“The Telangana
people’s agrarian and democratic movement was advancing rapidly. As Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, Deputy Premier of the Indian Union Government, again and
again declared, the Communists were already in control over more than two
districts and they threatened to spread their grip all over the state. So, it
was necessary to march in the Indian armies, not merely to force the Nizam to
merge with the Indian Union but destroy the Communists, that is, the agrarian
democratic people’s movement in Telangana. Rajaji, the then Governor-General,
openly in his proclamation, declared this as one of the objectives of the
Indian army intervention.”
(From Page 191; Telangana People’s Struggle and its
Lessons!!)
Patel, the so called
iron man of India, did not act as an individual but as part of the Indian
Government and a well-planned strategy to crush the democratic peasants’
movement of Telangana against the Nizam and his despotic, dictator army and the
Razzacks!
General Chowdhary was appointed with a free hand to crush
the movement and he boasted to finish the people and Communists’ resistance
within 2 weeks and within 2 weeks of Indian Army entering the Hyderabad state, full-fledged
offensive started against the people by the end of Dec, 1948!!
On the other side,
Nizam with full respect was re-instated as ruler of Hyderabad along with his
army, looters, rapists, murderers, and others!
This was in short, the great deeds of Patel with Nehru!! He
was tasked to demolish the movements of peasants of Telangana, who were
fighting since 1943 with Andhra Mahasabha and Communist Party. In fact, these
peasants were fighting much before this, since the early 1920s, but now in more
united and militant way, against heavy feudal landlords and their all forms of
exploitations!
This movement
changed into agrarian revolt, raising slogans of abolition of Land-lordism, Nizam’s autocratic rule,
liquidation of princely state, and merger
with rest of India!!
The military regime under General J. N. Chowdhury launched
its attacks on the people of Telangana immediately, within a fortnight, by
September end. The formal struggle against the Razakars was stopped. Men, like,
Kasim Razvi, who was the arch-criminal in the state-wide killings and lootings,
were only imprisoned and were given Class I treatment inside jails; many others
were not even put behind the bars and were just let off. On the other hand,
they started the campaign of suppression of Communists.
Congress members and Patel’s men made every police station as their
office and helped the Razakars, land lords to re-store ‘their’ land and
re-establish their authority and terror over the poor!! Congress replaced the
Nizam and his terror with more power and more crimes!!
This is what Iron
man’s Army did to poor Telangana peasants:-
Herding people at one place, beating them to reveal the
whereabouts of Communists and to return deshmukh’s properties had become the
daily routine. People were severely beaten up with lathis, butt-ends of guns
and tamarind birches, without any discrimination between men and women, young
and old. One military commander by name Sitapati excelled himself in the
torture of the people. Tamarind canes were carved in the shape of hammer and sickle,
and with them he used to get people beaten up so that the mark of the hammer
and sickle was left on their backs.
Terror and Terror
Sardar Vallavbhai Patel and his army let lose all imaginable
terror on peasants and those who opposed the Nizam and his Army with vengeance!
In Loyapalli and surrounding villages, people were thrown
into thorny bushes and were trampled upon by the military with their boots on.
At 12 noon, in hot sun, people were made to crawl on those thorny bushes on
their knees and elbows. The whole, place was splattered with blood. Three
hundred men became unconscious. When soldiers asked the people after all this Nazi
torture, whether they would give up the Communists, the people replied in one
voice: “never will we give them up in our lives”!
Women raped; an example—
– According to available reports, more than 1,000 women
were raped during the first year and a few thousands during the whole period.
Because a number of brutes raping women in a row, more than 100 women died.
– Women’s breasts were
pulled and crushed with iron forceps, and babies were killed before the very
eyes of their mothers.
– In Nereda, 70 women
were stripped naked, chameleons tied to their thighs and chilli powder thrown
into the wounds.
(Page 199 ibid)
From next page:-
SADISTIC MURDERS: BURNT ALIVE, BURIED ALIVE, BUTCHERED EN
MASSE
– Comrade Rangayya of Chandupalli was tied to a cart and
burnt alive. He died shouting, “Communist Party Zindabad.”
– Comrade Ramulu was caught in an encirclement raid at Miryala
(Suryapet taluka). Failing to get any secrets from him, he was tied to a lorry
and dragged on the road until his body was torn to bits.
There are 100s of such stories mentioned in the quoted book
and the people, especially the old ones, still remember!
Voice against “Death Sentence” of few Comrades
On May 23, 1949 Hyderabad was studded with posters demanding
the cancellation of death sentences on the Telangana heroes. In the evening, a
mass rally was organised and a procession brought out shouting slogans, –
‘Hands off Telangana.’ Such was the protest movement led by the working class
and supported by the students, progressive intellectuals and the toiling youth,
and such was the agitation throughout India and the world that Nehru’s Military Government had to beat a retreat and
suspend the death sentences.
In jail also, there were protests by the political
prisoners. In Jalana jail, 2000 prisoners were dumped, where even 500 could not
be accommodated, latrine was not enough, food provided was not sufficient,
forget about medicine, newspaper (except for few days after long struggle,
later withdrawn) etc.
