the Andhra Mahasabha (AMS) in Telangana. Prominent feminists disillusioned with the Congress who formed the Mahila Navjeevan Mandali in 1941, also joined the AMS and eventually became members of the Communist Party by 1943. Venkateshwara Rao directly recruited disillusioned Congress members and sympathisers into
363-461: A feudal system in its agrarian economy. It had two main types of land tenure, diwani or khalsa and a distinct category of land called jagir . The lands designated as jagir were granted to aristocrats called jagirdars based on their rank and order, while a portion of the jagir lands were held as the crown lands ( sarf-e-khas ) of the Nizam. The civil courts had no jurisdiction over
484-514: A coalition of Dutch soldiers and their aboriginal allies. It is considered the most important uprising against the Dutch during the 37-year period of their colonisation of Taiwan. The burden of Dutch taxes on the Chinese inhabitants of Taiwan was a source of much resentment. The falling price of venison, a chief export of the island at the time, hit licensed hunters hard, as the cost of the licenses
605-416: A company of 120 Dutch musketeers came to the rescue of their trapped countrymen, firing steadily into the besieging rebel forces and breaking them. On 11 September the Dutch learned that the rebels had massed just north of the principal Dutch settlement of Tayouan . Sending a large force of Dutch soldiers and aboriginal warriors, they met the rebels that day in battle and emerged victorious, mainly because of
726-607: A crowd of 2,000 armed with spears and lathis stormed a police station and released two Congress workers who were being subjected to torture, in the process killing an inspector and injuring several policemen. Another occurred within Hyderabad city when a group of agitators burned down the residences of the British Police Minister and the president of the Executive Council of Hyderabad. In Nalgonda,
847-418: A key source of supplies, arms, literature and organisers as they were smuggled in through the border. Some demobilised war veterans also joined the communists during this period. In contrast, state forces and the paramilitary razakars lacked co-ordination; the former were demoralised as a consequence of the induction of the latter and having to serve in a subordinate role to them. The rising tensions between
968-474: A military intervention for the Annexation of Hyderabad . The intervention officially described as a " police action " was justified on the grounds of ending the undemocratic feudal regime of the Nizam and the razakar repression enabled by him. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had stated in a press conference the government's policy towards the communists would depend on how they respond during and after
1089-551: A narrow margin of three votes. The moderate–left divide persisted with the moderates, mostly affluent lawyers with durra backing, refusing to budge and eventually reaching a crisis point over their position with respect to the communists following the Nizam government's military crackdown on the peasants in late 1946. In November 1946, the two factions sent separate fact finding teams to Suryapet, led by Tirtha and J. Keshav Rao respectively. Tirtha's group searched for police atrocities while Rao's group searched for reasons to condemn
1210-528: A new leadership, organised themselves through the Committee of Action , which set up camps outside the state and started conducting armed raids into Hyderabad. The camps were allowed by the Home Ministry of India, now under Vallabhbhai Patel and reluctantly approved of by Mahatma Gandhi . The moderates were completely opposed to the armed raids and excluded from the committee. In the following year,
1331-602: A number of radical progressive student organisations were established which eventually merged to form the All Hyderabad Students Union in January 1942. Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao , a former student agitator during the Vandemataram protests, was instrumental in building up the Communist Party in the districts of Warangal and Nalgonda. The nationalist, progressive and secular intelligentsia in
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#17327655144571452-426: A spontaneous movement where groups of villagers would go from one village to another, people would drop out and return to their village after coming some distance, while others from the villages they passed through would take their place and keep the movement going. In each village, they formed drawn out congregations upon their arrival to discuss prevalent local issues and relations with the durra of their area. By
1573-517: A subsequent fight with 30 Wu-lao-wan two Dutch people died, but after an embargo of salt and iron the Wu-lao-wan were forced to sue for peace in February 1653. Over the following days, the remnants of Guo's army were either slaughtered by aboriginal warriors or melted back into the villages they came from, with Guo Huaiyi himself being shot, then decapitated, with his head displayed on a spike as
1694-415: A warning. In total some 4,000 Chinese persons were killed during the five-day uprising, approximately 1 in 10 Chinese persons living in Taiwan at that time. The Dutch responded by reinforcing Fort Provintia (building brick walls instead of the previous bamboo fence) and by monitoring Chinese settlers more closely. However, they did not address the roots of the concerns which had caused the Chinese to rebel in
1815-477: The durras and opposed to any form of alliance with them while the "leftist congressmen" wanted an unification with the Communist Party but were too irresolute and timid to carry it forward. The communists started disassociating with the satyagraha as a consequence of incorporation of Gandhian ethics in the agitations, one key point of discontent became the symbolic cutting down of toddy trees as Gandhian ethics prohibited toddy drinking . The symbolism lay in
1936-549: The durras had complete power over the peasants and could subject them to agricultural slavery. Conditions worsened during the 1930s due to the Great Depression and a transition towards commercial crops . In the 1940s, the peasants started turning towards communism, organised themselves through the Andhra Mahasabha and began a rights movement, catalyzed by a food crisis that affected the region following
2057-416: The sangham earlier known as chitti sangham due to their distribution of chittis (letters), common after the enrolment fee for AMS was reduced, started being known as the lathi sangham for their distribution of lathis (bamboo sticks) in this period. By the end of 1946, the police had reported 156 cases of assault by peasants and four major police–peasant battles had occurred, but neither
