CHAPTER TWO

Factions, Social Structure and Politics

This chapter is an exposition of the genesis, nature and

transformations of factional struggles in three districts of the Rayalaseema region-

Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kurnool. However, the intent here is not to trace
I
historically the origins of factional conflicts in the region but to demonstrate the

general features of the origin of a conflict, which can be termed as factional. This

then would also mean that there are important changes in the ways in which factions

originated in the past and the reasons for their occurrence now. The objective in this

chapter is to show the different ways in which the genesis of factional conflicts have

been a function of changes in the material, social, and institutional matrix in the

region of Rayalaseema.

As we have argued in Chapter One, district level factional conflicts

become crucial in a political system that is defined by the interlinkages between

village, district and provincial level political manoeuvres. This was seen to be so as

the district level leaders act as mediators between leaders at the village level and at

the state level for political gains at the district and the state level besides being

influential during elections for state and union legislative bodies, when their support

is solicited by political parties to come to power.

Nagamaheswara Reddy, in his study of district politics in

Cuddapah, has argued, "owing to its continuity from Mughal to British to post-

independence times, the district has become a level at which not only the

administration but also political and social communications have crystallized", with

92
"association of various castes, other primordial systems of social communication,

community alignments between elite groups and social factions in state politics" all

getting articulated at the district level (Reddy, 1990). An emphasis on the district thus

provides a vantage point from which we can understand how village level factional

conflicts are manipulated and controlled by the district level leaders in order to gain

leverage in state politics and influence the latter at crucial moments. This usually

comes about because "close interactions between social factions and political factions

condition the political process at the district level and in tum at the state level..."

(ibid). This chapter, then, would focus on the ways in which village level factions

arise and when and how such village level factions become significant within district

politics. The discussion on village level factions would also include the networks that

these have with district, regional and state level politics in terms of caste and party

factionalism.

Generically, factions in the village societies throughout the region

have crystallized around powerful village families having economic and social

standing. This structure of factions wherein a dominant or leading family formed a

faction in the village society is quite typical of such formations. Thus, Edward Muir

in his study of vendetta and factions in Friuli of southern Italy, found that factions

"masquerade under the names of leading families and dissolve only on closer

inspection into more amorphous groups of often unrelated men bound by friendship

and patronage and to some extent by endogamy" (Smail, 1996, p. 788).

In several cases of factional rivalries in the Rayalaseema region,

these initially emerge due to contestations of honour and prestige in the village or.

93
among a group of villages under a leader's control. Factions between villages arose in

the struggle for supremacy among leaders either belonging to the same village or a

neighbouring village. Often, one of the parties to the conflict would be the headman

of a village, who is usually referred to as 'Reddy', belonging to the dominant caste in

that village or a powerful family in. the village. Traditionally, these were generally

dominant caste factions, mostly among the Reddis and the Kammas. The Reddis and

the Kammas are traditional landowning castes that enjoy social power due to their

economic dominance within a village or several villages. Alluding to this state of

affairs, Bruce L. Robert reports, "In the 1920s an Anantapur cooperative official

claimed that, power and prestige must at any cost be secured by having a large

number of village people at his [rich ryot] disposal" (Robert, 1979, p.169). This was

usually achieved by lending money to the rural poor with little hope of collecting the

interest; instead, "the ryot lender was more often interested in gaining a lien on his

debtor's crop, a promise of his labour, a pledge of loyalty in case the need might arise

during a faction fight, or perhaps, the prestige associated with magnanimity" (ibid).

Further, in British times, two prominent persons in a village was the

village magistrate and the village accountant or Karnam. 1 Christopher Baker notes,

"The business of assessing and collecting revenue, keeping records, and policing the

villages fell to the village officers. The village headman, who made collections, kept

order and often arbitrated in petty disputes, was often the rich ryot in the village ... the

karnam was often a major landholder as well. Even where they were lesser men, they

1
Interview taken in the field with CPI leader and advocate, Shri Obalesappa, in January 2003. His
statement concerning the genesis of factions in the Rayalaseema region is, mostly, general in nature
and is therefore indicative of a process rather than the specific nature of factional politics in the three
districts under study- Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kumool.

94
resided in the village and were tied closely to its economically and socially powerful

members" (Baker, 1976, p.l8). The former, in the Rayalaseema region especially,

belonged to the Reddy caste and the latter usually to the Brahmin caste. The latter

was responsible for surveying the village land for settling the land revenue, which

would be collected by the village magistrate. These posts were often hereditary. Thus,

the two power centres in a village was the village magistrate and the kamam, and

differences arose between the two over wielding power in the village. In the case of

both asserting their rights over the village, the village would be divided into groups

taking sides with either of these power centres. These two power centres would in

their tum influence superior officials like the Revenue Inspector, who exploited this

situation to control both these power centres. Factional groupings formed around

these two centres with superior officials taking sides with either the village magistrate

or the kamam, depending on the situation. In their tum, these village leaders were

able to get access to institutional power in the government machinery. Their

proximity to the government officials gave them immense power within the village to

influence and gain the support of their caste members and others who do not have

access to these resources.

Village society, which was divided into conflicting groups on these

basis until the mid-1930s experienced further schisms when the local board elections

transformed several pre-existing conflicts into electoral struggles within the village.

In the contests for local board and panchayat elections, the village magistrate and the

kamam often supported rival parties in continuation of their tussle for village

supremacy. Further, external political interference in village affairs found formal

avenues, with the introduction of local body elections with a third party often

95
exploiting the differences between the village magistrate and the kamam. Both the

village magistrate and the kamam were nominated government posts; hence it was

necessary for a political party to put up a candidate other than those who held these

posts.

By the late 1930s, two most prominent political parties were the

Congress and the Communist Party. Rayalaseema, which was a part of the composite

Madras state, had Congress party in power post-193 7 elections. 2 Usually, the person

chosen for contesting local body elections was from the dominant castes such as the

Reddis and the Kammas. In the case of the village magistrate supporting the Congress

party, the kamam was most likely to support the Communist party's candidate. In this

way, with the entry of political parties, villages were divided on party lines also.

Further, with the entry of political parties in villages, the space for political

participation was made wider with aspirations to district level leadership gaining

ground among those who were powerful in the village political structure. Thus

political rivalries then developed between village level leaders with equal social

standing to compete for district level influence and authority.

Factionalism accompanied by violence was the expression of these

conflicts of interests, mostly political, which resulted in attempts at the elimination of

one group by the other in anticipation of one's desired goals. While political contests

in the village were predominantly between communists and the Congress party,

factionalism as an intra-party phenomenon was mostly associated with the Congress

party, as most of the leaders belonged to that party. Thus, once two groups are formed

2
The political influence of the Congress party in Andhra Pradesh has been discussed in the previous
chapter.

96
in a village, the consequent friction between the two groups divides the village into

rival groups. Followers of a leader in a village either come from the leader's own

caste members, or his sub-caste members, or people of the same village or the same

neighbourhood, or because of personal loyalties. Once such groups crystallize in a

village, any dispute that arises in the village does not remain confined to the disputing

parties. The prevalent factional groups in the village take sides and incorporate the

disputing parties into their respective factions. In another case, if one party to the

dispute approaches one faction leader, the rival party approaches the opponent. This

is how the village itself is divided into two rival camps, with arbitration powers

resting on the more powerful of the faction leaders. Hence, it is not just the original

dispute between the leaders but the disputes between the people of the village, which

contribute to the perpetuation of the factional confrontations. In this process, the

principal objective of each group is to uphold their leaders' authority, primacy and

social standing against all odds.

Thus, the structure of a faction is organized around a leader, who is

socially and economically powerful within a village society, and his caste- men and

followers who does not belong to his caste but are related to him through bonds of

personal loyalty flowing from relations of clientage to the leader. Followers from

other castes would be mainly from backward caste such as the Boyas, and Scheduled

castes such as the Malas and Madigas.

Thus, a faction leader's followers may be discerned as forming

either a core or a periphery. Following James Scott who has argued in the context of

"patron-client clusters" in South-east Asia, "at the periphery of a man's following are

97
those clients who are relatively easy to detach while at the core are followers who are

more firmly bound to him. The periphery is composed of clients bound largely by

instrumental rewards, while the core is composed of clients linked by strong affective

ties, as well as clients who are attracted to a patron by such strong instrumental ties

that seem unbreakable" (Scott, 1972, p.99; emphasis in original). While such a neat

classification of leader-follower relationship is not observable on the ground, as a

pattern in patron-client formations, kinship ties often make up the core of the faction

leader's following while non-kin ties form the periphery. However, whether kinship

ties are merely based on affection and non-kin-ties on instrumental needs is an open

question as loyalty to a leader is determined by complex workings of both affective

and instrumental needs. As we have discussed in the introductory chapter, while this

type of relationship is characteristic of societies based on personal loyalties, in a

democratic setting, this relationship is tempered by the introduction of a democratic

political system based on political parties.

Thus, it is important to look at the articulation of a traditional

system based on personal loyalties with that of a purportedly democratic and

impersonal system and what happens to relationships of a factional kind in such a

setting. The transformations from a traditional political system to a modem one was

buttressed by changes in the social and economic processes that not only brought

about a change in the nature of formation of factional groupings but also changed the

idiom in which the previous system was based.

The vote and the electoral process are essential features of a

representational parliamentary democracy based on political competition between

98
several national and regional political parties. Factional alignments are important

links between political party leaders and their constituents at the village and the

district level, as the case may be. With changes in the political institutions and the

nature of political participation, then, the nature of traditional factional alignments

change from a relationship between a patron and his client to that between several

patrons and their clients. James Walston, in his study of clientelism in post-war

Calabria, southern Italy, has distinguished between ·"notable clientelism" to

characterize traditional patron-client relationships, and clientelism m modern

societies. "Notable clientelism", according to Walston, "is a set of vertical

relationships in which the solidarity of clients of the same class is overcome by the

solidarity between patron and client", ... and "the actors need not be 'unequal' in the

usual terms of social class, but they will have different access to resources" (Walston,

1988, p. 7 & p.9). The nature of patronage relationships changes from what Julian

Pitt-Rivers termed as a "lopsided friendship" to horizontal solidarities between

patrons of the same class, the friendships usually being based on the coveted

resources that either of them could provide to each other. However, "when

instrumental friendship reaches a maximum point of imbalance so that one partner is

clearly superior to the other in his capacity to grant goods and services, we approach

the critical point where friendships give way to the patron-client tie" (Wolf, p.16).

