The Srikakulam rising, 1967–1970

The Srikakulam rising was an armed movement of hill people in the agency (hill) tracts of Srikakulam district between 1967 and 1970.¹² Communist activists led it, and after 1968 they followed the path of the Naxalbari rising in West Bengal.³ The police put it down by 1970.²

Chinese radio, Raghunadha Rao notes, called it a successor of the Telangana armed struggle of the 1940s.⁴ This page draws on one history and on the Government of India’s answers in Parliament, so it says clearly whose account each part is.⁵⁶

About the sources. The main account is in P. Raghunadha Rao’s Telugu history Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), a book by a named author that is given here in summary only.⁵ The Government of India’s figures come from a written answer in the Lok Sabha in July 1969.⁶ Members of Parliament also argued in 1969 about the causes, and both sides are given below.⁷

The district and its hill people

Raghunadha Rao writes that Srikakulam was one of the most backward areas of the state.⁵ It had been part of Ganjam district, joined Visakhapatnam district when Orissa was formed in 1936, and became a separate district in 1950.⁵ Its agency area, in the Eastern Ghats, held taluks such as Parvatipuram, Palakonda and Salur.⁵ Many hill peoples lived there, among them the Jatapus, Savaras, Gadabas and Gonds.⁵

The forests were rich in tamarind, honey, beedi leaves and timber.¹ Raghunadha Rao writes that traders from towns such as Vizianagaram, Bobbili and Srikakulam bought these goods very cheaply.¹ They also bought the land of the hill people.¹ Laws barred such sales, he says, but they were not enforced, and within a decade many hill families lost everything.¹

The district was about 800 kilometres from Hyderabad, and Raghunadha Rao writes that officials thought of a posting there as a punishment.¹ In 1959 the Communist Party set up a Girijan Sangham (hill people’s association) to fight vetti, the forced unpaid labour that many hill people did in the houses of traders and moneylenders.¹

From protest to armed struggle, 1965–1968

The Girijan Sangham had been quiet after 1962, but it became active again in 1965 under the Marxist party.⁸ One of its organisers was Vempatapu Satyanarayana, known as Satyam, a teacher in the Parvatipuram agency.¹⁸ Raghunadha Rao writes that he won the trust of the hill people by hard work.⁸ He tried to end quarrels between the Jatapus and Savaras by encouraging marriages between them.⁸

The Sangham’s candidate lost the assembly election of 1967.⁸ After this the movement pressed for the following:⁸

• waste land (banjar) to be given to the hill people
• self-rule for the whole agency area, by representatives the hill people elected
• punishment for landlords and moneylenders who had taken their land⁸

On 31 October 1967 a large meeting was held at Mondemkhal.⁸³ As the hill people went home, the men of a local landlord stopped them at a place called Levidi and fired on them, killing two.³ Raghunadha Rao writes that the angry hill people then turned to violence at places such as Karupam and Seethampeta.³ On 4 March 1968 police fired at Pedakarja, and two more hill people died.³

In his account the Marxist party now taught the hill people that neither the landlords nor the government would give them justice.³ They were trained to use explosives and to fight as guerrillas.³ Leaders such as Chowdary Tejeswara Rao and Panchadi Krishnamurthy had direct links with Charu Majumdar, the leader of the Naxalbari rising.³

The Marxist party itself did not want to step up the movement.³ It expelled the Maoist group in June 1968.³ T. Nagi Reddy also held back, because he thought the cadres needed more training first.³⁹ The Srikakulam leaders followed Charu Majumdar instead.⁹ At a meeting at Boddapadu on 23–25 October 1968 they decided on armed struggle.⁹

The rising at its height, 1968–1969

From late 1968 to the middle of 1969 the movement became an armed rising.⁹ Charu Majumdar toured Andhra in February 1969.⁹ From 28 February to 2 March 1969 he met Srikakulam leaders, including Tejeswara Rao, Panchadi Krishnamurthy and Mamidi Appalasuri, at Guttikonda in Guntur district.⁹ Satyam did not join their new committee, because he did not like Majumdar’s policy of killing “class enemies”.⁹

On 22 April 1969 the Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist) was founded.⁹ Nagi Reddy did not join it, and in May 1969 he formed the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Committee instead.⁹ Raghunadha Rao writes that at a meeting in Visakhapatnam in May 1969, the Srikakulam leaders decided to bring 500 to 1,000 hill people into open attacks on “class enemies”.⁹¹⁰ Satyam and Adibhatla Kailasam stayed away from that meeting.¹⁰