2178-816: The Andhra Mahasabha (Madras), the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and the Indian Peasant Institute. The first incursion of the communist movement in Telangana occurred in the Madhira – Khammam area of Warangal district, through peasants who had settled down at the Wyra and Paleru irrigation projects, and had relatives in Coastal Andhra . The first communist organisations were established in Warangal and Nalgonda districts through
2299-539: The Andhra Mahasabha , which was a cultural-literary forum acting as a front organisation for the Hyderabad State Congress , was overtaken by communists. It recruited students from colleges but was controlled by a conservative liberal and moderate leadership over whom the Hindu durra aristocracy had a strong influence and who advocated restraint, opposing activities against the "law and order" of
2420-597: The Arya Samaj and the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha attempting to do the same with Hindus in reaction to it. The situation created widespread fear and uncertainty, leading to political instability and a sudden deterioration of law and order across the state. The Nizam, who had isolated himself from the common population and their politics for years, perceived himself to be surrounded by a hostile Hindu population and started to rely increasingly on
2541-485: The British Raj , and officials were instead reprimanded for mentioning slaves in documentation. Telangana had a higher concentration of land in the hands of a small group of landed magnates than the other regions. They owned vast tracts of lands covering several villages and thousands of acres. The land concentration was most pronounced in the districts of Nalgonda , Mahabubnagar and Warangal . They later became
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#17327655144572662-680: The CPI on 25 October 1951. Situated on the Deccan Plateau in southern India, Hyderabad was a princely state of the British Raj , the second largest and most populous among them. The state had a patrimonial system with the Nizam of Hyderabad as the ruler and the British maintaining complete authority over it. Multiethnic in composition, its 17 districts were divided across three linguistic regions: The princely state of Hyderabad retained
2783-506: The Dominion of India and Hyderabad State made it more difficult for the government as they had to deploy more troops at the frontiers. One critical advantage the government forces had was in terms of transportation. They could use trucks, jeeps and railways to move troops quickly through the few hard bed roads and railway lines that existed in the region while the rebels were largely restricted to foot. Even captured vehicular transportation
2904-557: The Indian National Congress (INC) which had started pressuring the Nizam to accede. In March 1947, the working committee of the State Congress was restored and Swami Ramananda Tirtha was reelected with a wide margin of 751 to 498 votes against B.G. Rao, enabling him to completely exclude the moderates. He praised the communists for their revolt and suggested the incorporation of a more revolutionary policy for
3025-623: The Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan and later Kasim Razvi . The Hyderabad State Forces and the police , combined with the Razakar militia, were unable to suppress it and were routed , while the rebel forces went on a successful guerrilla offensive. The rebels established a parallel system of government composed of gram rajyams (village communes ) that caused a social revolution where caste and gender distinctions were reduced; women's workforce participation including in
3146-931: The Telangana Rebellion were also influenced by agrarian socialist ideologies such as Maoism . The majority of peasant rebellions ended prematurely and were unsuccessful. Peasants suffered from limited funding and lacked the training and organisational capabilities of professional armies. The list gives the name, the date, the peasant allies and enemies, and the result of these conflicts following this legend: Orthodox moldavian peasants Hutsul peasants Kingdom of Croatia Kalnyk Cossack regiment under Vasyl Varenytsia and Ivan Sulymka Zaporozhian Cossacks under Ivan Sirko Zhovnynsk Cossacks Orthodox ruthenian peasants Ukrainian peasants Polish peasants Jewish peasants Ukrainian peasants Ukrainian peasants Ukrainian directorate supporters Green Armies Left Socialist-Revolutionaries Restoration of
3267-782: The Ukrainian People's Republic Preliminary peace agreement between Ukraine and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Ukrainian bolsheviks Telangana Rebellion 1946–1948: [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Hyderabad State Supported by: [REDACTED] United Kingdom (1946–1947) 1948–1950: [REDACTED] Dominion of India 1950–1951: [REDACTED] Republic of India [REDACTED] Hyderabad State Forces [REDACTED] Indian Army The Telangana Rebellion , natively known as Telangana Sayudha Poratam ,
3388-425: The deshmukhs was augmented with additional hereditary positions such as patel , patwari and mali patel which granted them various political, judicial and administrative functions. They could determine taxation rates and managed land surveying ; peasants had to offer nazaranas in the form of cattle, crops and money to prevent prejudiced treatment. The jagirdars were predominantly Brahmin , supplanted by
3509-478: The jagir lands which allowed the jagirdars to impose various forms of exorbitant arbitrary taxes on the ryots (peasants) and extract revenue through private agents. The diwani tenures resembled the ryotwari system introduced by the British in other parts of the country. It had hereditary revenue collectors; deshmukhs and deshpandes who were granted land annuities called vatans , based on past revenue collections. The diwani lands legally held by
3630-517: The razakar bands. The reprisals made the communes strengthen their organisation and co-ordination. The Andhra and Telangana communists set up joint revolutionary headquarters at the Mungala Estate, constituting an enclave of Hyderabad State within Krishna district of Madras State. By early 1948, much of Telangana was beginning to rebel in an all-out revolution as more of the rural poor and
3751-515: The razakars had come to supersede them when the Ittehad assumed power and started operating independently of the state forces. They plundered villages, killed and arrested people on suspicion of being potential agitators and employed rape and torture to quell villages into submission. The communists, who had previously relied largely on defensive measures and unarmed resistance, began to openly endorse offensive warfare . The national leadership of