In what follows, we discuss factional politics in the three districts of

Anantapur, Kurnool and Cuddapah which is followed by a discussion of the regional

pattern of factionalism taking into account the similarities and differences in the

nature of and transformations in factional conflicts obtaining in each of the three

99
 districts. This is done in order to understand the regional political culture of

Rayalaseema vis-a-vis the political idiom prevalent in the other regions of the state.

ANANTAPUR
The District:

Anantapu? is the biggest district in Andhra Pradesh. It lies in the

drought prone 'dry' region of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. Formed in the year

1882 as an administrative ~ivision, it was expanded twice, once in 1910 and then in

1956 by the addition of several areas from Cuddapah and Bellary district m

Karnataka. This district is the southernmost of the "Ceded districts", and is

surrounded on the east and the north, by Cuddapah and Kurnool districts respectively

and on its southern and western side by the state of Karnataka. Land is not very

fertile in this district, with red soil and black cotton soils being the characteristic type.

In the northern part of the district, larger areas of black cotton soils· are found while

the central and southern region of the district has sandy red soils of average to poor

productivity.

Being situated in the territory between two coastal belts, this district

of the 'dry' Telugu region has been often visited by droughts and its consequent

famines. Anantapur was one of the worst affected districts from famines and drought

and barring the 1880's, this region of the Presidency had witnessed several famines,

the most severe occurring in 1799, 1804-7, 1811-13 and 1824 (Kumar, 1992, p.104).

Subsequently, scarcity conditions amounting to famine occurred in 1832-33, 1838,

3
Historical and socio-economic features of the district have been discussed in some detail in the
introduction.

100
N
Anantapur
(Andhra Pradesh)

f
Karnataka Cuddapah

Ma nit to Scale

DiECrid~
River
Nsbonal~
Major Road
Road
Railway Track
® Dillllrict Headqual'18f
•
0
Taluk~
TIIWII

• Te"""
Copyright (c) Mapiencelndia Umlted 2001
 1853-54 and 1866-67. This state of conditions has continued in the firsfhalf of the

20th century with drought conditions resulting from the failure of monsoons

prevailing in the district in 1920, 1934, 1937-38, 1943 and 1945-46 (District Census

Handbook, Anantapur District, 1964). The geographical position of the Peninsula

render Anantapur the driest part of the state and rains are usually rare in this district:.

This makes agricultural conditions precarious resulting in frequent crop failures.

Along with failure of rainfall, the amount of land irrigated is meager. Of the 9-lakh .

hectares of agricultural land, only 40,000 acres of land is irrigated. 4 This in tum

reflects on the agrarian wage structure in the district. Dharma Kumar reports, "wages

in Anantapur, which is one of the less fertile districts, were significantly lower than in

the other Telugu districts; in 1897-8 the Deputy Collector of the Gooty division

reported that in ordinary seasons the agricultural labourer earned from 244 to 391

seers of cholum per annum and even these low rates would fall at the time of famine",

(Kumar, op.cit, p.160). Payment of wages was usually in grain except in periods of

scarcity, both for attached farm labourers and the casual ones (ibid, p.145). Most'

agricultural labourers in Anantapur belonged to the untouchable castes of Mala and

Madiga, and Boya castes. While the former two were 'attached' to the raiyats (ryots)

and were paid in kind, the latter were paid in cash. The Malas and Madigas comprise ' .
the bulk of the landless agricultural labourer class even today (ibid, p.4 7).

Historically, the district, along with Cuddapah and Kt.irnool, has

been under the influence of 'palegars' or royal chieftains after the disintegration of ·

4
Data cited in the manual on factionalism in Anantapur, Karuvu Zil/alo Kotha Pa/egar/u, published by . • .
the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Hyderabad. Translated from Telugu.

101
 the Vijayanagar Empire in the 16th century. 5 The conflict between the 'palegar' of

Anantapur and Rayadurg in the 18th century is a significant landmark in the political

history of the district (APCLC, 1996, p.5). Around the year 1800, the whole of the

Ceded districts (Anantapur, Bellary, Cuddapah and Kurnool) had 80 'palegars' of

which 4 belonged to Anantapur. In Anantapur, 'palegars' had their influence in

Anantapur, Tharimela, Nadimidoddi and Kamlapadu with the last of them offering

some resistance to British rule.

For administrative purposes, the district has been divided into 3

Revenue Divisions- Anantapur, Dharmavaram and Penukonda- consisting of 63

Revenue Mandals. Each mandai has been divided further into several gram

panchayats, which in turn comprise of several revenue villages.

Factions in Anantapur

Contemporary factional conflicts in Anantapur district have often

been viewed as emerging due to the influence of Cuddapah and Kumool districts

which are noted for their factional violence for a long time (ibid, p.2-3). It has also

been argued that factions in Anantapur are not widespread throughout the district and

s Christopher Baker has documented the presence of poligar or 'palegar' estates in the 19th century in
the south of the Tamil area, which comprised of the districts that make up present day Rayalaseema. In
this area, "large poligar estates [were] established between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries by the
Nayak rulers at Madura" (Baker, 1976, p.2). Some of these poligar families traced their lineage back to
Telugu warriors whose ancestors had come into the country as the military captains of their kinsmen,
the Nayak rulers at Madura. Others belonged to families, which had been settled in the area before the
Nayak invasion and had been gradually drawn into the Nayak administration usually to help police the
frontiers. The poligars were seen as military agents and their role was "wholly political and not
economic" as their chief duties had been "to police their territories and to supply troops for the
sovereign" or for their own defence or aggression after the disintegration of the Vijayanagar empire in
the 17th century (ibid). Baker reports that barring those poligar estates, which were dismembered by
British conquest or the "economic strains of the mid-nineteenth century", some 30 large estates and
several lesser ones remained which in most cases were still held by the original families (ibid, p.3).

102
 are less violent in comparison to the other two Rayalaseema districts. Further, unlike

the other two districts, in Anantapur, traditional village factions have been confronted ·

by communist groups and in some parts of the district, revolutionary communist

groups have effectively quashed factions of landlords to enforce a semblance of

democracy in the villages. However it is not uncommon to observe that such

confrontations too typically took the form of factions of backward castes led by a

dominant caste leader.

In a particular case in Anantapur, a Kamma landlord confronted the

supremacy and authority of Reddis in his village and the surrounding villages. His

faction, consisting of his kinsmen and people described as chinna janam or small

people such as the Boyas, Kurubas, Eedigas, Malas and Madigas, contested the

Reddis in elections and in financial affairs for avenging the atrocities done to the

backward castes in those villages (ibid, p.Sl-2). Thus, certain factions in the district

display aspects of class conflict although the basic rivalry is between two dominant

caste landlords, one of whom had rallied the backward castes to combat the

authoritarianism of the Reddi landlords. At present, a number of factions engage

splinter groups from the communist parties to avenge their adversaries. The

communist groups involve themselves in such tussles in order to quash a particular

oppressive factionist in favour of the other. 6

6
Factional fonnations based on patron-client relationships have often been understood in social
science literature as a conceptual structure that would help explain political activity that does not
depend solely on horizontal or primordial sentiments. Insofar as patron-client networks have been seen
as providing a link between the local society and the macro-structure of the state, what have been
glossed over are the bases of such relationships in inequality. Clearly, a patron in order to be patron
would have an advantage in tenns of wealth, power and status over his clients. This fundamental
disparity is thus one of the assumptions that an analysis based on the concept of patronage overlooks,
and what is presented as a cohesive, homogeneous society, may have cleavages based on caste and
class solidarities. The local strife between factions could thus conceal "their covert dimension of class
I

103
 An illustrative case of the ways in which factional conflicts often

took the veneer of class conflict is provided by the struggle of a landlord for the poor

in his village against other Reddi landlords. Govindappa, a Kamma landlord, was

opposed to some Reddy landlords in the village where he had settled after giving his

daughters in marriage to wealthy families in that village. Since Govindappa was not a

native of the village, the Reddis who were in authority in that and its surrounding

villages resented his way of gaining authority and supremacy by helping settle

disputes in and around that village. 7 He encouraged his followers, who came from the

Ediga and Boya castes to rise against the authority of the Reddis in and around the

village. He also often took up their issues against the Reddis and in one such incident,

he defended the Edigas against the Reddis' control of their toddy society. He

provided support to all those who were willing to fight the rural bosses in and around

the village. However, it was "commonly believed that he was favoured by the poor of

the area but he was equally ruthless with poor people who were in the opponent's

group or who failed to act on his word" (ibid, p.l4). Thus, although a leader may

conflict, as the contending elite factions buil[d] downward coalitions with segments of the lower
classes ... .In this way, class tensions were converted and maintained in a different form" (Blok, 1988,
p.122). Consequently, factional politics is also seen as non-ideological, where leaders often changed
parties, where political allegiances and ideological opinions are subservient to family or clan
allegiances (Wilson, 1988, p.304 ). Even in the case of Mediterranean societies where patron-client ties
are given primacy in micro-political processes, "emphasis on the predominance of 'vertical' patron-
client ties over 'horizontal' class ties among the lower classes obscures the fact that 'horizontal
relations among the dominant classes may be strong. It obscures the way changing structures of
intermediation can be associated with political centralization forged through elite solidarity or
cooperation between elite factions in developing new patterns of class domination" (Gledhill, 1994;
2000, p.l28-9). While the analysis of solidarities based on caste and class is not in the scope of this
study, it nevertheless acknowledges the complexity of the political structure in the region of
Rayalaseema and looks at patronage networks as one of the ways in which political solidarities are
articulated in this region.
7
Blok, in his study of mafia in Sicily, has demonstrated that "in various ways and in different
degrees," peasants "were drawn into and constrained by the power domains of the landlords and their
retainers. As a result, there were fewer violent class confrontations .... People were dependent upon
kinsmen, friends, and powerful protectors for sheer physical survival. To right wrongs, to settle
conflicts, and to solve problems of various sorts, they could hardly rely on the police and law courts.
The very fact that they only rarely appealed to State-institutions for protection and to settle wrongs
reinforced the power domains of local private magnates" (Blok, 1988, p.21 0).