The governments of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa now acted together against the movement.¹⁰ On 27 May 1969 Panchadi Krishnamurthy was killed in a police encounter near Jalantrakota.¹⁰ The state government then declared the agency of Srikakulam a “disturbed area”.¹⁰

Raghunadha Rao describes the next months:¹⁰²

• in July 1969 the movement’s peasant committee held about 300 of the agency’s 518 villages, and it set up its own courts to punish moneylenders and landlords
• on 4 August 1969 about 1,000 hill people attacked a village in Palakonda taluk and killed landlords
• on 2 November 1969 a similar attack was made on Pedabudidi
• landlords, traders and moneylenders left the agency for towns such as Vizianagaram and Srikakulam¹⁰²

What the Government of India said

On 25 July 1969 the Home Ministry gave the Lok Sabha figures from the state government.⁶ It said there had been 25 encounters between the police and the “extremists” in Srikakulam district since November 1968, in which 23 Naxalites had been killed.⁶ It said 259 guns, along with country bombs, bows and arrows, had been recovered.⁶

The ministry added that the agency areas of Parvathipuram, Palakonda and Pathapatnam taluks had been declared disturbed areas.⁶ Strong forces of the Andhra Pradesh Special Police and the Central Reserve Police had been sent there.⁶

Members disagreed about the causes.⁷ In April 1969 P. Gopalan of the Marxist party said that talk of armed revolution hid “the landlord terror” against farm workers and tribal people, as in Srikakulam.⁷ Another member, Chengalraya Naidu, asked whether Chinese agents were training people and sending them to places like Srikakulam to make trouble.⁷ The Home Minister, Y. B. Chavan, said he saw little difference between Mao’s followers and the Naxalbari movement.⁷

The end of the rising, 1969–1972

The police watched the movements of the communists and their supporters.² In December 1969 they arrested Tejeswara Rao, and in the same month Nagi Reddy, Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao and other leaders were arrested in Madras.² On 10 July 1970 Satyam and Kailasam were killed in a police encounter at Borikonda, and the rising collapsed.² Mamidi Appalasuri, D. Nagabhushan Patnaik and other leaders were arrested in Calcutta on 24 July 1970.²

The rising drew notice abroad.² On 29 December 1969 the New China News Agency published an article on Srikakulam under the title “The Most Advanced Bulwark of India”.²⁴ Raghunadha Rao writes that Chinese radio also gave the movement importance in its broadcasts.⁴

The police brought a case, the Parvatipuram conspiracy case, against 120 people.⁴ Raghunadha Rao says they included Nagabhushan Patnaik and Tejeswara Rao, four lawyers, two doctors, five teachers and fifteen students.⁴ Charu Majumdar was arrested in Calcutta on 16 July 1972 and died in police custody on 28 July.⁴ Patnaik was sentenced to death, but after many appeals and a long illness he was released.⁴

Raghunadha Rao adds that armed movements did not end with Srikakulam.⁴ They spread to Telangana districts such as Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar and Adilabad.⁴

Where the sources disagree

• Which areas were declared disturbed. Raghunadha Rao writes that after Panchadi Krishnamurthy’s death the state government declared the whole agency of Srikakulam district a disturbed area.¹⁰ The Home Ministry named the agency areas of three taluks, Parvathipuram, Palakonda and Pathapatnam.⁶
• The causes. In the Lok Sabha in April 1969, a Marxist member blamed landlord terror against tribal people.⁷ Another member suggested that people trained by Chinese agents were being sent to Srikakulam.⁷ Raghunadha Rao himself points to the exploitation of the hill people by traders and moneylenders, and to the weak government in the district.¹

Footnotes

1. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 272 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 277 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 274 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

4. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 278 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

5. P. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (Telugu, revised edition 1997), p. 271 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Lok Sabha Debates, 25 July 1969, written answer to Unstarred Question 835, “Naxalites killed in Srikakulam (Andhra Pradesh) in an Encounter with Police”, cols. 85–86 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. Lok Sabha Debates, 25 April 1969, Starred Question 1325, “Reported large scale manufacture of Bombs and explosives in West Bengal, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh”, cols. 7–12 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

8. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 273 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

9. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 275 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

10. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (1997), p. 276 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