Alluri Sitarama Raju & Komaram Bheem had inspired the characters of the key protagonists in SS Rajamouli’s hyper-heroic drama ‘RRR’ & the pan-India celluloid extravaganza is doing brisk business at the box-office even pushing The Kashmir Files to the second spot.

 The lives of these two rebels Alluri Sitarama Raju & Komaram Bheem who shook up the British Empire, are inspiring. Both hailed from different areas, while Sitarama Raju had fought against the British Raj in the border areas of east Godavari and Visakhapatnam of the then Madras Presidency, which currently lies in Andhra Pradesh, Komaram Bheem had locked horns with the British in the region which is Telangana today.

Alluri Sitarama Raju, locally known as ‘manyam veerudu’ (hero of the jungle), was born in a middle-class family in a village called Pandrangi in Visakhapatnam. In 1882, the British introduced the Madras Forest Act, which alienated tribals from their home, the forests. The Act was later renamed as the Tamil Nadu Forest Act.

This is the original picture of Alluri Sita Rama Raju (A Saffron Warrior). He took to sannyasa at the age of 18, fought for our country and died at the age of 25. The saffron means commitment, selflessness & sacrifice.#RRR movie is not propaganda, DMK doesn’t know the history. pic.twitter.com/v2tx2f93Gr

— Amar Prasad Reddy (@amarprasadreddy) March 27, 2022

 

 

One of the main objectives of the Act was to prevent the forest dwellers from practicing slash and burn agriculture, which is locally known as the ‘podu’ system of agriculture. Under this Act, the tribal could only claim the watercourses, the pasture and forest produce but they could not clear forests for cultivation.

In order to oppose this Act, the educated Sitarama Raju, who led a life like an ascetic and was always clad in saffron, started to mobilize the tribals. He worked among them for many years, learnt their culture, created awareness among the tribals and got accepted as one among them.

In 1922, he led the Gudem rebellion attacking the Chintapalle police station in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam. But that was not the first time his men, and he had ransacked police stations. For many years, they continued to ambush police stations to assemble guns for their fight.

Unable to withstand the guerrilla warfare of the tribals, the British brought in the Malabar Special Reserve, who were trained in this type of warfare. They could still not nab him for another two years. In 1924, Sitarama Raju was caught and killed. This rebellion is also known as ‘manyam fituri’ and the Rampa rebellion. In memory of Sitarama Raju, a life-size statue has been erected in many parts of AP. The film RRR too features a statue of this rebel in one scene.

Birth and early life

Alluri Sitarama Raju was born into a Telugu speaking family, in the current state of Andhra Pradesh to Venkata Rama Raju, and Surya Narayanamma. His date of birth is disputed, with some sources reporting it as 4 July 1897, and others as 4 July 1898. Details of his place of birth vary, as an official report suggests he was born in Bhimavaram, with several other sources citing it to be the village of Mogallu in West Godavari District.

Alluri completed his primary education and joined High school in Kakinada, where he became a friend of Madduri Annapurnaiah (1899–1954), who later grew up to be another prominent Indian revolutionary. In his teens, Rama Raju, in accordance with his reticent and meditative nature, contemplated taking up Sannyasa. At age 15, he moved to his mother’s hometown of Visakhapatnam and enrolled at Mrs. A.V.N. College for the fourth form exam. While there, he often visited far-flung areas in the Visakhapatnam district, and became familiar with the struggles of the tribal people there.

He, however, later gave up his schooling, but privately mastered the literature of Telugu, Sanskrit, Hindi and English languages. Contemporary reports indicate that although he had an undistinguished education, he took a particular interest in astrology, herbalism, palmistry and Equestrianism, before becoming a Sannyasi at the age of 18.

Growth as leader

Indicative of his future as a leader, Alluri in his high school days was often found riding his uncle’s horses to distant hilly places and familiarising himself with the various problems being faced by different tribes, who were then living under British colonial rule. He was particularly moved on seeing the hardships of the Koyas, a hill tribal people. Fond of Pilgrimage, in his teens, after leaving formal schooling, he visited Gangotri and Nasik, birthplaces of the holy rivers, Ganga and Godavari. During his travels in the country, he met revolutionaries in Chittagong, on seeing the socio-economic conditions of people, particularly those of the tribals, he was severely appalled and decided to build a movement for their independence from British rule. He then settled down on the Papi hills near Godavari District, an area with a high density of tribal populations.

 Alluri initially practiced various spiritual disciplines to gain moral stature and spiritual power. During this time, the efforts of Christian missionaries to gain converts by any means amongst the hill tribes annoyed him, as he saw it as a tool to perpetuate imperialism. He continued living an austere life, with bare minimum needs amongst the tribal people. Taking only items like fruits and honey from them, he would return much of everything offered to him, with his blessings. Soon his charismatic nature gained him a reputation among the tribals of being someone possessed with holy powers, even a messianic status, a reputation that was bolstered both by myths he created about himself, and by his acceptance of ones about him that were established by others, including those concerning his reputed invincibility.