104
sometimys take up the cause of his followers, it is because leaders are seen as

powerful patrons for poor clients who depend on him for most of their needs, and

such disputes are, in the final analysis, between locally powerful people for

establishing their dominance.

Village factions in Anantapur, a common feature of rural social

structure in India, have existed for a long time. In Anantapur district, traditional

factions had formed around powerful village families who were mostly landlords

wielding authority and influence within a radius of several villages. He was usually a

member of the dominant caste8, a Reddy or a Kamma. These tussles were built

around property disputes, dispute over women and incidents that affected one's

reputation and honour in the village, and tussle over peddarikam or authority (ibid,

p.1 0-12). These were primarily village factions which did not have extra-local

influence and were confined to certain pockets of the district such as Pamudurthi,

Dorigallu, and Kowkuntla, to mention a few. Organized on traditional principles of

patron-client relations it was necessary for the leader of a faction to financially help

his followers or clients in return for their continued loyalty. These traditional factions,

then, gave as much importance to symbolic goods such as prestige and influence in

village society as on economic or material gains. Faction leaders in the past indulged

in those activities, which added to their prestige and prominence even at the cost of

financial losses on their part. The local patron owed his local leadership to. his · ·

8
M.N. Srinivas has used the notion of the dominant castes to denote those castes, which· are
"numerically" strongest in any village or local area, and exercise influence both economically and
politically. By this parameter, Reddis and Kammas in Andhra Pradesh quality as dominant castes,
whose most important source of power is control over land.

105
personal skills, his wealth, and occasionally to his connections with regional

leaders-- all of which enhanced his capacity to build a personal following.

The continuing availability of resources was thus an important

factor in guaranteeing the continuity of his patronage and hence local power.

Hereditary office holding in local bodies and landholding provided continuity to a

family's sway in local affairs, which were reinforced in both colonial and post-

independence times with the creation of new resources for patronage such as political

party connections, development programmes, nationalized enterprises, and

bureaucratic power. James Scott has argued that in South-east Asia "different

resources have risen <:>r plummeted in value as a basis of patronage depending upon

the nature of the political system", whereby "the capacity to mobilize an armed

following was particularly valuable in the precolonial era; access to colonial office

was a surer basis of patronage than armed force in the colonial period; and the ability

to win electoral contests often became the central resource with the advent of

independence" (Scott, op.cit., p.l 05-6). However, in our case, it is important to look

at the patronage structures from the village to the regional level, which are seen as

combining both armed might as well as the resources of a public office and positions

of executive power.

Faction leaders in turn were feared and respected (bhayamu-bheeti)

by their followers, which helped them to gain supremacy in the matters of the village.

Although violence was a pervasive feature of factions at all times, murders and

destruction of rival property were not so common as it is found in present days.

Moreover, traditional factions mostly recruited members from village society itself.

106
With the factions extending their activities to the towns of the district, factions started

recruiting mercenaries who are beneficial for the kind of needs that the factions now

have, for example, bootleggers, 'street rowdies', 'professional killers', people who

contribute to the leaders' economic and political advantage. Because of this,

engagement with violence in the present context has reached proportions

unassociated with traditional factions. These changes in the idioms of f(lctional

conflicts came about at a particular time in the political history of the district with the

entry of a few leaders having district and region wide influence, accompanied by

changes in the ways that traditional factions functioned.

The major change th~~ came about in the traditional functioning of

factions was due to the appropriation and nurturing of these factions for explicitly

political purposes. The roots of such politicization of factions could be found in

Cuddapah and Kumool towards the end of the 1970s and early 1980s (ibid, p.16). In

Anantapur district, political factions in Tadpatri mandai, which is proximate to

Cuddapah and Kumool district, gained prominence when a Congress leader and MLA

from Tadpatri came under the patronage of a prominent Congress leader and

factionist from Kumool district. Subsequently, another important Congress leader

from Cuddapah who was a rival to the Kumoolleader propped up an opponent for the

MLA from Tadpatri. Thus, district and regional leaders created local leaders for the

continuation of their rivalries at the district and in state politics, with the support of

the local leaders whom they patronized by giving political and economic patronage.

The local leaders in their tum garnered support of village level

leaders owing allegiance to them. In return, the village bosses were rewarded with

107
government contracts, political party ticket for local body elections, arms and

ammunition and all the paraphernalia that goes in making the village bosses

particularly feared in the rural locality. Rural factional organization underwent a

change in character with the district level leaders themselves creating and sustaining

the factions for their own political and economic advantage. Earlier, the rural leaders

belonged to one political party or another at the constituency level and their rivalries

were fought out within the workings of the political party in the local body elections

and for capturing power in the district boards. For the present generation of leaders,

village factions are support bases for them to achieve political mileage at the district

and the regional level in order to influence state politics.

Village factions, even in the present days, are usually within a

single caste, either between Reddis or Kammas or Boyas. With the coming of the

TDP in power, the backward classes such as the Boyas, who are stronger in a village

or a mandai, are being patronized by district level leaders. These village or mandai

level leaders owe allegiance to leaders in a different village or a mandai belonging to

the same party as theirs. Thus, a leader from the Boya caste could have a Reddy

patron within a single mandai or a district by virtue of being members of the same

political party. Inter-caste solidarities within a village or a mandai become possible

with common membership in political parties. A particular caste faction within a

village could link up with another village where a different caste faction is dominant.

However, the patron in this case would still be the dominant caste leader with the

backward caste leader owing his loyalty to the former. The dominant castes that had

monopoly in local and district level politics had to contend with the rise of the

backward castes. While this process certainly saw some democratization of politics, it

108
 did not completely erase the patronage that the dominant castes bestowed on the

lower castes, which were new entrants in the political field.

Further, the process of decentralization of administrative

establishment effected by the TOP government during its first term saw the division

of a district into mandals as administrative units above the level of the gram

panchayats in the place of taluks which were three times bigger than the mandals.

The TDP government's rationale for introducing the mandai system was to

reorganize and reduce the number of gram panchayats attached to the sub-divisional

revenue units to make them more viable. It was argued that the then existing local and

revenue administration system with large territorial units only helped vested local

leadership in the villages, which had resulted in faction fights and groupism \\ithin

the village, defeating the original purpose of deepening democracy. 9 The opposition

Congress (I) had alleged then that this was done to oust the incumbent Congress (I)

representatives from the local bodies, as it made the previous system defunct and

called for fresh elections based on the mandai system of administration. In the

changed system, Mandai Praja Parishads (MPPs) each consisting of about 35,000-

50,000 people living in about a dozen villages directly elected the president of the

MPP and the entire electorate in the district simultaneously elected the chairman of

the Zilla Praja Parishads (ZPPs). The direct election of these two important

functionaries eliminated the uncertainty in the earlier system in which the panchayat

samithi president and ZP chairmen faced a no-confidence motion every 6 months,

and the samithi presidents and sarpanches changed their loyalties frequently, creating

9
Newstime (Hyderabad), 21 April 1987.

109
 problems. 10 After the introduction of the mandai system of administration, political

party based factions came to hold centrestage as the elections of MPP representatives

and ZPP chairmen were contested on party lines.

Post 1987, village factions were distinctly divided into two rival

political parties and it was often seen that if one faction owed allegiance to one

particular party, the other faction would inevitably support the other party. However,

in some cases, village factions owing allegiance to different district level leaders

belonging to the same political party, e.g. the Congress (I) supported a single party in

the MPP and ZPP elections. In such cases, village supremacy and political rivalry

were interlinked which gave the factions a distinctly political flavour.

In addition to factions emerging due to political rivalry, village

factions arise over competition for economic ventures such as dealership of fair price .

shops, arrack contracts, and government contracts for village amenities etc. In such

cases, leaders in the villages vie for the influence and power of district level leaders

who patronize these leaders for consolidating their support base in the village for

their own advantage during elections. This has brought about new elements into the

network of factional organizations such as bootleggers and intermediaries who

provide their services to the political leaders in return for monetary benefits. The

nature of village factions have thus undergone substantial changes with their

activities being interlinked with personnel outside the village and with no direct

connection to the local dispute of the factionists. Present day factions and factional

leaders have thus widened their networks from the village to the towns and even to

10
The Hindu (Madras), 15 February 1987.

110
the state capital in order to strengthen their economic arsenal, as the organization of

factions today require strong finances. This also indicates that the present day

factions maintain a range of personnel providing various services to the faction

leader. There are three key positions that a modem faction utilizes. At the apex of

such a hierarchy is the faction leader himself; next to him in the hierarchy comes the

person who manages the group and looks after the finances of the faction; and lastly,

the person who strategises the ways of taking on the opponent of the faction leader,

either physically or economically (op.cit. p.29). It is rare to have all the three

positions combined in a single person and more than one person can hold the second

and third positions in the hierarchy simultaneously (ibid). The trusted personnel in the

faction are usually from the leader's native village or a family member or a political

ally, associated with the leader through bonds of kinship or friendship.

In mapping the genesis, nature and transformations of factions in

Anantapur district of the Rayalaseema: region, we have outlined the differences

between traditional and modem factions and how at particular junctures in the

political history of the district and the state in general, new elements have been

introduced into the structure and activities of factions, which have metamorphosed

the traditional factions into their present garb. Political and economic changes have

been significant parameters in this change. Traditional family and intra-caste factions

have given way to predominantly political factions, and the rise of the backward

classes has resulted in the formation of factions within and between dominant caste

and backward castes. The emergence of factions owing allegiance to two different

political parties was possible due to the coming into power of the Telugu Desam

Party in 1983, which ended the one party domination of the Congress (I) in state

Ill
politics and resulted in village factions being wooed by political parties of different

hues to strengthen their political currency in state politics. As the days of traditional

faction leaders waned, places of intense factional activity too shifted from these

traditional locales to those places where present day faction leaders have their bases.