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3872-719: The transfer of power to the Indian leadership and gave the princely states the option of either joining India or Pakistan or becoming independent. The Nizam of Hyderabad, the Muslim aristocrats and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) wanted Hyderabad to become an independent state but the vast majority of people wanted the state to merge with India in hopes of political freedoms and participation in self-government. The Communist Party of India added merger with India into its list of demands and aligned itself with
3993-610: The "barren constitutionalism" of "feudal elements" in the State Congress. Wilfrid Vernon Grigson , Revenue and Police Minister for the Viceroy's Executive Council , conducted his own investigation in December and reported that the peasants had legitimate grievances and that it was not communist propaganda as previously assumed. The report stated that raiding villages and arresting communists would not succeed in stopping attacks on government officials without an administrative overhaul in
4114-484: The 1944–46 agitations had laid down demands for better wages, disallowance of vetti and baghela forced labour, evictions, exorbitant taxation and refusal of a new mandatory post–war grain levy. One major incident on 4 July 1946 marked the beginning of the rebellion; a procession of over 1,000 peasants was fired at by the men of Vishnur Deshmukh in Kadavendi village of Warangal district, Doddi Komarayya who
4235-926: The Andhra Conference had gravitated to the Communist Party, those in Maharashtra Parishad in the Marathawada region of Hyderabad State had aligned themselves with the Congress Socialist Caucus , influenced by their presence in Bombay Presidency . In late 1945, the Indian National Congress (INC) had adopted the policy of expelling all communists from its organisations. It convened the All India States Peoples' Conference (AISPC) containing delegates of regional organisations which boycotted
4356-574: The Communist Party during the same period. Initially faced with opposition from the moderate leadership, landlords organisations such as the Agriculturalists Association and through heavy political repression from the government, the AMS was slowly transformed into a militant mass organisation opposed to the Nizamate with a coalition of peasants, the working class , the middle class and youths as its members. The process
4477-546: The Communist Party of India, and immediately launched a military offensive against the peasant communes. The deshmukhs and officials returned as the redistributed lands were to be confiscated and granted back to their original owners. The military administration did not induct any local police personnel or civil servants, including those affiliated with the Hyderabad State Congress, who were sidelined. Vallabhbhai Patel distrusted them and justified it with
4598-527: The Communist Party officially approved armed rebellion in September 1947. Volunteer brigades called dalams were organised by the communes. They were joined en masse by villagers frustrated with police, military and razakar atrocities, particularly in the districts of Nalgonda, Warangal and Kammam which were communist strongholds. The Communist Party was better organised in the neighbouring Andhra region of Madras State (previously Madras Presidency ) and
4719-479: The Congress socialists would split from the party under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan to form the Socialist Party of India , taking with them much of the leftists of the Hyderabad State Congress. The crisis of authority in Hyderabad had enabled the influence of the rebels in the countryside to expand rapidly. They set up a parallel administration composed of gram rajyams (village communes) in
4840-433: The Dutch by the name Gouqua Faijit , or Gouqua Faet . He initially planned to start the insurrection on 17 September 1652, but after said plan was leaked to the Dutch authorities, he decided to waste no time in attacking Fort Provintia , which at the time was only surrounded by a bamboo wall. On the night of 7 September, the rebels, mostly peasants-farmers armed with bamboo spears, stormed the fort. The following morning
4961-494: The Ittehad called the Razakars . They were deputed alongside the police and grew to 150,000 men, double the police force itself, contributing significantly to public disorder and a complete collapse of civil authority as they embarked on a campaign of political repression . Hindu–Muslim tensions and communal violence in Hyderabad reached its highest point upon the partition of India . The razakars grew to 200,000 men by
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5082-467: The Ittehad for support. The leadership of the Ittehad had by then passed to Kasim Razvi , a small-time lawyer from northern India who had supported the Pakistan movement and wanted Hyderabad to become a refuge for Muslims in the south. Gradually the Ittehad under Razvi was able to wrestle control over the Nizam government and was managing its day-to-day functioning. Razvi formed a paramilitary wing for
5203-429: The State Congress. The Congress went on satyagraha seeking the merger of Hyderabad with India and the State Congress under Tirtha launched a civil disobedience campaign. The communists joined up with Congress workers in their agitation although they held reservations over the effectiveness of Gandhian methods. Due to the organisational weakness of the Congress, most of the Congress agitation in Telangana especially in
5324-550: The Telangana countryside came under their control, covering the entirety of the Nalgonda, Warangal, Khammam , and Karimnagar districts , more than half of Medak and Adilabad districts and a significant portion of the remaining three districts of Telangana namely, Mahabubnagar , Hyderabad , and Nizamabad . In Adilabad, Medak and Karimnagar, the Tirtha Group of the Congress had established some bases that defected towards
5445-536: The actions of the military, the police nor the private armies were able to dislodge the communists. Most of the confrontations occurred in the Suryapet and Jangaon taluqas of Nalgonda district; pockets in Khammam, Karimnagar, Nalgonda and Warangal districts had fallen under rebel control, while 4,000 army troops were deployed in Nalgonda district. The military, equipped with modern firearms, made it much harder for
5566-530: The administration, including the Nizam's firmans ( decrees ), was unable to function in large areas. The expansion of the movement in these areas was facilitated by the presence of estates with thousands of acres. The first militant action occurred with a few instances of land seizures from the estates of durras in response to eviction of Lambadi tenant cultivators for non-compliance with additional taxation and demands of vetti (forced labour). The village level communist sangham s (organisations) during
