Kumra Bhimu · Telugu History

Kumra Bhimu was a leader of the Gonds, a tribal people of the forests of Adilabad in the Nizam’s Hyderabad State.¹ In 1940 he led the Gonds of Babijheri and Jhoreghat, near Asifabad, in resisting eviction from their land.²¹ The police shot him dead.³ His story matters because it shows why the Gonds hated the forest rules of those years, and it led the government to look again at their problems.⁴⁵ For the wider story, see Tribal peoples.

About the sources. The anthropologist Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf wrote about the clash in his report Tribal Hyderabad (1945). He had not seen the official report. He talked to many Gonds and a few officials, so his account gives mainly the Gonds’ side.² Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, writing in Telugu in 1988, tells the same story of the Babijheri rising. He calls its leader Komaram Bhimu (కొమరం భీము).⁵

In search of land

Bhimu’s home village was Sankepalli, about five miles from Asifabad.¹ Haimendorf calls him an intelligent young man who could read and write.¹ Most land in Sankepalli had passed to outsiders. So Bhimu tried again and again to get land elsewhere.¹ He lived first at Surdapur, then for three years at Kakarghat near Dewara. At last he settled at Babijheri, and lived there for about five years.¹

A Gond headman, Siram Ramu of Kerimeri, told Haimendorf the root of the trouble. Outsiders of every community could get a patta (title deed) for land, but the Gonds could not.¹ Haimendorf also heard many complaints that forest watchmen took money, grain and chickens from the Gonds.⁴⁶

Babijheri and Jhoreghat

Babijheri was a small village of twelve Gond houses, with about fifty Kolam and Naikpod houses in the hills around.¹ When the lines of the Dhanora State Forest were drawn, the village fell inside them. The villagers had no pattas, so they were told to leave.¹ They did not leave by the date fixed, and forest guards burnt all their houses.¹

The Gonds and nine Kolam households moved to Jhoreghat, a site to the east.¹ The forest watchman told them they could clear as much forest as they liked for 500 rupees. They borrowed the money and paid him.¹ Later he came back and demanded 2,000 rupees more, for his seniors, or he would burn their houses again.¹⁷

Bhimu and four other Gonds went to Hyderabad. People believed they brought back permission to farm 57 acres at Jhoreghat.⁷ The watchman still wanted his money, and Bhimu refused to bargain.⁷ Haimendorf calls Bhimu a strong personality with great influence among the Gonds.⁷

The clash of 1940

Bhimu tried once more to reach the higher officers. On “the 13th Shehrewar, a Thursday”, as Haimendorf gives the date, he sent a petition by registered post to the district forest officer. In it he asked to be allowed to stay and farm at Jhoreghat.⁷ The very next day the Forest Ranger sent a party to clear Jhoreghat, without the district forest officer’s knowledge. On the way it burnt several outlying hamlets, and cattle tied in the sheds died.⁷ At Jhoreghat the angry Gonds faced the party, though they had no guns. An armed guard shot Bhimu through the hand, and the Gonds beat the forest men.⁷

After this Bhimu and his followers decided to resist eviction by force. Several hundred Gonds gathered to support them.⁸ Haimendorf heard that Bhimu claimed to hear the voices of gods, but he notes that many Gond villages had such men.⁸ In talks with the Taluqdar, the officer in charge of the district, carried on through go-betweens, Bhimu’s main demand was freedom from grazing fees and from the watchmen’s demands.⁸ Bhimu would not go to the Taluqdar’s camp. Haimendorf thought he feared he would be arrested at once.⁸

At last the police advanced into the hills where Bhimu and his men had gathered.³ When Bhimu fired a shot, the police opened fire. They killed eleven Gonds on the spot and wounded many more.³ Bhimu died in the firing.³⁵

Afterwards

Devulapalli says the Nizam’s government kept the news back for a time, and the papers printed it only later.⁵ In his account, the government then had Haimendorf inquire into the Gonds’ condition. It took about one lakh acres out of the reserved forest and gave the Gonds pattas.⁵

Haimendorf found that Gonds who had known Bhimu spoke highly of his intelligence and character.³ They blamed the forest officers, and above all the watchman, for his death.⁶³ Forest staff later used the name of Babijheri as a threat when a Gond would not pay them.³

Where the sources disagree

A Gond kingdom? Haimendorf thought it entirely wrong to say that Bhimu wanted to found a “Gond Raj”. In his view the Gonds wanted only to farm at Jhoreghat in peace.⁸ Devulapalli writes that, besides their many grievances, some wish to rule also drove the rising.⁵

How many died. Haimendorf writes that the police killed eleven Gonds on the spot.³ Earlier in the same report he speaks of the loss of twelve lives at Babijheri.⁹

Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 123 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 122 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 126 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad: Four Reports (1945), p. 116 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, Telangana Prajala Sayudha Porata Charitra (1988), p. 133 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 117 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 124 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 125 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribal Hyderabad (1945), p. 119 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