Tadpatri, Dharmavaram and Penukonda are the centres synonymous with intense

factional disputes and factional violence in present day Anantapur, although violence

associated with factions could take place almost anywhere within the district and the

region. Although traditional factions continue to exist in their traditional centres, it is

the present district level leaders and MLAs in Anantapur who concentrate factional

activity in their respective constituencies. This in turn means that factions today are

determined by their articulation with democratic political system in which political

parties and their fortunes decide the emergence and termination of a faction. Unlike

factions in earlier times which continued for generations, present day factions have

their high and low points depending on the fate of the respective faction leader in

district and regional politics and ultimately in state politics.

It could be argued then, that faction and factional politics in

Rayalaseema takes various forms, differing in their nature and political articulation

within the region as a whole. However, as a form of elite politics, factionalism

involves a basic patron-client relationship, whether obtaining between the leaders in a

particular district belonging to the same political party, or leaders within the region of

Rayalaseema, or that between leaders and followers within any given faction. In the

next two sections, the discussion centers on the nature of factional conflicts in

Kurnool and Cuddapah, the two other districts of Rayalaseema known for factional

112
 violence, and the ways in which the idioms of factional politics in the three districts

define the regional political structure of Rayalaseema.

KURNOOL
The District

Kurnool derives its name from its district head quarters Kurnool

town. It is an old urban settlement and served as capital of the former Nawabs and it

was also capital of the Andhra state from October 1953 to 151 November, 1956. The

district has boundaries with Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers and Mahabubnagar

district on the north, with Cuddapah and Anantapur districts on the south, the state of

Karnataka on the west, and with Prakasam district on the east.

Although the topography of the district is roughly similar to that of

Anantapur district, the Pennar and the Hundri rivers drain Kurnool. It is also

characterized by two mountain ranges, Nallamala and Erramala which runs parallel

from North to South of the district, with the latter dividing the district into two well-

defined tracts- east and west. These mountain ranges facilitate some rainfall in the

district. The eastern tract of the district comprising of 25 mandals has predominantly

black cotton soils while the western part comprising of 28 mandals has mostly black

cotton soil in the northwest and predominantly red soil in the southeastern parts. This

district also lies on the 'famine zone' of the region with the exception of the central

part of the district, which gets irrigation from the Kurnool-Cuddapah canal (KC

canal), 11 and some other parts of the district at the base of the hills. The eastern part

11
13 villages in Kumool taluk, 21 villages in Nandikotkur taluk, 17 villages in Atmakur taluk, 32
villages in Nandyal taluk, 26 villages from Koilkuntla taluk got irrigation from this canal. See Eenadu,
April 8, 1976.

113
 Kurnool
(Andhra Pradesh)
Mahbubnagar

Rlvw
NatioN~~~ Anantapur
Map net to Seal& Major Road

-•
®
Road
Rallwlly Track
Dlalrlct Headquarter
Taluk Headqllater Cuddapa:h
0 Town Copyright (e) Mapienoe India UmiU!d 2001
 of the district yields superior and frequent crop outputs as it has a better natural

supply of surface and underground water. The rest of the district, especially the Owk

mandai gets the least quantity of rainfall and suffers from scarcity more often. 12 This

was the region, which suffered most from the periodic droughts and famines in the

district.

The major share of the land-holdings in this district are owned by.

the Reddis and the Kammas, while the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes own

semi-medium landholdings (Rao, 1998, p.65). Other castes have more of individual

land holdings, with the number of marginal cultivators being higher than other

categories of cultivators in all the castes (ibid). Available data on the wage pattern in

the district show some decline in wages (Kumar, op.cit., p.160). Payments were made

in cash but only for cultivation of special products such as cotton, although in some

cases payments were made in kind (ibid, p.145). Although sharecropping was

prevalent, in actuality sharecroppers were agricultural labourers, getting around 25

per cent of the crop for their labour (ibid, p.170). Bonded labour was reported to be

prevalent even after independence. In 1977, one Venkata Ramappa of Bommanapalli

in the Pattikonda taluk of the district was arrested under Internal Security Act on the

complaint of some 'sugali' women that some 40 families were kept as bonded labour

at his place. 13

The principal agricultural castes in the district are the Kapus

(Reddis), Kammas and Balijas. The Malas and Madigas, who form the two principal

sub-castes under the Harijans, are largely labourers, both agricultural and non-

12
District Census Handbook, Kumool District, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1964.
13
See Eenadu , June I 0, 1977.

114
 agricultural. Other castes such as the Edigas, Yadavs, Kuru bas and Boyas follow

distinct caste occupations, besides holding some land as tenants (Rao, op.cit, p.80).

The historical trajectory of this district is similar to that of the other

districts of the region of Rayalaseema. This district had also seen the uprising of

'palegars' or military chieftains of the Vijayanagar times once the British, under

Munro's command, tried to consolidate their rule in the region. Of the 80 'palegars'

in this region, 22 were from Kumool (present day Kumool along with Markapuram

division). Kothakonda, Kappatralla, Devanakonda, Owk, and Koilkuntla were some

of the areas dominated by 'palegars' when the district was ceded to the British

(APCLC, 1993, p.7). Most notable among the 'palegars' in this region was

Narasimha Reddy who revolted against the Bri~ish for abolishing their zamindari. He

was subsequently arrested and executed under Munro's collectorship of this region

(ibid).

Since 1955, the local administrative set-up of the district is arranged

as a three-tier system consisting of gram panchayats, samithis, and Zilla Parishads.

Samithis were re-arranged to·form mandals after the TDP came to power. At present,

there are 821 panchayats, 54 Mandai Praja Parishads (MPPs) and one Zilla Parishad

(ZP). Each mandai comprises of 20 to 25 villages of a population of 35,000 to 55,000

and its own Praja Parishad (APCLC, 1993, p.6). The election system and the election

procedures to ZPs and MPPs were further modified when the TDP came to power for

the second time in 1994 (ibid). 14

14
The other features of the local administration introduced by the TDP government have been
discussed earlier while discussing Anantapur district. These features are uniform throughout the
districts of Andhra Pradesh and hence needs no further elucidation.

115
Factions in Kurnool:

As has been noted in the case of Anantapur district, factions in the

Rayalaseema region, to which Kurnool belongs, are a pervasive feature of rural social

and political structure for a long time. It has also been noted that it was in Kumool

that violent factions first manifested in the early 1970s and then influenced the

political culture in Anantapur (APCLC, 1998, p.2). Factions in this district are

characterized by the presence of inter-caste factions, for instance, between BCs and

Reddis, between two Scheduled Castes, and that between BCs and SCs. Another

distinguishing feature of factions in Kumool is the excessive prevalence of "armed"

factions and the violence perpetrated by them, when compared to factions in

Anantapur. In fact, it has often been argued that the influence of Kumool on

Anantapur has led to factions becoming violent in the latter (ibid, p.2-3). Factional

politics was mostly characterized in Kurnool by violence where "the bomb

culture ... can be traced back to 1972 when a man called Eashwara Reddy exploded

the first bomb in Allagadda. Until then factions had fought with each other with

sickles" (Rao, op.cit, p.88).

Village factions in Kumool arose for much the same reasons as that

m Anantapur. Traditional factions were mostly Reddi factions, which arose for

wielding village supremacy and due to questions of honour related to women and

property. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1908 has noted, " there is a widespread

prevalence of murders, rioting, and skirmishes between groups of people under the

leadership of rural notables, primarily due to envy, land related disputes and age-old

116
rivalries. Mostly land disputes led to serious lootings". Traditional factions, as that in

Anantapur, were a result of rivalries about property and prestige in rural society,

without any economic or political ambitions beyond the village. At times, matters of

honour also led to the formation of factions. Traditional factions often started as a

small incident of conflict over land or exercising of authority and escalated until

every murder had been avenged and all incidents of arson were reciprocated.

Under the British regime, rural factions were predominant in the

erstwhile taluks along the border of Cuddapah and Kumool, particularly b

neighbouring taluks of Kovelakuntla in Kumool district and Jammalamadugu in

Cuddapah district. Rural faction rivalries were also prevalent in some villages in

Allagadda and Pattikonda taluks during those times. These factions were limited to

the village level through taluk board and other village level elections. After the

1970s, however, these village factions crossed the village boundaries to capture

points of executive power in the District Boards and the· state legislature. The

traditional factions that started with taluk and district level political tussles have

continued even to this day between powerful families in the district. One such contest

for the 1938 elections to the taluk boards between a Congress party candidate

belonging to the Backward Classes and a Justice party candidate belonging to a

powerful Reddy family had led to rivalries, as the latter could not win the election.

This had led to political rivalry between the two families and became centred at the

places from which the two candidates hailed. These political rivalries continue to

exist in the form of factions between these two families in some areas of Kumool

until this day. As these local body elections were contested on non-party lines, they

117
 took the form of individual fights, which led to the formation of factions between the

two parties in the village.

As is the case in Anantapur, in Kumool too, the structure of the

factions from the village upwards is based on the loyalty of particular village leaders

to district level leaders who in tum are patronized by state level leaders. The structure

of the faction is like that of a "cascade" starting from the village level factions to the

district and regional level factions (APCLC, 1993, p.8). 15 Factional interlinkages

operated through the district leaders patronizing one or the other village faction leader

for political support during elections. Subsequently, however, the village level leaders

themselves became a part of the local administrative structure and came to hold

positions of village sarpanches, presidents of Agricultural and Marketing Societies,

and Samithi presidents. Once these village level leaders became a part of formal

politics, they commanded more prestige and authority and in tum were held in some

regard by the district bosses. In this process, the. .itional village factions became a

part of the democratic political structure, and factional violence became a means of

achieving success in elections.