5687-423: The areas that came under their control. This parallel administration provided more stability and became a refuge from the violence in the rest of the state. Roving bands of razakars active across Hyderabad to quell agitations were instructed by the government to protect the durras and suppress the communists in Telangana after the withdrawal of the British. Initially attached to police and military forces ,
5808-664: The armed rebellion and attempt to employ legal pathways to stop the repression to continue their movement, while others antagonised by the actions of the administration wanted to continue an armed guerrilla struggle against the military. Some, including the new General Secretary Bhalchandra Trimbak Ranadive , even advocated for escalating the rebellion into a national revolution. Both sides exchanged accusations, denouncing each other as "right wing reformists" and "left wing adventurists". The government used this to its advantage, as they were occasionally able to coerce former participants into becoming informants. The urban population, unaware of
5929-500: The armed squads increased and the conditions of the peasants significantly improved with land redistribution . At its peak in 1948, the rebellion covered nearly all of Telangana and had at least 4,000 villages directly administered by communes. It was led by the Communist Party of India (CPI) and supported by the left-wing faction of the Hyderabad State Congress , many of whom later joined the Socialist Party of India when it
6050-421: The assault. Many of them were handed over to the army after their objectives were accomplished, as the peasants returned to their villages with the belief that the armed conflict was over. The commanding officer selected for the invasion was Major General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri , who was also a zamindar aristocrat from West Bengal . He set up a military administration after the Nizam's capitulation, banned
6171-405: The ban on the Communist Party of India and cease criticising the communists for a sectarian approach towards the Congress. The moderates were dissatisfied with it, filibustered it, and did not allow it to pass. The State Congress stopped functioning because of the consequent resignation from the left and mediation with the national leadership until March 1947. The left issued a statement denouncing
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#17327655144576292-475: The city of Hyderabad turned towards political radicalism as well, through the influential Naya Adab (New Salute) which promoted communism in literature, and through the Comrades Association initially formed in reaction to the growth of communal sectarian organisations. The association became communist under the leadership of Raj Bahadur Gour and Makhdoom Mohiuddin . In the meantime,
6413-430: The claim that they had a partisan character. They deployed officials and personnel from outside the state, as it was feared that locals might be apprehensive of conducting violence against their own and might even be covert communist sympathisers. Chaudhuri also issued a warning to the police personnel from outside the state about falling under communist influence. The administration orchestrated an anti–communist hunt in
6534-523: The communist rebels without paying "protection taxes" themselves. The Andhra Conference was banned in October 1946 and the police had begun arresting communists and sympathisers throughout the state. Hundreds of Communist Party activists were arrested, and the number of police units assigned to the rebellious regions was increased exponentially. The frequency of raids increased through 1946, but during their attempts at arresting communist activists known to
6655-408: The communists to strengthen their position. Menon wanted the rebel administration to be dealt with through military courts rather than by civil authorities. The Indian Army marched into Hyderabad State on 13 September and the already demoralised Hyderabad State Force, the police and the razakars surrendered within a week after minimal resistance. This military intervention was perceived by
6776-423: The communists would be eradicated in return for their support in justifying the military action to the international community . The Home Ministry under Vallabhbhai Patel favoured military intervention as it would enable them to deploy military personnel in Telangana. They had initially stalled the intervention for over a year, despite ongoing razakar atrocities because it was feared that an invasion would allow
6897-521: The communists. Around 16,000 square miles (41,000 km ), covering 4,000 villages, were being directly administered by communes. The rebel forces had reached a peak with 10,000 troops in garrisons and 2,000 in guerrilla forces. There were an additional three to four million active workers and non-combatant supporters of the rebel forces. In August 1948, the number of razakars stood at 100,000 men even as it recruited 30,000 more in January, down from 200,000 in September 1947. They were increasingly sent by
7018-426: The communists. Tirtha praised the actions of the communists. The leftist faction wanted to not only admonish the government for repression but also convert the party into a more militant mass movement. They were prevented from doing so by the moderates, who were adamantly opposed to any further move to the left. The working committee drafted three resolutions demanding the government end their repression in Nalgonda, lift
7139-428: The development in October 1943 and began directly intervening in state action with regard to the communists from thereon. Between 1944 and 1946, the communist movement became widespread in the Telangana countryside. The Andhra Mahasabha controlled by communists substantially increased its membership in the districts of Nalgonda, Warangal and Karimnagar. The movement formed a class alliance between disparate caste groups,
7260-462: The efforts of Chandra Rajeswara Rao , a peasant working in Mungala. The Regional Committee of the CPI in Telangana was established under the leadership of Pervaelli Venkataramanaiah in 1941. The students' movement contributed significantly to the growth of the communist movement, disillusioned with Gandhian satyagraha politics. Having gained experience through the Vandemataram protests,
