Reform, freedom & people's movements

In brief

From about 1850 to 1953 the Telugu regions lived under two different systems of rule. The coastal and Rayalaseema districts were in the British Madras Presidency, and Telangana was in the Nizam's Hyderabad State, so public life took two different forms. The era page follows the reformers, the freedom campaigns and the Rampa rebellion in the Madras districts, and the Telugu awakening and the Telangana armed struggle in Hyderabad State. It ends with Hyderabad's integration in 1948 and the Andhra State of 1953.

Read the full era page: Reform, freedom & people's movements →

Key dates

Each date links to the page it comes from. "About" and "or" are kept where the page gives them.

Main points

From the era page: Reform, freedom & people's movements

• From about 1850 to 1953 the Telugu regions were under two different systems of rule. The coastal and Rayalaseema districts were in the British Madras Presidency, and Telangana was in the Nizam's Hyderabad State.
• Kandukuri Veeresalingam conducted the first widow remarriage in the Madras Presidency at Rajahmundry on 11 December 1881. Priests, cooks and musicians boycotted it.
• In the Rampa rebellion of 1922–1924, Alluri Sitarama Raju led armed bands of hill people against police stations. He was captured on 7 May 1924 and, according to the government's report, shot while trying to escape.
• In Hyderabad State the Andhra Jana Sangham was founded in 1921, after a delegate was shouted down for speaking Telugu. It became the Andhra Mahasabha in 1930 and demanded responsible government in 1937.
• The Indian Army entered Hyderabad State on 13 September 1948, and the Nizam ordered a ceasefire on 17 September. The communist-led Telangana armed struggle went on until the party called it off in 1951.
• Potti Sriramulu died on 15 December 1952, the 58th day of his fast for an Andhra State. The Andhra State came into being on 1 October 1953, with Kurnool as its capital.

From other pages of the period

• Kandukuri Veeresalingam was born at Rajahmundry on 16 April 1848. He became a teacher, and in 1874 he started a girls' school at Dhavaleswaram. In the same year he began a journal, Vivekavardhini, attacking bribery among officials. Kandukuri Veeresalingam
• Gurajada Apparao was a Telugu playwright, poet and story writer of Vizianagaram. His play Kanyasulkam (the bride-price) attacks the custom of selling young girls in marriage to old men. Raju called it the first important social drama in Telugu. Gurajada Apparao
• Gidugu Venkata Ramamurti was a Telugu scholar of Parlakimidi. In the early 20th century he led the movement to write Telugu books in the modern spoken language. At that time Telugu books were written in a literary style far from everyday speech. Gidugu Venkata Ramamurti
• In the salt satyagraha of 1930 he was appointed 'dictator' (leader in charge) for the whole Andhra province. Salt brine from the coast was boiled into salt at his house in Guntur, and he was arrested that year. Konda Venkatappayya
• On 22 August 1922 Raju and his followers raided the Chintapalli police station and seized its muskets. The rebels resisted special police and the Assam Rifles. Villagers withheld information about where the rebels were moving. Alluri Sitarama Raju
• The Hyderabad State committee's history says the public awakening of Telangana began with this library, and that it became a school of renaissance. Sri Krishnadevaraya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam, Hyderabad
• Political meetings were barred inside the state, so he led in holding a Hyderabad political conference outside it. The first met at Kakinada in 1923 and called for representative government. Madapati Hanumantha Rao
• Chakali Ilamma was a washerwoman of Palakurthi, a village of Jangaon taluk. In the mid-1940s her family stood with the Andhra Mahasabha's village sangham against the deshmukh (landlord and revenue chief) of Visnur. Her husband and both her sons were jailed in the Palakurthi case. Chakali Ilamma
• The State Congress ran a Join India movement from camps outside the state. G. Venkataramarao counts 48 camps, 14,000 volunteers arrested and 500 of the state's 750 customs posts destroyed. The Police Action in Hyderabad, 1948
• After independence the demand was delayed by committees. In 1949 the Congress's JVP committee agreed to an Andhra State, but only if the Telugu leaders gave up their claim to Madras city. The Andhra movement, 1913–1953