A crucial difference between the traditional factions and present day

factions, similar to that in Anantapur, is the appropriation of economic goods by

illegal means. In Kumool, the principal areas in which illegal means of amassing

wealth predominate are arrack business, civil contracts, and forest and industrial

resources. Besides these, faction leaders collect various kinds of 'taxes' from traders

15
Scott has argued that if a patron-client link is broadened to include larger structures that are related
by the joining of many such links, we can talk of a patron-client cluster and a patron-client pyramid.
The former refers to a patron's immediate following- those clients who are directly related to him; and
the latter refers to the enlarging on the cluster but still focusing on one person and his vertical links
(Scott, 1972, p.96).

118
and businessmen. During the prohibition of arrack in the state, illegal arrack business

fed factional politics in the district. Over a period, faction leaders entered the arrack

business and cornered contracts because of their political and economic power in the

district. Faction leaders also often formed syndicates among themselves to arrive at

compromises to siphon away the spoils of the business amongst themselves. In

Allagadda, two Reddy families distributed among themselves the areas of influence

into two regions, each taking control of some mandals for their individual businesses.

Faction fights erupted in the process of bidding and securing contracts once the ban

on arrack was lifted. The manipulative methods applied by the faction leaders

succeeded in obstructing revenue from arrack as most of the faction leaders were

close to the government in power or were elected members ·to the state legislature.

Besides electoral politics, arrack business and civil contracts are important reasons

for factions to arise and factional disputes to continue for generations. As in the case

of arrack contracts, in the case of civil contracts for the construction of roads and

canals, in the membership of co-operative societies and welfare schemes, the hold of

the faction leaders remains similar. These avenues are manipulated for economic

advantages over a rival factionist, although it is striking that in some cases, a group of

faction leaders would form a syndicate to get a contract in their favour, which is then

shared by them. The factionists wield such complete power over others in the field

that it is not possible for non-factionists to outmanouever them. 16 Two of the most

16
There are several ways in which a civil contract is usually rigged by the faction leaders in their
favour: When a tender for a contract is called, the leaders do not let anybody place a tender until the
government has increased the estimate money for the project and placed the notice again. This
procedure is repeated until the government quotation reaches a certain desired level. Thereafter, the
faction leaders prevent others from placing the tender while putting dummy tenders so that they finally
bag the project. After they secure the tender, they either carry out the work themselves or sell it to
some other person for a commission.

119
notorious civil contracts that were taken over by faction leaders are the Telugu Ganga

Project, and the Srisailam Right Canal Project. Faction leaders from Atmakur,

Panyam, and Kovelakuntla reaped huge benefits out of these projects by extracting

commissions from the contractors of the projects. In the case of the Srisailam project,

local leaders could not manipulate the contract as global tenders were invited in

accordance with World Bank instructions. However, faction leaders extorted

commissions by threat from the contractors of the project and allegedly an ex-MLA

of Panyam constituency extorted a sum of rupees 50 lakhs from the contractors. The

same story is repeated in the case of illegal quarrying of minerals and· stones to that of

usurping forest produce for individual economic gains. In all these, the district level

faction leaders have the support of the local faction leaders who act as accomplices in

their illegal profit making activities. The structure of factions in Kurnool district has

MLAs and ministers at the top, civil and excise contractors, smugglers and

disreputable businessmen at the middle, and village landlords at the locallevel. 17

In Kurnool district, the presence of factions is distinct in different

geographical tracts of the district. Pervasive factionalism is prevalent in the southern

part of the district whereas in the rest of the district factions are present in some

mandals. Local level faction leaders are patronized by MLAs or ex-MLAs in most

cases of factional conflicts. In the eastern part of the district, the factions are between

In the situation where 2 or 3 faction leaders are in a conflict over a contract, they usually form a
syndicate and distribute the profit. Alternatively, they distribute the areas of domination and enter into
facts whereby one would not attempt to secure contracts in another's area (APCLC, 1993).
7
Blok has considered "the village, its territory, and the outside world" as "the setting in which
Mafiosi operated. More specifically, this setting involves landlords and peasants as well as
professionals, civil servants, and politicians" (Blok, 1988, p.9). In a similar vein, it might be argued
that within a region, factional politics utilized the interlinkages between village bosses, local
politicians, elected leaders, professionals such as lawyers as well as illegal business and mercenaries.
Any understanding of factional politics should therefore have to appreciate these interlinkages between
interdependent individuals.

120
 the Reddis, whereas in the western part village level factions are between two

backward castes, which transform into factions between Reddis and the BCs above

the village level (APCLC, 1993, p.22). This is mainly due to the concentration of

Reddis in the eastern part of the district who fight for supremacy and dominance in

the villages. The pattern of factional tussles in the western part of the district changes

in that factions here are mainly between BCs as their concentration in this part of the

district is greater compared to the other castes, and also due to the rise of BCs in state

politics during TDP's regime. These BC factions at the village level are patronized

either by BC or Reddy leaders at the district, state and regional level.

Factional tussles between Reddis and BCs in this district have a

specific trajectory of development. The Reddis were predominant in the Congress

party during the latter's rule of over 3 decades in the state. Most local level factions

in the 1950s owed allegiance to the Congress party until the emergence of the TDP in

the early 1980s. With the rise of the TDP, the Backward Castes of the state and the

district found a political opportunity to challenge the traditional dominance of the

Reddy caste. Moreover, those Reddis who had failed to succeed politically under the

Congress regime shifted their allegiance to the new TDP. This intensified factional

struggles at the local level between Reddis who contested each other under the banner

of rival Congress (I) and the TDP. Thus, along with .the intensification of factional

struggles between Reddis in the eastern part of the region of the district, in the south-

western part of the district BC and Reddy factions fought each other on political party

lines. Further, the political culture of factionalism permeated all levels from the

village to the district, as local level leaders themselves became political leaders and

contested elections starting from the panchayat level to the state level. Consequently,
.
121
the elected representatives at panchayat, MPP, ZP and state level had to form their

own factions in order to grab political power. This led to a proliferation of factions at

all levels, making factional politics the dominant idiom of politics in the region.

Village factions during Congress rule had the patronage of a single

party, the Congress. The factions of the same village got patronage from two different

leaders within the Congress party itself. With the advent of TDP, village factions

aligned themselves around the two rival political parties. In Kumool, village factions

have typically formed around two powerful families. Most of these families were

either from the Reddy caste or from the Backward Castes. In some constituencies of

the district, factional political tussles have been limited to two families, both

belonging to the Reddy caste. In those constituencies where there is direct

contestation between the members of two families, there are two distinct groups

within the villages under the control of the respective families. In such cases, the

entire village gets divided into two rival political groups with each group supporting

the party of their patron-leader. Although some members of the village do not

associate with either of the leaders, they are compelled to take sides to avoid facing

the wrath of the faction leaders. Although elections to the Mandai Praja Parishad and

the Zilla Parishad are fought on party lines, panchayat elections are also influenced

by factional tussles between leaders at the district and the mandai level with the tacit

support of rival factionists to the leaders at the village level. Thus, although the

intensity of factional fights is mostly observed in the mandai and district level, gram

panchayat elections are not free from the factional idiom of politics.

122
 In Kurnool, a few traditional Reddy families in the Assembly

constituencies of Nandikotkur, Panyam, Atmakur, Allagadda, Kovelakuntla,

Pattikonda have influenced the politics of the region. These factions started in the

1970s between two Reddy families in each constituency and have witnessed several

violent events in which members of either family had been murdered for electoral

gains. Some of these families have also shifted their political allegiances from the

Congress in the past to the TDP in the present, after being refused Congress ticket or

because their rivals belonged to the Congress. These Reddy families have Reddy

faction leaders at the village level to support them during elections. Their followers

usually belong to the BCs or the SCs. These rival families also influence the elections

in other constituencies by virtue of their district level clout. In the Kovelakuntla

Assembly constituency, for instance, Reddy families from Allagadda and Panyam

wield their influence. Similarly, in the Pattikonda Assembly constituency, district

level faction leaders belonging to two rival political parties influence the electoral

results.

Besides the traditional Reddy factions, in some constituencies there

are factions between Reddis and Kammas and Reddis and BCs. In these places,

factional struggles are more intense as the rival parties belong to the dominant caste.

In some cases, when two district level leaders contest elections from the same party,

factions at the district level come together and support a single candidate, but the

village level factions remain divided and usually work against the rival candidate.

Such was the case in the Dhone Assembly constituency where two district level

leaders belonging to rival political parties had opposed each other since 1983. When

one ofthem shifted allegiance from one party to that of his rival's political party, the

123
district level factions came together as there was no direct opposition from one leader

to the other. However, the village factions owing allegiance to the two rival leaders

continued to oppose each other within the village. In some constituencies, which do

not have factional tussles between district leaders, candidates still make use of village

level factions in order to win elections. Such is the case in Adoni Assembly

constituency, where the rival Congress (I) and TDP candidates do not have factions at

·the district level but take advantages of factions prevailing at the village level. In this

constituency, factions at the village level exist between Reddis and BCs, BCs and

SCs and between BCs in some of the mandals. While the Congress usually gets the

support of Reddy and SC factions at the village level, the TDP utilizes the support of

Kamma and BC factions at the village and mandallevels.

Thus, in Kurnool district, multi-caste factions are more

prevalent than in the other two districts. As has been argued earlier, this is mainly

because of the concentration of a particular caste in an area within the entire district.

Factions between BCs and SCs is also more prevalent in this district due to the rise of

a particular BC faction leader at the district level, who has not only challenged the

traditional authority of a Reddy family in the district, but because of his district and

state level clout has been able to rally the BCs in the district. In present day Kurnool,

the factions between his and his rival Reddy family influences most of the political

outcomes and state politics too. The long-standing factional struggles between these

two families have given great impetus to the rural rivalries in the western part of the

district from where these two families hail. In the constituencies where they have

influence, incidences of factional violence occurred as everyday reality, which

intensified during the elections.