7381-629: The emergence of Velama and Reddy deshmukhs . Markets and major businesses were controlled by Marwadi and Komati durras . In contrast, the bulk of the peasantry came from disparate caste backgrounds and even included Brahmins, Reddys and Komatis. The tribals such as Chenchus , Koyas , Lambadis , Konda Reddis , and untouchables like the Malas and Madigas were among the most impoverished and particularly vulnerable to severe forms of exploitation by durras , including agricultural slavery. Anti–slavery legislations were largely unenforced in
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#17327655144577502-456: The end of August with the recruitment of Muslim refugees from India who had arrived in Hyderabad on the invitation of the Ittehad. The Congress agitations also peaked with a complete shutdown of the state accompanied by flag hoisting, meetings, processions and protests on 7 and 15 August. Tirtha was arrested in mid-August and violent repression of agitators continued to increase over the following period. The Congress leftists of Hyderabad under
7623-399: The end of July, around 300–400 villages in the districts of Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam experienced militant action by peasants against the local estates and officials. In August 1946, the press wing of the Communist Party of India announced that the villages were under the control of the peasants and launched a national campaign to rally support for the rebellion, publicising the demands of
7744-514: The end of the Second World War , the movement escalated into a rebellion after the administration and the durras attempted to suppress it. The revolt began on 4 July 1946, when a local peasant leader was killed in the village of Kadavendi, Warangal district , by the agents of a durra . Beginning in the districts of Nalgonda and Warangal, the rebellion evolved into a revolution across Telangana in response to continued repression by
7865-576: The epicenter of the insurrection. The peasants were largely dependent on affluent urban interests, mostly composed of Marwadis, Komtis, Brahmins and upper caste Muslims , who controlled the centralised markets in Telangana. Land alienation continued to increase between 1910 and 1940 as more land was passed either to urban interests and aristocratic durra feudal lords or to Marwari and Maratha sahukars (money-lenders). Peasants with small landholding were pushed into landless agricultural labour or tenancy at will. Irrigation facilities were introduced from
7986-414: The epicenter of the rebellion, the communists toured across the district, releasing and redistributing grains hoarded in markets and storages, burning down checkpoints on the border and the records of officials and sahukars in the villages, while raising Indian flags in those locations. Meanwhile, the Ittehad was spreading sectarian propaganda and attempting to promote fanaticism among Muslims, along with
8107-406: The events in the countryside, had supported the intervention and were convinced by the government and with the help of various statements made by revolutionaries against the Congress, that they were indulging in an unnecessary peasants' partisan warfare after the annexation. On the other hand, the division weakened the communists. Many of the peasants had abandoned the rebellion, especially those from
8228-525: The first place. However, the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes who were previously allied with the Dutch against the Chinese during the Guo Huaiyi rebellion in 1652 turned against the Dutch during the later siege of Fort Zeelandia and defected to Koxinga 's Chinese forces after he offered them amnesty; they proceeded to work for the Chinese and behead Dutch people in executions. The frontier aborigines in
8349-639: The former durra estates restored in their respective areas. The guerrillas had to retreat into the dense forests of the Godavari Basin and to the forests across the Krishna River in the Nallamala Range , with the support of the Koya and Lambadi tribals respectively. The landless and impoverished peasants, which included most of the tribals and untouchables, formed the backbone of
8470-432: The government and the estates of the durras . Organised mobs were assigned to lower risk targets such as the forest department and offices of village officials, and would burn down their records, take away their lathis and grain stocks. In December, the armed assaults became excessively frequent, the police recorded 45 attacks on major targets within the span of 11 days in Warangal and Nalgonda districts. In response,
8591-415: The government authorised the police, the military and the razakars to indiscriminately target entire villages for harbouring sympathies for the sangham (communists) or the Congress. The attacks involved reprisals in which the entire population of some villages was massacred. There was widespread use of torture against villagers and rape against women as a terror tactic. The extreme measures employed by
8712-480: The government to engage with the communists as the rebellion expanded across Telangana, but they proved to be ineffective against them. In turn, the razakars became the victims of torture as retribution for their past atrocities, which continued until the communes and sangham s prohibited and eventually banned such activities, declaring them to be primitive. In September 1948, the Dominion of India launched
8833-471: The government were divided into small sections called pattas registered to occupants who were responsible for the payment of land revenue. The registered occupants included peasants who cultivated their own land or occupants who either employed agricultural labourers or rented out the land to tenants. The tenants, called shikmidars , had tenancy rights and could not be evicted on condition that they fulfill land revenue obligations. More than three-fourths of
8954-408: The grievances of the peasants were genuine such that "no organisation worthy of its name could put up with" and admitted the communists had simply outflanked them through their mass mobilisation. The activities of the Congress in the state were being marginalised as the conflict between the Nizam's government and the communists engulfed Telangana. In February 1947, the British administration announced
9075-574: The guerrillas. The States Department sent Captain Nanjappa to act as the Special Commissioner of Police (Spl.CP) for the operation. Nanjappa ordered indiscriminate arrests, burning down of entire villages where land redistribution had occurred and extrajudicial executions of suspects after capture. Around 2,000 peasants, armed and unarmed, were killed and 25,000 arrested by the end of August 1949. The communes were dis-established and