 Rampa Freedom struggle

After the passing of the 1882 Madras Forest Act, in an attempt to exploit the economic value of wooded areas, its restrictions on the free movement of tribal people in the forests prevented them from engaging in their traditional podu agricultural system, a form of subsistence economy which involved the system of Shifting cultivation.The changes meant that they will face starvation, and their main means of avoiding it was to engage in the demeaning, arduous, foreign and exploitative coolie system, being used by the government and its contractors for such things as road construction.

Around the same time as the Act, the Raj authorities had also emasculated the traditional hereditary role of the muttadars, who had until then been the de facto rulers in the hills as tax collectors for the plains-living rajas. These people were now reduced to the role of mere civil servants, with no overarching powers, no ability to levy taxes at will, and no right to inherit their position. Thus, the cultivators and the tax collectors, who once would have opposed each other, were instead now broadly aligned in their disaffection with colonial power.

Alluri harnessed this discontent of the tribal people to support his anti-colonial zeal, whilst accommodating the grievances of those muttadars sympathetic to his cause, rather than those who were selfish in their pursuit of a revived status for themselves. This meant that most of his followers were from the tribal communities, but also included some significant people from the muttadar class, who at one time had exploited them, although many muttadars remained ambivalent about fighting for what Alluri perceived to be the greater good.

Alluri adopted aspects from the Non-cooperation movement, such as promoting temperance, and the boycott of colonial courts in favor of local justice, administered by panchayat courts, to attract people’s support. Although the movement died out in early 1922, it had reached the plains area by then, as he was involved in the propagation of some of its methods among the hill people, to raise their political consciousness, and desire for change. These actions caused him to be put under the surveillance of police, from around February of that year, although the fact that he was using them as a camouflage to foment armed uprising seems to have not been recognised by either the movement, or the political leadership of the British.

With his supporters, Alluri built strong and powerful troops of fighters. Sporting traditional weaponry like bow-and-arrow and spears, and employing tactics like using whistles and beating drums to exchange messages amongst themselves, the revolutionaries managed to achieve spectacular successes initially in their struggle against the British. Realizing that traditional weaponry would be of not much use against the British, who were all well equipped with modern firearms, he thought the best way forward is to take them away from the enemy and started launching attacks on police stations.

Beginning in August 1922, Alluri led a troop of 500 people in the plundering, on consecutive days of police stations at Chintapalle, Krishna Devi Peta and Rajavommangi, from which he gained possession of guns and ammunition. He subsequently toured the area, getting more recruits and killing a police officer who was part of a force sent to find him. A hallmark of these raids was that after each attack, Alluri would sign a letter in the stations diary, giving details of the plunder from that station, and would write the date and time of his attack, daring police to stop him if they can.

The British struggled in their pursuit of Alluri, partly because of the unfamiliar terrain, and also because of the local people in the sparsely populated areas who were unwilling to help them, and were often outrightly keen to assist Alluri, including with providing shelter and intelligence. While based in the hills, contemporary official reports suggested that the core group of rebels dwindled to between 80 and 100, but this figure rose dramatically whenever they moved to take action against the British because of the involvement of people from the villages.

Further deaths occurred when Alluri ambushed a police party from a high position as they went through the Dammanapalli Ghat, killing two officers, cementing his reputation among the disaffected people. There were further two successful attacks against the police during the month, after which the British realized that his style of guerilla warfare would have to be matched with a similar response, and drafted in members from the Malabar Special Police who were trained for such purposes.

During these raids, Alluri was ably supported by his trusted assistant named Aggi Raju, whose exploits were considered heroic. As the rebellion continued unabated, detachments of the Assam Rifles regiment were eventually brought in to quell it, but the fight continued for about two years, capturing the attention of common people, as well as the powerful officials across the country. To end the rebellion and capture Alluri , the then district collectors, Bracken of East Godavari, and R.T. Rutherford of Visakhapatnam, having jurisdiction powers over the areas of rebellion employed all means possible, both fair and foul, from burning villages to destroying crops, killing cattle and violating women, all to no avail.

 Death and legacy

After putting up a massive effort for nearly two years, the British finally managed to capture Alluri Sitarama Raju in the forests of Chintapalle, he was then tied to a tree and executed by shooting on 7 May 1924 at an age of 27 in the village of Koyyuru. A tomb of his currently lies in the village of Krishnadevipeta, near Visakhapatnam. His lieutenant, Ghantam Dora was killed on 6 June 1924, his brother Mallam Dora was caught and imprisoned, who, after independence became a member of the Indian Lok Sabha.

The heroic efforts of young Alluri Sitarama Raju in fighting an all-out war without any state powers, against one of the most powerful empires have been recognised by all. The British Government grudgingly acknowledged him as a powerful tactician of the Guerrilla warfare which lasted for nearly two years, the fact that they had to spend over ₹40 Lakhs in those days to defeat him speaks for itself.

The Indian government released a postal stamp in his honour at the village of Mogallu, considered by many to be his birthplace. The Government of Andhra Pradesh, besides building memorials at places associated with him, granted a political pension to his surviving brother.

 

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