124
 In Kumool, the factional mode of politics usually takes one of these

two forms: one, where two powerful families are antagonistic to each other where

their rivalry pervades the areas of their influence and the families themselves are

identified as faction families maintaining their respective groups in the villages and

mandals; two, where two powerful political leade~s whose conflicting political

interests prove to be a catalyst for pervasive schisms in the areas of their influence

while they themselves might not be actively engaged in maintaining the faction

group. In either case, the followers come from the SCs such as the Malas and the

Madigas, and from the BCs where the rivalry is between two Reddy caste members.

In cases where there are factions within BCs and within SCs, the tensions between or

among them or their sub-castes often work in favour of faction leaders from the

dominant castes. These BC or SC factions would often join the rival Reddy leaders in

a village reinforcing the divisions within their caste and that of the Reddis.

As is the case with factions in Anantapur, regional elites from

various castes usually form the top level of the structure of district politics, with

followers and factions from either their own caste or lower castes forming the base of

support. In the case of Kumool district, dominant caste leaders wield their influence

within district politics while a few BC leaders have also been able to rival the Reddy

leaders, mostly belonging to the Congress after the rise of the TDP. While the

structure and interlinkages between village, mandai and district level leaders continue

in the same pattern as that in Anantapur, factions in this district are marked by the

presence of BC leaders who have been able to influence district politics to a greater

extent than that noticed in the case of Anantapur. Thus, while at the village level,

there is the presence of intra-caste factions, at the district level, inter-caste factions

125
between dominant castes such as the Reddis and the Kammas and the BCs sets the

political tenor. This in turn indicates that while village level .factions are based on

vertical patron-client ties between various castes, at the district level political

conflicts tend to be drawn on the basis of horizontal caste/ class solidarities. Within

the region, however, political elites across castes form factions for mainly political

gains and for social dominance. The faction leaders belonging to one particular

political party also come together in situations which concern their political fate in

state politics and in such cases factional tussles at the district level intensifies starting

from the village to the district level.

In the next section on Cuddapah district, the nature of the district

level factions, their relationship with factions at the village and the mandallevel, and

their interlinkages with that of the other districts, if any, would be discussed. A

regional political history based on the factional politics prevalent in the region, would

form the final section of this chapter.

CUDDAPAH
The District ·

This district lies at the heart of the tract of land that forms the

Southern Deccan Plateau, the geographical territory commonly referred to as

Rayalaseema. Cuddapah spreads northwards beneath the slopes of the Eastern Ghats,

bounded by Kurnool district on the north, by Nellore district on the east, by Chittoor

district on tlie south and by Anantapur district on the west. The district has its share

of hill ranges and rivers. The Cuddapah hill ranges from the central portion of the

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Eastern Ghats with mountains such as the Nallamalais, Vellikondas and Palakondas.

The river Penneru runs from the west to the east, with the northern and southern

slopes of the district draining into it. Black cotton soils are predominant in this

district as elsewhere in the Rayalaseema region.

There are three distinctly discernible natural divisions. The

"western plains" lying contiguous with similar black cotton plains of Kurnool and

Anantapur districts, comprises of Jammalamadugu, Proddatur, Kamalapuram,

Pulivendula and Cuddapah (District Census Handbook, Cuddapah District, 1964).

This part of the district is richer compared to the other two parts. The tract called the

"eastern valley" is the stretch of land forming the valley between two hill ranges and

comprises the Rajampet, Badvel and Sidhout mandals (ibid). This area comes next in

agricultural resources to the western plains and is noted for its forest wealth. The

third natural division of the district, the "southern plateau" is a rain shadow area on

the edge of the Mysore Plateau and is the endemic famine zone of the district. This

tract has poor· red sandy soil unsuitable for cultivation accounting for the low crop

yields (ibid). Agricultural practices are similar to Anantapur and Kumool districts,

the principal crops being grown are varieties of gram, groundnut and other oilseeds,

and cotton, which needs little water and are suited to the dry conditions that

characterize this region of Andhra Pradesh. The district is noted, especially in the

eastern valleys and the southern plateau for its horticulture plantations of citrus fruits,

mangoes and melons. The Kumool-Cuddapah canal (KC canal) is one of the principal

sources of irrigation in this district. 18 There was no uniform land revenue system in

18
6 villages in Jammalamadugu taluk, 44 in Cuddapah taluk, 53 villages in Proddatur taluk, and I
village in Kamlapuram taluk were under irrigation from the canal. See, Eenadu, April 8, 1976.

127
this region before the advent of British rule until under Munro's regime, when

Ryotwari system of land tenure was introduced, whereby each ryot held his land

immediately from the Government under a patta, and the land revenue was drawn up

on a scale of rates for the different classes under which the fields were classified. This

district has a rich mineral resource with the country's largest share of birates coming

from this district.

The political history of the district as a part of the regwn of

Rayalaseema is similar to that of the other two districts. Of all the dynasties that ruled

over this region, the Vijayanagara kingdom was the most notable for its attempt at

centralization of power and its resistance to the Mughal onslaught. After the fall of

this dynasty of rulers, the regiori had come under the authority of petty rulers, called

'palegars'. Of the 80 'palegars' enumerated by Munro, 37 were from this part of the

region of Rayalaseema. In the 18th century, the southern plateau area of the district

was under the rule of 'palegars'. In this district, powerful 'palegar' families were

prevalent in the old Rayachoti taluk. Under Munro's regime, these 'palegars' were

either executed or given pensions for the maintenance of their domains.

The local administrative system in the district is similar to other

parts of the state and the district is divided into 50 Mandals.

Factions in Cuddapah

Cuddapah, along with Kumool have been the hotbeds of factional

conflicts and violence for a longer time than that witnessed in Anantapur. While in

Cuddapah, factions as a part of the everyday social life far surpasses that noticed in

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the case of Anantapur and Kumool, an atmosphere of fear and threat of violence

permeates certain parts of Kumool. In Cuddapah, the faction mode of doing politics

is all-pervasive, with all forms of associational life being polarized into two faction

groups.

As has been noticed in the case of Anantapur and Kumool, in

Cuddapah too, traditional factions arose due to disputes over village supremacy

between village headmen and those who chose to oppose the hereditary authority of

the headman. In most cases, the opposition to the village headman would come from

fellow caste members, who are usually from the Reddy caste. Authority and power in

the matters of the village, representation of the village to the administration or sarkar,

family disputes and illicit relationships are some of the reasons for conflicts to arise

and continue. These factions, as long as they were limited to the village boundaries

were not influential in the political life of the district and the state. It was in the 1980s

that these village factions started getting the patronage of district and state level

leaders for their political gains. Especially after the 1989 Assembly elections, several

leaders who had their own factions or who patronized factions came to occupy

important positions in state level politics. Three Reddy leaders from Kumool,

Cuddapah, and Anantapur respectively came to influence state politics significantly

after these elections. In present day Cuddapah, the domination of factions is found in

the black cotton soils of the Penna valley. The most pervasive and intense factional

conflicts are noticed in the areas that are situated in this valley- Jarnmalamadugu,

Proddatur, and Pulivendula. This area is the epicenter of factional domination of the

three most important leaders from Cuddapah after 1978- all belonging to the

dominant Reddy caste (APCLC, 1996, p.5).

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 In Cuddapah too, the process whereby village factions entered

district politics started with elections to village panchayats. The system of

decentralization of democracy was utilized by the traditional factions to settle scores.

In due course, panchayat elections became the arena for factions to originate, which

later moved up further to the mandai and constituency level. Political rivalries

intensified the already existing disputes in a village between either two families or

between incumbents of positions of authority in the village. With patronage of district

level leaders, the village factions could gain the legitimacy that comes with proximity

to positions of power, which also enabled to strengthen their control over the village.

With the influence of political parties on village factions, the

character of the factions changed. When group rivalries were confined to the village,

earning wealth and gaining political power were not the immediate ends. It was

mainly a tussle over village domination and a conflict situation was precipitated only

when a new contender staked claim for village leadership. With the polarization of

the village along political party lines, every dispute was centred on the principal

conflict between the two opposing parties. Any dispute over property or inter-caste

disputes would immediately be affiliated with the two rival political leaders and in

this process a conflict between two individuals precipitate in a rift in the social fabric

of the village itself.

Something else also changed with the factions turning into groups

with primarily political manifestations. Political factions had to necessarily provide

patronage to their followers at the village, mandai and the district level, which meant

that a substantial financial resource had to be accumulated for that purpose. This

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 necessitated exploiting the various public and private economic resources. Thus, with

the increased activity of political leaders in the factional politics of the district, illegal

arrack business, illegal contracts for public roads and bridges, bootlegging, and other

illicit ~rade flourished. In contrast to the traditional factions, modern factions by

virtue of their proximity to government officials and ministers could approximate the

· public and private contracts for their own political and economic gains. Thus,

political conflicts became buttressed by economic conflicts with an increase in

violence as factionists and their followers resorted to physical force against those who

opposed them. Village factions were also transformed to an extent with the advent of

the new avenues for economic gains. Disputes regarding arrack contracts, fair price

shops and government contracts now lead to the formation of factions at the village

level. In this process, not only were the old faction villages transformed but a lot of

other villages got sucked into the vortex of factional politics as illegal means of

economic gains were appropriated by powerful people in these villages.