9196-554: The implementation of existent laws which were unenforced. The demands also included the Andhra communists' call for the breakup of Hyderabad State and the formation of Visalandhra , an unified Telugu speaking state composed of Telangana and the Andhra region of the Madras Presidency, in line with the Communist Party of India's demand for the linguistic reorganisation of states. The presence of large organised groups within
9317-461: The intervention. The comment was misleading as the government was making preparations to liquidate the peasant communes and restore the durra aristocrats regardless of their response. Internally, the communists were described as the primary target rather than the Nizam and the razakars . Secretary V. P. Menon had briefed the American embassy about the intervention and promised them that
9438-469: The killing, a police convoy escorting arrested communist activists was ambushed successfully; four police personnel were killed, and the prisoners released. Following the ambush, the police and military forces began attempting to arrest entire villages and by December, the Suryapet prison alone was holding 600 prisoners. The military crackdown increased in December, resulting in even-heightened militancy;
9559-455: The landlord–tenant relations in the region to any significant degree. The landholding peasants too were severely affected after the depression. Post-independence and Cold War Contemporary history Communists had been active in the Telugu speaking Godavari–Krishna delta region of the neighbouring Madras Presidency since 1934 and largely organised through peasants organisations such as
9680-468: The late 19th century and a greater portion of the land transfer occurred on lands with these facilities. The system of subsistence farming gave way to commercial crops , strengthening the hold of traders and sahukars over the peasants, which was particularly worsened during the Great Depression . The period saw the rise of a section of well-to-do pattadars (landholding peasants) who began employing landless labourers of their own, though it did not change
9801-403: The locals continued to be able to operate and remain supplied. The military force, with its high morale and modern equipment, had forced the Nizam and the razakar to surrender within weeks. Despite this, they were unable to suppress the poorly armed peasants for three years. Nehru was concerned with the continued military rule in the state imposed by Patel; civil authorities were introduced in
9922-408: The loss of credibility as a democratic government and with the understanding that further repression would only popularise the communists, the Congress administration started making reconciliatory gestures towards the Communist Party from early 1951. There was increasing distrust of the Congress in the state as information from the Telangana countryside was spreading. The leftist congressmen involved in
10043-484: The mass uprising to occur. The rebels suffered from a persistent shortage of modern firearms and had to constantly rely on raids to gain more. As a consequence they were severely outnumbered as the communes refused to deploy more recruits as they were unable to arm them. Despite the shortages, the rebel forces were highly motivated, being entirely composed of volunteers, increasingly ideological and antagonised by years of repression. The rebels were also better adjusted to
10164-463: The middle and richer peasantry, some of whom were dissatisfied with the latest land ceiling and who used to provide important contacts and financial support. Despite the desertions, most of the peasants remained sympathetic towards the guerrillas who had decided to keep fighting, and refused to cooperate with the police. In December 1948, the administration began a large-scale counterinsurgency campaign designed to frighten villagers into not assisting
10285-480: The middle peasantry with small landholdings and the rural poor and landless labourers. Numerous villages were enmeshed with communist organisations. Agrarian radicalism was heightened and a mass movement developed with a series of agrarian agitations against the durra aristocrats beginning in 1944. The agitations were non-violent and employed tactics such as non-cooperation , withdrawal of services and refusal to pay technically illegal taxes , usually demanding
10406-453: The mountains and plains also surrendered and defected to the Chinese on 17 May 1661, celebrating their freedom from compulsory education under Dutch rule by hunting down and beheading Dutch people and destroying their Christian school textbooks. Peasant revolt The history of peasant wars spans over two thousand years. A variety of factors fueled the emergence of the peasant revolt phenomenon, including: Later peasant revolts such as
10527-610: The non-communist Andhra Conference, the Maharashtra Parishad and the Karnatak Parishad were merged, and a provincial working committee was formed; 164 delegates from the three organisations voted in an election for the president of the committee. The socialist candidate Swami Ramananda Tirtha from the Marathawada delegation won against the moderate Burgula Ramakrishna Rao from the Andhra delegation by
10648-462: The organisation in the villages from 1941 onwards. They reduced the enrolment fee by one-fourth, encouraged participation by the landless and impoverished sections of the population. They took up peasants' causes such as the abolition of vetti , prevention of rack-renting and eviction of tenants, occupancy ( patta ) rights of cultivating tenants and reduction in taxes, revenue demands and rents, among others. The Andhra Conference, previously seen as
10769-547: The peasant communes as a positive development and not as an attack on them. The villagers believed the Indian Army was helping them defeat the Nizam's government. They launched a final parallel assault against the remaining military camps of the State Forces, outposts of state agents and garrisons in durra estates, accompanied by victory celebrations. The rebels came across large stores of arms and ammunition during
10890-422: The peasantry and highlighting the feudal exploitation and brutality. Peasants continuously resisted extortive action from officials and other agents, and refused to perform vetti forced labour. Small landholders refused to hand over paddy crops for the required levy, and landless labourers and tenants continued to occupy lands from which they had been evicted. The durras sent their private armies to prevent
11011-475: The peasantry organised themselves under the communists and took up arms against the durras and the Hyderabad State. This triggered a large-scale displacement of durras who fled to the cities, abandoning their private armies and properties. The communist influence was chipping away at the entire social hierarchy with a quasi divine Nizam at the top since the early 1940s, and had eventually enabled