Key terms

agencies ఏజెన్సీలు

hill tracts

mutta ముఠా

group of hill villages

podu పోడు

shifting (cultivation)

vetti వెట్టి

forced unpaid labour; also menials

jagir జాగీర్

land grant; also assignment of land revenue

deshmukh దేశ్‌ముఖ్

hereditary revenue chief and landlord; also district revenue officer

gadi గడి

the deshmukh's fortified house

watandar వతన్‌దార్

village landholders and hereditary officials

samasthan సంస్థానం

tributary estate

firka ఫిర్కా

revenue circle

swadeshi స్వదేశీ

Indian-made goods

swaraj స్వరాజ్యం

self-rule

hartal హర్తాళ్

closing of shops

satyagraha సత్యాగ్రహం

non-violent protest by breaking a law and accepting arrest

satyagrahi సత్యాగ్రహి

civil-disobedience volunteers

sangham సంఘం

association

Razakars రజాకార్లు

the armed volunteers of the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen

kisan dal కిసాన్ దళ్

peasant squad

gram rajyams గ్రామ రాజ్యాలు

village governments

farman ఫర్మానా

royal order

People, places, monuments and inscriptions to know

People

• Kandukuri Veeresalingam
• Gurajada Apparao
• Gidugu Venkata Ramamurti
• Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham
• Konda Venkatappayya
• Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya
• Alluri Sitarama Raju
• Tanguturi Prakasam
• N. G. Ranga
• Puchalapalli Sundarayya
• Komarraju Lakshmana Rao
• Madapati Hanumantha Rao
• Suravaram Pratapa Reddy
• Ravi Narayana Reddy
• Chakali Ilamma
• Swami Ramananda Tirtha
• Qasim Razvi
• Mir Osman Ali Khan (Asaf Jah VII)
• Potti Sriramulu

Places

• Rajahmundry
• Hyderabad

Monuments

• Osmania University

Institutions

• Vivekavardhini
• Andhra Prakasika
• Krishna Patrika
• Sri Krishnadevaraya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam, Hyderabad

Themes

• The Andhra movement, 1913–1953
• The Police Action in Hyderabad, 1948
• Dalit history: Malas, Madigas and the Adi-Andhra movement
• Tribal peoples of the Telugu lands

Maps and the timeline

• The Telugu districts of the Madras Presidency (1858–1947)
• The districts of the Nizam's Dominions (1931)
• The making of Andhra Pradesh (1953–1956)

• Milestones of this period, on the era page →
• The full timeline of all periods →

Where historians disagree

These questions are still open. Each line links to the section of the page that gives both sides with their sources. They are useful for essay answers.

• The police history says Swami Sitaram fasted for 21 days at Bhimavaram in May 1952, while Krishna Moorthy describes a fast of 35 days in 1951. The Andhra movement, 1913–1953
• After Potti Sriramulu's death, the police history counts eight people killed in police firing, while Raghunadha Rao says seven. The Andhra movement, 1913–1953
• Raghunadha Rao says the Police Action was over in five days and that the Nizam withdrew his complaint to the United Nations on 23 September, while Venkataramarao says four days and 17 September. The Police Action in Hyderabad, 1948
• Sundarayya says the volunteers drove off the deshmukh's men from Chakali Ilamma's field, while Devulapalli says the deshmukh's men surprised them at night and seized their leaders. Chakali Ilamma
• The accounts of the fight at Renukunta differ on how Rami Reddy died, where the villagers fought and whether there were about 80 of them or a squad of 20. Renukunta Rami Reddy
• The 1931 Hyderabad census reports a quarrel over whether the Adi-Hindus were Hindus, with one group saying they had never belonged to the Vedic religion and another saying their customs were Hindu. Dalit history: Malas, Madigas and the Adi-Andhra movement

Practise

• Quiz on this period: 195 questions →1: basic (who, what, where): 19 questions2: dates and order: 142 questions3: detail: 34 questions
• Print a worksheet on this period →
• The "Which came first?" round, on the rulers of every period →