In Cuddapah, factional politics at the district and the state level has

been synonymous with three places and three persons. The three adjacent mandals

(and erstwhile taluks) of Proddatur, Pulivendula and Jammalamadugu situated in the

northwestern part of the district has been noted for intense factional conflicts. In

Proddatur, rural factions were a prominent feature since the 19th century. A particular

village, Tanguturu, had factions since pre-independence days, which continue even to

this day. The conflict started during gram panchayat elections when a candidate

supported by the TDP was pitted against the sarpanch of the village who had held

that post for 30 years. The opponent was propped up by the then MLA from

Proddatur. However, Proddatur factions had started with political ambitions of a

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 particular Reddy leader. This leader has a communist background whose political

career began with organizing trade unions in the early '70s. He entered mainstream

politics in 1978 and became an MLA in 1983 on TDP ticket. He became a liquor

contractor once he won the election and amassed great wealth. As his clout in the

district was perceived as a threat to another Reddy leader from the Congress (1), the

latter encouraged another Reddy and an ex- MLA against his rival Reddy in the

district. What followed was a rivalry between the two Reddy leaders and their

supporters at the district and state level. Although the latter belonged to the Congress

(1), he urged his protege to join TDP and fight his rival Reddy in the elections. It has

been often remarked that this opponent would hoist Congress flag on his car

replacing the TDP's as soon as he was out of his constituency during election

campaigns (ibid, p.38). Thus, factional loyalties seem to be the primary allegiance in

the political culture of the district and indeed of the region, making all other

affiliations subservient to it.

One of the reasons for the conflict between the Reddy leader from

TDP and his opponent propped up by his rival Reddy leader from the Congress (I)

was the clash of interest over liquor contracts. They held liquor contracts among

themselves operating under a trust that the TDP leader had founded for the auction of

government liquor contracts. He put his own men on the trust so that he can get the

auctions year after year in his favour, which led to a lot of violence between the two

Reddis. They also inflicted losses on each other whenever the auction went in one

party's favour than the other. This happened in 1986 when the contract went to his

opponent and he inflicted a loss of 30 lakh rupees on him. For the next four years,

they reached a compromise and took the contract alternately. This illustrates that for

132
 the purposes of economic gain, faction leaders usually came together and divided the

spoils among themselves. In the case of Kurnool we have noticed that faction leaders

form syndicates and these syndicates in tum divide the spoils from government

contracts among its members.

The present generation of faction leaders m Cuddapah has thus

surpassed the earlier generation of leaders by its articulation with other spheres

outside the village society for economic resources and personnel for violence. This

new generation leaders, who came up in the 1970s, used them effectively to bypass

the old leaders. Subsequently, the competition between the new leaders became

intense and factions in the district got an impetus with these leaders actively

supporting second rung leaders in the district who were themselves contesting each

other economically and politically at the mandai or the village level. With the nature

of factions turning primarily political, their economic character also underwent a

substantial change with newer avenues of economic gain being opened up. While this

is not true of all the factions, most of the prominent factions associated with big

leaders at the district and the state level have seen an increase in their economic

fortunes, making factional activity in the district a lucrative economic opportunity in

the face of general economic backwardness of the district. This has seen the induction

of a class of people who are branded as criminals and 'rowdies' in common parlance

into the factional network in a significant way. These men graduated into small town

factionists themselves under these circumstances. Extortion, land grabbing, real estate

panchayats, and intimidation of official machinery became routine. All the key

positions of public office too started becoming an arena for political contestation by

these small leaders. By the end of the 1980s, politics, government machinery and

133
social life were taken over by factional activities and its echoes could be heard in the

state capital, Hyderabad.

While the TDP leader from Proddatur has been seen as a

progressive leader with sympathies with the disprivileged and the Congress (I) leader

from Pulivendula has been seen as a mass leader concerned with people's welfare,

another Reddy leader from Jammalamadugu does not have such pretensions. In his

constituency, faction rivalries at the village level have been present since the British

times. A number of villages in this constituency have been noted for rural factions

under the control of Reddy patriarchs (ibid, p.44). The Reddy from Jammalamadugu

emerged as a leader when he contested as Samithi president against another Reddy

patriarch in 1975. After he won as the samithi president, he used the prevalent faction

culture to dominate and bring under his control several villages adjoining his native

village. His main opponent was the family of another Reddy who was the sarpanch of

Devagudi village. This family had once helped him but they had turned against him

when he had joined TDP in 1983 and had been elected as an MLA from

Jammalamadugu. The Congress (I) leader from Pulivendula also tried to mobilize all

those who opposed the Reddy leader from Jammalamadugu after 1983 and supported

all those who were opposed to the latter's followers in various villages. In the decade

following Reddy's election as MLA, Jammalamadugu witnessed several instances of

violence. With the direct opposition to his domination coming from his erstwhile

supporters, the Reddy family in Devagudi, after 1990 the factional tussles between

these two families took an overt form until the Reddy MLA from Jammalamadugu

himselfwas murdered in Hyderabad in 1994.

134
 The factional rivalry between the Reddy leader from

Jammalamadugu and the Devagudi Reddis had started in 1983 and had intensified

subsequently with one party patronizing a particular leader of a village under the

other party's control. This rivalry was later extended to control of liquor business in

Jammalamadugu in a similar fashion to that noticed in the case of Proddatur. There

was both conflict and compromise on the question of liquor contract between the two

Reddis. While the conflict was mainly on the amount of financial gain or loss that

either party suffered, there was always a compromise on the question of sharing the

liquor contracts between them, until his opponents killed the MLA.

While the Reddy leaders from Proddatur and Jammalamadugu were

primarily faction leaders in their own constituencies, the Congress (I) leader from

Pulivendula who is also a prominent leader in state politics cannot be seen as merely

a constituency level leader. The political space that he commands spans the entire

district and hence his decision is crucial in many constituency level faction tussles

where he commands a lot of prestige and power. His native place Pulivendula had

witnessed political tussles between his father and another Reddy over supremacy in

the erstwhile taluk of Pulivendula. In their tussle for supremacy, the communists

supported the former while the latter had the support of the Erukalas who are from

the SCs. The former had monopoly on the illegal mining of minerals called birates

since the 1960s, which resulted in the family amassing a huge quantity of wealth,

which helped his son launch his political career. His economic dominance enabled

him to buy votes, set up factions against his rivals, which ended the supremacy that

his Reddy opponent enjoyed in Pulivendula.

135
 The tussle between the prominent Congress (I) leader from

Pulivendula and his rivals in the district took factional form when the former tried to

establish his supremacy in several villages in the mandai. In a particular village in

Lingala mandai of erstwhile Pulivendula taluk, a Reddy family owing allegiance to

their rival was confronted by the Congress leader's faction and most of tfiem were

eliminated in order to establish the latter's supremacy. In the ensuing violence, the

rival family was silenced in the face of attacks by factionists backed by the Congress

leader. The political career of the Congress (I) leader had taken off in 1978 and

subsequently he had come to command authority and prestige as a state level

Congress leader more than a factionist. Although he is known more as a state level

leader, his political career had taken off with the help of setting up ofrival factions in

his constituency, Pulivendula. After the decline of his rival's influence in

Pulivendula, the said Congress leader had set about effecting compromises between

rival faction leaders of faction villages. This was done not in order to instill

democratic ethos among them, but in order to win both the parties to his side so that

his support in the villages were strengthened, even as they remained as separate

groups in the village itself. According to the terms of this compromise, the Congress

leader is given the right to confiscate the property of the party who violates the norms

of peaceful conduct as laid out by the leader's diktats. This establishes a provisional

peace in the villages while giving the political advantage to the leader and his

political fortunes. While he foreclosed the possibility of village level conflicts in his

own constituency for his political compulsions, in the other parts of the district he

indulged in putting up rival factions to counter the rise of a particular leader who

posed a threat to his power and political ambitions within the district and the state.

136
 This was the case in Jammalamadugu where he supported one Reddy family against

another, and in Proddatur where he put up a Reddy against his rival Reddy leader

from the TDP. In all these cases, he put up a candidate who could contest their rivals

with the support of the factions, which were supported by him in the constituency.

For achieving his objective, he not only gave succour to the already existing factions

but also set up new factions where there were none. In cases where he effected

compromises between two rival village factions, it ensured that he continued to have

the support of both the factions, as each faction tried to prove their loyalty to him.

Ambakapalli and Inagaluru village in Pulivendula are two such villages where the

entire village owes its allegiance to him as their leader even though there are rivalries

within the village.

Thus, it could be argued that although this Congress leader and his

family did not have direct factional rivalries with anyone in the district, they utilized

the prevailing faction culture for political gains at the district and the state leveL To

the extent that he encouraged factions in villages to emerge and the illegal enterprises

that he indulged in, he is no different from a typical faction leader. However, what

sets him aside from the leaders in Proddatur and Jammalamadugu is his method of

utilizing the idiom of an existing political culture to further his political career within

the party and in state politics. Moreover, by this process he came to hold sway over

the entire district and even influenced the political fortunes of a few leaders in the

neighbouring district of Anantapur.

137
This was the case in Jammalamadugu where he supported one Reddy family against

another, and in Proddatur where he put up a Reddy against his rival Reddy leader

from the TDP. In all these cases, he put up a candidate who could contest their rivals

with the support of the factions, which were supported by him in the constituency.

For achieving his objective, he not only gave succour to the already existing factions

but also set up new factions where there were none. In cases where he effected

compromises between two rival village factions, it ensured that he continued to have

the support of both the factions, as each faction tried to prove their loyalty to him.

Ambakapalli and Inagaluru village in Pulivendula are two such villages where the

entire village owes its allegiance to him as their leader even though there are rivalries

within the village.

Thus, it could be argued that although this Congress leader and his

family did not have direct factional rivalries with anyone in the district, they utilized

the prevailing faction culture for political gains at the district and the state level. To

the extent that he encouraged factions in villages to emerge and the illegal enterprises

that he indulged in, he is no different from a typical faction leader. However, what

sets him aside from the leaders in Proddatur and Jammalamadugu is his method of

utilizing the idiom of an existing political culture to further his political career within

the party and in state politics. Moreover, by this process he came to hold sway over

the entire district and even influenced the political fortunes of a few leaders in the

neighbouring district of Anantapur.

137
 Factions and Political Process in Rayalaseema

From the discussion on factions in the three Rayalaseema districts

of Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kurnool, we delineated how the processes that interlink

the village to the district shape the political culture of the region, and identified the

essential component of such interlinkages as 'factions' at different levels of the social

and political structure.