11132-402: The peasants uprising was spasmodic in their actions and lacked any systemically planned offensives in the initial period. It had begun as a spontaneous upsurge where the organised Andhra Mahasabha and Communist Party of India acted primarily in an auxiliary capacity. The Hyderabad State Congress was divided into two factions of moderates and leftists since 1938–39. While the left-wing members of
11253-452: The peasants. The system turned them into a hybrid of a feudal lord and a bureaucrat who frequently acquired more lands from the peasants and forced them into the status of tenants at will and landless labourers. The individual deshmukhs and deshpandes had multiple villages under their domains and seridars (appointed personal officials) to manage each village. The jagirs and diwani tenures constituted around 30% and 60% respectively of
11374-490: The police, crowds of hundreds would gather to obstruct them. The administration started assigning units of the Hyderabad State Forces to assist the police. Some of the villages formed ad hoc volunteer forces for defense. On 16 and 17 November, military personnel killed three villagers and wounded eight others in two raids on the villages of Patha Suryapet and Devarupal. On 27 November, in retaliation for
11495-520: The predominantly communist Andhra Conference and instead invited the marginal splinter organisation formed by the moderates. The socialists had protested against the policy, leading to further friction with the moderates in Hyderabad. At the onset of the rebellion, and in light of post–war negotiations between the Congress and the British administration, the Nizam of Hyderabad legalised the Hyderabad State Congress in July 1946. The three front organisations —
11616-418: The princely state, which according to him the Nizam's officials were incapable of conducting. The AISPC passed a resolution on 27 December condemning the activities of both the government and the communists, based on a report from their president, Dwarkanath Kachru , who had arrived in Hyderabad to conduct his own investigation. In a private letter, Kachru wrote to Tirtha that despite their official stance,
11737-571: The rebellion. The guerrillas adopted even more clandestine tactics; the size of individual squads was reduced to five from ten. They started leading civilian lives among the rural population without readily available arms, depended on intermediaries for communication and occasionally organised to conduct operations. The government adopted the strategy of the Briggs Plan in response; tribal communities were evacuated en masse and placed in large detention camps but guerrillas with widespread support from
11858-438: The rebels conducted a major operation with twenty simultaneous coordinated attacks on infrastructure targets including important telecommunication facilities, bridges and sections of railway tracks which paralysed the transportation and communication capabilities of the government forces from thereon. The rebels went on a successful campaign of territorial expansion and effectively routed the government forces by mid-1948. Much of
11979-422: The rebels to operate and the movement became more clandestine in the presence of military camps near their villages; the Andhra communists in the Madras Presidency initiated dialogue with the rebels in preparation for open warfare with the Hyderabad State. Meanwhile, the military camps were withdrawn in January 1947 after a period of absence of any visible disturbances. Despite some instances of armed confrontations,
12100-417: The rural areas was carried out instead by communists, the police were unable to differentiate between the two and assumed that they had entered into a league. In the urban areas, communists and Congress members held joint meetings and demonstrations which provided material benefits to the rebels in the countryside. The general understanding among the communists was that the "rightist congressmen" were backed by
12221-405: The seizure of their lands, but they were few in number and too poorly armed to contain mass unrest. Unable to control the villages, the durras started fleeing to safer regions, resorted to litigation, and relied on the state police and their private armies to suppress the rebellious peasants. The villages adopted a strategy of active defense in response to violent attacks by private armies and
12342-640: The state after 16 months of military administration. Land reform measures such as the enactment of the Jagirdari Abolition Regulations and setting up of the Agrarian Enquiry Committee were introduced to contain the popularity of the communists. This somewhat reduced the power of the durras in the process. In 1950, the Constitution of India came into force and the dominion became a republic . Fearing
12463-478: The state forces pushed otherwise skeptical people in the peripheral areas of the rebel dominated territories to be drawn towards the communists and the rebellion. In some cases, the razakars who the government was unable to control attacked the estates of the durras themselves and plundered them. Consequently, some of the durras entered into agreements with the communes to supply them with resources and abide by their governance in exchange for protection from
12584-542: The state police. Village level organisations developed a signals network to inform other villages of the position of approaching state security forces and villagers adopted the tactic of gathering en masse armed with slingshots, stones and sticks to ward off reconnaissance units and smaller raiding parties. The rebels had neither the firearms nor the training to use them. The durras , their agents and local officials became fearful of visiting their own estates or jurisdictions which were known to be established strongholds of
12705-460: The state, attempting to arrest any and all communists. There was widespread use of torture against those suspected of harbouring information and the military personnel occasionally conducted indiscriminate arrests and mass shootings against villagers in Telangana. Meanwhile, the Nizam was not prosecuted and instead was made the Rajpramukh of Hyderabad State for a period of time. Kasim Razvi
12826-457: The state. Following the withdrawal of a satyagraha movement for constitutional reforms in 1938–39 as a result of instructions of the federal leadership, the Congress was largely discredited for its younger left-wing members. Convinced that the expulsion of the Nizam along with all the elites was a necessity for effective democratic gains, the left-wing faction decided to fight the feudal system, began embracing communism and started building up
