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Alluri Sitarama Raju

Leader of the Rampa or Agency rebellion of 1922–1924 in the hill tracts of the Godavari and Vizagapatam districts. He raided police stations for arms, held out against special police and the Assam Rifles for nearly two years, and was captured and shot dead in May 1924. Government and nationalist accounts differ over his aims and the manner of his death.

A small single-storeyed house with a red tiled roof and red walls, with a scooter parked in front and coconut palms behind.
A small single-storeyed house with a red tiled roof and red walls, with a scooter parked in front and coconut palms behind. · Adityamadhav83 (opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (opens in a new tab)

Alluri Sitarama Raju led an armed rising in the hill tracts from 1922, beginning with a raid on the police station at Chintapalli.1 He was captured and shot dead in May 1924.23 Gandhi later praised him as “so brave, so sacrificing, so simple and so noble in character”.4

Early life

According to the official history of the Andhra Pradesh police, Alluri Sitarama Raju was born on 4 July 1897 at Pandrangi in Visakhapatnam district, his mother’s village.5 His family belonged to Mogallu in Bhimavaram taluk.5 His father, a travelling photographer, moved to Rajahmundry in 1902 and died of cholera in 1908.5 After this an uncle who was a Deputy Collector helped the family.5

Sitarama Raju studied for short periods at Rajahmundry, Kakinada, Visakhapatnam and other towns, and left school at sixteen.5 The police history says he then learnt yoga and astrology at Tuni.6 At seventeen he went on pilgrimage to Kasi, Haridwar and the Himalayas.6

In the hill tracts

In the agency tracts, the police history records, the hill people came to believe that he had supernatural powers. He protested against their exploitation by revenue officials and contractors, above all by a tahsildar (revenue officer) named Bastian.6 The government later confiscated Bastian’s property for corruption.6

Sarojini Regani’s history of the freedom movement adds other grievances.7 One was the restriction on clearing forest for shifting (podu) cultivation.7 Another was the dismissal of a Koya headman, Gam Mallu Dora.7 Gam Mallu Dora and his brother Gam Gantam Dora became Sitarama Raju’s chief lieutenants.7

Regani also cites a report by a British officer, Happel, that Sitarama Raju went to Chittagong in July 1921 and attended secret meetings of revolutionaries.8 She says he preached temperance (giving up liquor) in the hills.8 He urged villagers to settle disputes in their own panchayats rather than in the courts.8 From January 1922 the government kept him under watch.9 It lifted the watch when he asked leave to go on pilgrimage to Nepal.9

The rising, 1922–1924

On 22 August 1922 Sitarama Raju and his followers raided the police station at Chintapalli and carried off its muskets and ammunition. He wrote an account of the raid, signed with his name, in the station’s diary. The stations at Krishnadevipeta and Rajavommangi were raided on the next two days.1 The raiders used Gandhi’s name as their slogan.1

On 24 September the rebels ambushed a police party, killing two British officers, Scott-Coward and Heyter.10 The police history counts two constables killed with them, and Regani four other policemen.10 The police history adds that Sitarama Raju is believed to have attended the Kakinada session of the Congress in 1923, disguised as a Punjabi volunteer.11

Regani writes that when he entered Annavaram in April 1923, local officials received him in their homes.12 The government fined Annavaram and a neighbouring village Rs 4,000 each.12

The government brought in the Malabar Special Police and wireless sets, and in January 1924 a force of the Assam Rifles. A special commissioner, T. G. Rutherford, deported villagers suspected of helping the rebels, and interned (confined) their relatives.13 Both accounts stress that village officers and villagers kept on withholding news of the rebels’ movements.14 They also stress that captured policemen and officials were released unharmed.14

Capture and death

On 6 May 1924 his principal associate, Aggiraju, was wounded and captured. The next day Sitarama Raju himself was taken. Regani writes that he was brought before Major Goodall.2 According to the government’s report, she says, he tried to escape and was shot dead.2

The police history says only that he was taken to Koyyur and shot dead.3 Gantam Dora was killed on 7 June. The police history counts 77 people convicted of waging war, and an estimated cost of Rs 13 lakhs for the operations.15

Gam Mallu Dora, captured in September 1923, was sentenced to death, later commuted (reduced) to transportation for life.16 Released after 1937, he was elected to Parliament in the first general elections.16

How the rising was judged

The government of the time explained the rising by Bastian’s oppression. Regani quotes the judicial report of the Additional Magistrate, L. H. Arndt.17 Arndt accepted that grievance, but concluded that the leaders aimed at driving out the British.17 He pointed to the respect they showed captured police officers, and to their refusal to damage government property.17

Regani places the rebellion outside the Congress campaign, since Sitarama Raju chose violence deliberately.18 Gandhi wrote in Young India on 18 July 1929: “Though I have no sympathy with and cannot admire armed rebellion”.4

But “I cannot withhold my homage from a youth so brave, so sacrificing, so simple and so noble in character as young Sri Rama Raju.”4 The account Gandhi used came from Madduri Annapurnayya, editor of the Telugu weekly The Congress, who tried to revive Sitarama Raju’s memory through the youth leagues. In 1931 Krovvidi Linga Raju, the paper’s next editor, was prosecuted for articles urging young men to follow examples such as his.19

For many years, the police history notes, it was widely believed that he had not been killed.4 His rising is also described on the page Reform, freedom & people’s movements.

Footnotes

  1. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), pp. 209–210 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 96 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 100 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 214 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  4. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), pp. 215–216, reprinting Young India, 18 July 1929 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. The History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1861–1961) (1961), p. 208 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 209 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh (1956), pp. 95–96 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 95 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 95 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 209 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  10. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 210 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 97 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  11. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 211 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  12. Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 98–99 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  13. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), pp. 210–212, 214 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 98, 100 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  14. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), pp. 210, 212–213 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 97–99 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  15. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), pp. 214–215 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  16. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), pp. 211–212 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  17. Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 100–101 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  18. Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 94–95 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  19. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 216 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 103, 119 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Photos

References

Sources (2)
  1. Inspector-General of Police, Andhra Pradesh, The History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1861-1961) (opens in a new tab), Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, 1961, pp. 208–216. Paraphrased, except a passage from Gandhi's Young India (18 July 1929) that it reprints. [Public domain in India]
  2. Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh (opens in a new tab), Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, 1956, pp. 94–101, 103, 119. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

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