A general characteristic of factional formations in all the cases of

their occurrence is their origin in conflicts 19-whether of material interest, ofhonour,

or of political expediency. The basis of conflict is always the competition over access

to or control over scarce resources, which is sometimes expressed in an honorific

~ .-~

idiom. This in turn means that such competition for resources took place between

economically and socially powerful persons. As we have noted above, in most cases,

conflicts arise over positions of authority, such as village headmanship, the mandai

and· district level political leadership, and legislative positions at the state level.

Although these are primarily political contestations, economic and symbolic aspects

of such conflicts cannot be underestimated. Thus, rather than conceptualizing

'factions' as quasi-groups (a structural feature of society) or conflict groups (a form

19
Within anthropology, "conflict" is a broadly defined concept and is widely interpreted, depending on
the perspectives and interests of particular research interests. The structural approach to the study of
conflict views conflict as an inherent component of the social structure, traces the sources of conflict to
the social structure and holds that the specific form that conflict takes is determined by the social
structure. Another way of studying conflict focuses on the social dynamics or processes of conflict. In
this approach, the emphasis is on dynamic political phenomena- "such as competition, factionalism,
struggle, conflict resolution, conflicts of interest and values, the pursuit of public goals, and the
struggle for power''--rather than on structure and function (Sluka, 1992, p.27). Contemporary
anthropological approaches to the study of conflict are characterized by a high degree of theoretical
eclecticism, wherein a variety of strands such as a cross-cultural and comparative perspective,
concentration on local level or micro-analysis, a holistic approach, and commitment to an "ernie" or
participant's point of view are deployed to understand diverse conflict situations.

138
 of political organization), our case of factional formations in the Rayalaseema region

of Andhra Pradesh has shown that factions are generated by the political process

itself, the sine qua non of which is the competition over scarce material or symbolic

resources. This means that the idiom of factional politics may permeate a political

system or has the potential to define a political process in a specific context. In our

case, the relationships of patronage and clientship have been identified as the

political principle that defines factional politics in the regional political culture of

Rayalaseema.

However, this generality is influenced by specific conditions, which

determine the ways in which factional formations are manifested within a society.

This may include ecological factors, the social, political and economic context, and

the symbolic context of conflicts. The context is significant insofar as it delineates the

processes whereby a phenomenon is understood historically and also to determine the

conditions of occurrence of the phenomenon. Thus, it is important to consider why

solidarities other than the patron-client bond is ineffective as a political idiom in this

region of Andhra Pradesh, while other kinds of solidarities based on caste, religion,

or political ideology, are less significant. It has been argued that patron-client

networks are largely confined to the Mediterranean and Latin American countries;

however, comparable relationships are found in less developed areas within a national

state and the region of Rayalaseema could be seen as an instance of

underdevelopment vis-a-vis a relatively prosperous capital. 20 Thus, patronage

20
This could be read in the context of regional disparities within the state of Andhra Pradesh, which
has been discussed in Chapter One while delineating the regional political history of Rayalaseema vis-
a-vis the other regions of the state.

139
relationships prosper in "poor, backward and isolated regions" where the patron

mediates between the region and "the central state apparatus" (Wilson, 1988, p.294).

Patronage takes different forms depending on the structure and

culture ofthe society in which it is found. Factional politics based on the patronage

networks have been determined by several factors in Rayalaseema. These are-- the

caste composition of the population, the dominant caste of the region, the political

role played by the dominant caste leaders in state politics, the economy of the region, .

and the cultural codes determining the meanings of honour, shame, prestige, and

authority. Needless to say, any transformation in the above may lead to a

transformation in the patronage relationship and hence~ the nature of factional politics

in the region. In fact, in all the three districts, patterns of factional transformations

could be mapped along three distinct periods. These are (a) factions in pre-

independence days to about 1970s; (b) factions in 1970s to 1980s; and (c) factions

postl983 i.e. after the coming into power of the Telugu Desam party in the state.

As we have already discussed, factions before 1970s were primarily

village level factions, dominant caste landlords being the leaders of such factions.

These factions came into existence due to the quest for power and authority of village

level leaders who wanted to extend their spheres of influence in the rural society

through control of several villages. Village factions originated mainly between two

powerful people, the village headman and the village accountant or karnam being the

usual protagonists in a village factional tussle. Traditional village factions were

primarily family-based. These tussles normally started around the time of village

panchayat elections over the post of the village headman, but had other covert reasons
relating to family disputes, land and property disputes and disputes regarding women.

Thus, in all the traditional factional struggles, disputes often took place for family

honour and prestige and for settling long-standing property disputes, which had a

mainly local flavour and were restrained within the several villages that the factionist

controlled. Once clienteles crystallized around these essentially family feuds, rival

groups became established which was then utilized by each group to further their

interests, as "obligation in feuds, [ ] might extend to clients" (ibid, p.307). These

family feuds came to be manipulated and utilized by political parties, which

reinforced the quarrels and took on overt political motives. The Congress and the

Communist party were the two political parties, which vied for political power at that

time. While the dominant caste Reddis supported Congress, the communists were

mainly drawn from both the dominant castes such as the Karnmas as well as

backward castes. Therefore, factional tussles at the village level was mainly between

two dominant caste landlords belonging to the same party or between two leaders

belonging to rival political parties but having similar socio-economic background in

terms of caste and economic status.

During the decade 1970s to 1980s, the Congress party consolidated

its hold in the state. This was when economic and social patronage changed to

political patronage. Most leaders at the village level owed allegiance to different

leaders from the same party who were rivals at the ta:luk or the district level. This saw

the intensification of factional struggles in the villages as the bigger leaders

encouraged and supported factions for garnering support for themselves in district or

state level elections. Factional struggles at the district level between district leaders

were the highlight of this period when it took the colour of mainly party factionalism

141
 within the Congress (I). Thus, political party leaders acted as new patrons who were

often from outside the local community, and hence the ties between patrons and

clients started becoming more instrumental and less comprehensive. This also meant

that "since those who controlled the new resources were generally office-holders

subject to transfers or political changes at the center, the new patrons were less secure

than older patrons and probably more inclined to maximize their gains over the short

run" (Scott, op.cit., p.66).

After the rise of the regional TDP, the leaders who could not make

good in the Congress party shifted their allegiance to the new TDP. With this,

factional struggles from tl:te village to the taluk/ mandai and the district became a

tussle between the leaders of two parties, the Congress (I) and the TDP. This also

.
meant that factional struggles took an overt party dimension with the leaders of the

two parties encouraging factions on party lines. Earlier, factions between district

leaders belonging to the Congress (I) were transformed into party factions with

interlinkages between same party leaders across the district. Thus, at present, even

village factions have become synonymous with political party factions owing

allegiance to a particular district or state level political leader, while the disputes at

the village level is subsumed under the political antagonism of the Congress (I) 'and

the TDP. However, one important variation in the connection between party and

patron-client structures noticed in the case of the Congress (I) and the TDP

respectively is that while the former has created its own network of patron-client

linkages from the centre, the latter has mostly relied on pre-existing patron-client

bonds and have merely utilized such networks for political goals.

142
 Thus, traditional village factions, centred around a powerful village

leader transformed into primarily political factions with, first, the internal tussles in

the Congress and later as political rivalry between two parties vying for power at the

state level. Within the region of Rayalaseema, district level leaders have facilitated

their win at the state level by networking with leaders of the same hue, as that noticed

in the case of particular Congress (I) leaders in Cuddapah and Kumool patronizing

leaders in Anantapur. In this process, earlier allies have come to become staunch

rivals with the shifting of allegiances from one leader to another and this in tum has .

intensified the factional struggles within a district. Moreover, the factional rivalries

among the regional level leaders have periodically determined the character of state

politics as it happened after the 1989 Assembly elections when several Congress {I)

leaders from the region became famous for their factional struggles within the region

and brought such places as Allagadda, Tadpatri and Pulivendula to the political

mainstream of the whole state.

The dynamics of electoral competition, thus transformed patronage

networks in the region in several significant ways. First, votes improved the client's

position with a patron by adding to his resources. However, this capacity of the client

may be severely limited in cases where the debts of the client far outweigh his

bargaining power with the vote; second, elections provided the context for the

vertical integration of patron-client structures from the hamlet level to the centre;

third, it led to the creation of new patron-client structures and the politicization of old

ones; and it couched antagonisms at the local level in the garb of overtly political

antagonisms.

143
 The structure of a faction remains, quintessentially similar whether

it is a village faction or a district faction. While the basic patron-client relationship is

integral to any factional network, modem day factions have networks that go beyond

ties of loyalty or economic dependence of the follower. Traditional faction leaders

also fulfilled the function of arbitrator in disputes in the village and could thus rally

round him a mass of followers who are indebted to him in some way or the other.

This increased his reputation within the villages under his control and helped in

building a loyal group of followers who were prepared to sacrifice anything for him.

With the induction of mercenaries within a faction network, traditional notions of

loyalty and subordination has given way to purely instrumental reasons for rallying

around a leader. This has necessitated the illegal exploitation ofeconomic resources

on the part of the faction leaders, as they cannot now merely rely on their followers'

faith and loyalty towards them, and therefore need a substantial amount of wealth to

finance their followers' needs. Thus, the shift has been from symbolic or affective

rewards to expectations of material benefits, and "the trend in recent times has been

to dissociate political competence from traditional status distinctions and to identify it

with the ability to manipulate technical and political · resources effectively"

(Lemarchand, op.cit., p. 79). While traditional factions usually had dominant caste

leaders, factions in the present day have leaders coming from Backward and

Scheduled Castes also. However, most of these leaders still depend on the patronage

of an dominant caste district leader or an MLA to be powerful in their respective

mandals and villages. Although multi-caste factions have become a reality now, the

essential character of political alliances in these three districts is distinguished by a

network of political elites from different castes tied in an interrelationship of regional

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squabble to gain economic and political power. Factional allegiance is the grammar

of political participation in this region, and the use of violence is the significant

feature of this mode of political participation.

In the two subsequent chapters, the pervasiveness of violence as a

significant component of the factional mode of politics in this region would be

discussed. In doing this, the attention would shift from the structural understanding of

factions to why violence becomes a significant action in articulating conflicting

interests.

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