12947-557: The superior weaponry of the Europeans. Multiple aboriginal villages in frontier areas rebelled against the Dutch in the 1650s because of oppression, such as when the Dutch ordered aboriginal women for sex, deer pelts, and rice be given to them from aborigines in the Taipei basin in Wu-lao-wan village, which sparked a rebellion in December 1652 at the same time as the Chinese rebellion. The Wu-lao-wan beheaded two Dutch translators, and in
13068-406: The tenants were tenants at will or asami shikmidars who retained land revenue obligations but did not have tenancy rights. They could become shikmidars after a period of twelve years, though in practice they were evicted within three to four years. The responsibility for registration lay with the deshmukhs and deshpandes . They had access to land records and there was a lack of literacy among
13189-577: The terrain and shaped their organisation along the lines of geography and the strategic considerations of guerrilla warfare as they built it from the ground up. This made them much more effective in terms of tactics and logistics. The rebel forces were organised into two categories — garrisons consisting of village dalams (brigades) who would continue their civilian lives while maintaining hidden arms, and mobile guerrilla dalams who would become full-time operatives and engage in offensives across large distances. The revolutionary headquarters in Mungala became
13310-478: The territory of Hyderabad State. The feudal system was particularly harsh in the Telangana region of the state. The powerful deshmukh and jagirdar aristocracy, locally called durras , additionally functioned as money lenders and as the highest village official. The durras employed variants of the jajmani system called vetti and baghela which forced families of peasants into corvee labour by means of customary and debt obligations. The power of
13431-484: The toddy plantations also being a major source of revenue for the state but toddy trappers who were subjected to untouchability , were a significant section of the communist activists and base of support, and relied on toddy for their livelihoods. Some degree of co-ordination continued to occur especially due to increase in police repression and the agitations becoming interspersed with instances of violent confrontations. One major incident occurred in Warangal district where
13552-441: The villages intimidated the durras and the administration. The private militias of the feudal lords and the police were sent to conduct violent attacks on the agitators with greater frequency as the movement went on. Hyderabad State passed a legislation for minimum tenurial security in 1945, which only worsened conditions as landlords resorted to frequent mass evictions to prevent accrual of tenancy rights. The agrarian distress
13673-410: Was a communist -led insurrection of peasants against the princely state of Hyderabad in the region of Telangana , Dominion of India , that escalated out of agitations in 1944–46. Hyderabad was a feudal monarchy where most of the land was concentrated in the hands of landed aristocrats known as durras in Telangana. Feudal exploitation in the region was more severe compared to others of India;
13794-437: Was arrested, tried and jailed but soon released and forced to migrate to Pakistan. The military administration actively promoted feudal restoration in Telangana. The offensive sent the peasant communes and the Communist Party of India into disarray, causing divisions within them. Some of them, including Ravi Narayan Reddy and the former General Secretary Puran Chand Joshi , among other veteran party leaders wanted to abandon
13915-455: Was based on meat prices before the depreciation. The head tax (which only applied to the Chinese and not the aborigines) was also deeply unpopular, and thirdly, petty corruption amongst Dutch soldiers further angered the Chinese residents. The revolt was led by Guo Huaiyi ( Chinese : 郭懷一 ; pinyin : Guō Huáiyī ; Wade–Giles : Kuo Huai-i ; 1603–1652), a sugarcane farmer and militia leader originally from Quanzhou known to
14036-502: Was completed in the 1944 Bhongir session of the AMS when two young communists, Ravi Narayan Reddy and Baddam Yella Reddy were elected as the president and secretary. The moderates expecting a rout, had resigned from their offices, boycotted the election and later formed a marginal splinter organisation, giving the communists free rein over the primary AMS. Arthur Lothian , the British Resident at Hyderabad took note of
14157-503: Was formed by the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). The rebellion ended when the military administration set up by Jawaharlal Nehru 's government unexpectedly launched an attack on the communes immediately following the annexation of Hyderabad to fulfil assurances given by V. P. Menon to the American embassy that the communists would be eradicated, leading to an eventual call for the rebels to lay down arms issued by
14278-447: Was further aggravated by rising prices and food scarcity after the Second World War . The post–war economic distress and political developments played a catalytic role in a feudal system already conducive for an uprising. The village level agitations against the aristocratic durra feudal lords escalated into an insurrection. The influence of the communists in Nalgonda and Warangal districts had become so strong by early 1946 that
14399-471: Was not useful to the rebels, as they could not operate them clandestinely, nor did they possess heavy armament like artillery to engage in conventional warfare . To mitigate this advantage, the rebels dug trenches around the villages and roads were either blocked, breached or had planks with nails placed on them. The military would often respond by forcing a group of villagers to refill the trenches, shooting some of them while they worked on it. On 26–27 February,
14520-508: Was sending arms, supplies and volunteers into Telangana. This considerably bolstered the organisational, tactical and logistical capabilities of the rebels, transforming the peasants uprising into an organised rebellion. Arms were acquired through black market purchases at increased prices in Telangana and from the estate agents and local government officials by theft and force. The rebels who were equipped with firearms went on guerilla warfare targeting infrastructure, supplies and garrisons of
14641-410: Was the leader of the local sangham was killed and a number of others severely wounded. The group proceeded to and set fire to the residence of the deshmukh before they were dispersed by the arrival of a contingent of armed police. In the following days, 200 acres of land in a neighbouring village were seized from the deshmukh 's estate and redistributed by the peasants. The incident sparked
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