Telangana Rebellion

The Telangana Rebellion popularly known as Telangana Sayuda Poratam (Telugu : తెలంగాణ సాయుధ పోరాటం) of 1946–51 was a communist-led insurrection of peasants against the princely state of Hyderabad in the region of Telangana that escalated out of agitations in 1944–46. Hyderabad was a feudal monarchy where most of the land was concentrated in the hands of landed aristocrats known as Doras in Telangana. Feudal exploitation in the region was more severe compared to others of India; the Doras had complete power over the peasants and could subject them to agricultural slavery. Conditions worsened during the 1930s due to the Great Depression and a transition towards commercial crops. In the 1940s, the peasants started turning towards communism, organised themselves through the Andhra Mahasabha and began a rights movement, catalyzed by a food crisis that affected the region following the end of the Second World War, the movement escalated into a rebellion after the administration and the durras attempted to suppress it. The revolt began on 4 July 1946, when a local peasant leader was killed in the village of Kadavendi, Warangal, by the agents of a dorra. Beginning in the districts of Nalgonda and Warangal, the rebellion evolved into a revolution across Telangana in response to continued repression by the Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan and later Kasim Razvi. The Hyderabad State Forces and the police, combined with the paramilitary Razakars, were unable to suppress it and were routed, while the rebel forces went on a successful guerrilla offensive. The rebels established a parallel system of government composed of gram rajyams (village communes) that caused a social revolution where caste and gender distinctions were reduced; women's workforce participation including in the armed squads increased and the conditions of the peasants significantly improved with land redistribution. At its peak in 1948, the rebellion covered nearly all of Telangana and had at least 4,000 villages directly administered by communes.

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Related concepts (8)

Political integration of India

Before the Indian independence in 1947, India (also called the Indian Empire) was divided into two sets of territories, one under direct British rule (British India), and the other consisting of princely states under the suzerainty of the British Crown, with control over their internal affairs remaining in the hands of their hereditary rulers. The latter included 562 princely states which had different types of revenue-sharing arrangements with the British, often depending on their size, population and local conditions.

Telangana Rebellion

Telangana

Telangana (ˌtɛlən'gɑːnə; ˈtelaŋɡaːɳa, ˈtɪləŋɡɑːna) is a landlocked state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 35,193,978 residents as per 2011 census. On 2 June 2014, the area was separated from the northwestern part of Andhra Pradesh as the newly formed state of Telangana, with Hyderabad as its capital.