Karam Tammanna Dora

Karam Tammanna Dora was one of the leaders of the Rampa rebellion of 1879–1880.¹² This rising of the hill people began in the Rampa country of Godavari district in March 1879 and spread into the hills of Visakhapatnam.¹³ The police history of 1961 calls him the chief leader of the rising.² The sources disagree about how and when his part in it ended.²⁴

Both sources used here were written by the government that put the rising down.¹³ The causes of the rebellion are described on the page on Chandrayya, another of its leaders.

The rebellion, 1879–1880

The Godavari gazetteer of 1907 names four chief leaders of the rebels.¹ They were Chandrayya, Jangam Pulicanta Sambayya, “Tamman Dora” and Ambul Reddi of Boduluru.¹ The gazetteer calls them “notorious characters”.¹

The gazetteer gives one glimpse of his following.⁵ The muttadar (head of a group of hill villages) of Bolagonda had, it says, been “constantly seen with the notorious Tamman Dora” during the rising.⁵ For this the government raised that muttadar’s rent in its settlement of 1879.⁵

According to the police history, troops drove Chandrayya and Taman Dora (its spelling) out of Rampa into the Gudem jungles of Visakhapatnam district.³ Chandrayya was later betrayed and shot.³

His death, 1880

The police history says the police kept hunting the rebels in Rampa through 1880.² It records that on 25 July 1880 Mr. Sweet, a Special Assistant Superintendent of Police in Rampa, shot Karam Taman Dora, whom it again calls the chief leader.² By the end of 1880 the other leaders had been captured or killed.²

Where the sources disagree

The two books do not agree on the last months of his life:

• The police history (1961) says he was shot on 25 July 1880.²
• The Godavari gazetteer (1907) says that in October 1880 Tamman Dora made a short raid into Visakhapatnam district, and that the area was quiet by November 1880.⁴ It does not say how he died.⁴

Footnotes

1. Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 274 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1961), p. 156 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. The History of the Andhra Pradesh Police (1861–1961) (1961), p. 155 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Hemingway, Godavari (1907), p. 275 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari, Vol. I (1907), p. 267 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³