On May 19, 1949 the
prisoners saw in the papers the news of the above mentioned death sentence on
the 8 Nalgonda heroes. Their anger knew no bounds. What followed was a glorious
story of the prisoners’ heroic battle and the black act of Nehru’ Patel’s
officials, sent to “exterminate the Communists” and save his new partner – the
Nizam.
The 2,000 prisoners asked the Superintendent to send a
protest telegram to Nehru and the Military Governor. The callous refusal to
meet this demand was followed by slogans and the prisoners gathered in a
demonstration.
So far we have seen,
how the so called iron man was part of the system, the union government, which
joined the earlier tyrant Nizam forces along with Congress goons to crush the
peasants of Telangana and their democratic forces. They preferred to join the
feudal forces against the progressive and revolutionary forces!
Example of How Judiciary System was subverted!!
From page 386(ibid):-
When outside, the Party got news of this, it immediately
filed a writ petition in the court. The High Court ordered both these comrades
to be produced before it. Immediately on receipt of this order, the military
authorities and the Government hatched a conspiracy. If the comrades’ in their present
position were produced in the court, the army authorities would get a stricture
from the court and their atrocities would be exposed. So they took their
prisoners to a nearby hillock and shot them.
This was done to 2 party members, Seeta Rami Reddy and Ramachandra
Reddy, who were caught by the military a month ago and were being tortured
immensely! This was the system, a democratic one, of Vallabhbhai Patel and
Nehru!! Nazis and American military had to learn from our “peaceful democratic”
heroes!!
Page 391-392(ibid):-
The Congress Government which had ordered the entry of the
Indian armies into Hyderabad, no doubt, ended the Razakar menace and also the
dynastic rule of the Nizam. But the Union Government not only permitted the
hated Nizam Nawab to continue as Rajpramukh, keeping intact the feudal state
boundaries of Hyderabad state, but also directed its main attack against the
hard-won gains of the Telangana peasantry and the Communist Party and Andhra
Mahasabha which were leading the heroic Telangana struggle. The destruction of
the popular democratic peasant movement and the Communist Party became the
principal aim and the immediate task of the Indian Government and its armed
forces.
“During the last three years, all progressive forces in our
country have realised that the boastful claims that the Indian Union army’s
action was intended only to end the hated Nizam’s feudal rule and to usher in
democratic rule, are utterly false. Through hundreds of meetings,
demonstrations, memoranda, they demanded and forced the Government to stay the
hangings of the 12 Telangana heroes and commute their death sentences. The
selfish reactionaries who were behind the Indian Government, were effectively
able to prevent land reforms being enacted, abolishing feudal landlordism,
giving land to the tiller and thus solving the people’s food problem.” (Page
418 ibid)
“For the last five years the Telangana people have been
waging an armed struggle, under the leadership of the Andhra Mahasabha and the
Communist Party, against the Nizam Nawab and the landlords, for land and for
national freedom. When the Nizam Nawab’s regime was about to collapse, the
armies of the Congress Government entered Hyderabad, on the plea of putting an
end to the Nizam Razakars, but in
reality engaged in destroying the gains of the Telangana people. They kept the Nizam
Nawab as Rajpramukh. They started seizing lands from the Telangana peasantry
and handing over their possession to the deshmukhs and the landlords.
The Telangana people, under the leadership of their Party,
resisted the Nehru army’s attacks and defended their lands. During the last 3
years, even though Nehru’s armies subjected hundreds of thousands of people to
brutal tortures, raped thousands of women, burnt village after village, forced tribal
people to vacate their villages and put them in concentration camps (new
settlement villages outside the forests, with military guard all round), shot
dead about 2,000 guerrillas, Party and people’s leaders, and the militant
supporters of the Party, the Telangana people were able to defend and retain
many of their gains!” (Page 426 ibid)
The quoted book, spread over 400 pages, written by the famous
leader of the movement P Sundarayya, gives us the vivid picture of not only the
brutal suppression of peasants and their leaders but also the true motif of the
Central government, Congress and its leaders, Nehru and Patel!
In recent times, the glorification of these leaders and even
differentiating among them, is nothing but to ‘justify’ the ‘need of dictatorship’
by Congress and now BJP! This gives us ample warning of impending fascism,
visible by the Land Acquisition Bill, and other liquidation of Labour laws, to
weaken the working class further in favour of big corporates, capitalists to
expand and deepen their process of wealth accumulation!
To end, I will quote the following,
Page 554, Telangana People's Struggle and its Lessons;-
(Given below is a poem, Tales of Telangana, written by
Harindranath Chattopadhyay, at the time of the Telangana armed struggle.)
Now let me write it down,
A tale of Telangana, harrowing tale
Yet brimmed with hope wrought of grim sacrifice;
A tale of murdered innocents, raped honour,
Broken masses bleeding under the stress
Of the last struggle, one with the bitter struggle
Of lingering colonies that will not brook
Longer continuance of fascist greeds,
Imperialist grabs with callous guns for mouths
And hireling bombs spreading incessant menace.
You’ve heard of Telangana, have you not?
The world has heard and wondered ...
It is another name for history
Revised, historic values re-arranged,
Re-shuffled. It is echoed and re-echoed
Through the dark corridors of future time
Through which historic logic treads towards
Its grand fulfilment.
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