JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

ARCHITECTURE AND FINE

ARTS UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING

B. TECH PLANNING VII SEMESTER

REDEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Mr. TAUSIF IQBAL & Mrs. DHRUVITHA
By
A. NAMRATHA (19011BA002)
Contents

TELENGANA PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE AND ITS LESSONS.......................................................3

MULTI-LINGUAL STATE............................................................................................................3
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE MUSLIM RULER AND THE HINDU SUBJECTS............................................3
THE FEUDAL OPPRESSION.......................................................................................................4
VETTI SYSTEM.............................................................................................................................6
WRETCHED CONDITIONS OF WORKERS AND MIDDLE-CLASS EMPLOYEES...........7
THE BEGINNINGS OF ANDHRA MAHASABHA.....................................................................8
 TELENGANA PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE AND ITS
LESSONS
The Hyderabad state which was formed by the Nizam, after the death of the last
Mughal Emperor, was reduced to a subsidiary feudatory state, covering an area
of about 83,000 square miles.
MULTI-LINGUAL STATE

The Hyderabad state consisted of three linguistic areas in 1951:

districts Area occupied population
Telangana region 8 50 9,000,000
Marathwada 5 28 4,500,000
region
Kannada region 3 22 2,100,000

Since the Nizam was a Muslim, and it was his kingdom, Urdu was made the
language of the courts and the administration at all levels, and also the medium
of instruction from the primary stage. Only with the special permission of the
Nizam and his administrators could privately schools for children, even at
middle school level, in the mother tongues of the people – Telugu, Kannada and
Marathi – be started.
Even language libraries and literary associations could be started only with the
permission of the authorities. No wonder, the literacy rate was only 6 per
cent. Thus, the culture and the language of the overwhelming majority of the
people living in Hyderabad state were sought to be suppressed by the rulers.

CONFLICT BETWEEN THE MUSLIM RULER AND THE

HINDU SUBJECTS

The Nizam of Hyderabad state, though a vassal of the British imperialists, being
a Muslim and the vast majority of the people of Hyderabad belonging to the
Hindu religion and its various sects, got reflected in the administrative set-up,
Muslim population was about 12 per cent but more than 90 per cent, were
Muslim bureaucratic officials. Against this, the growing middle-class
intellectuals, and the growing Hindu business and industrial interests took up
the cudgels, and the Arya Samajists became the champions of the “Hindu
masses” against the “Muslim oppressors”. There were large numbers of
conflicts and clashes between these sections.

In the early days, till the 1940s, the Indian National Congress refused to take up
the struggle of the people against the “princes and nawabs” of the native states.
This also left the field free for the Arya Samajists to come forward as the
champions of the struggle.

Later, during the Telangana struggle of 1946-47, the Nizam and his feudal
administrators, his armed Razakars, tried to rally the Muslim masses to support
them as against the “Hindus” but thanks to the leadership of the Communist
Party and the party leaders their plan had failed by reprisals against Muslims,
after the “police action”.

THE FEUDAL OPPRESSION

The unrestrained feudal exploitation that existed nearly up till the start of the
Telangana armed peasant movement was the fundamental aspect that
predominated the socio-economic life of the people of Hyderabad and
particularly in Telangana.

Total the 53,000,000 acres in the whole of Hyderabad State in that:

 30,000,000 acres, i.e., about 60 per cent, were under governmental land
revenue system
 15,000,000 acres, i.e., about 30 per cent, under the jagirdari system
 10 per cent as the Nizam’s own direct estate i.e., sarf khas system.
it was only after the police action that the sarf khas and jagirdari systems were
abolished, and these lands were merged in diwani (brought under governmental
land revenue system).

The income or loot from the peasantry, from the sarf khas area, amounting to
Rs. 20,000,000 annually was entirely used to meet the expenditure of the
Nizam’s family and its retinue. The whole area was treated as his private estate.
He was not bound to spend any amount for economic and social benefit or
development of people’s livelihood in that area. If anything was spent, it used to
be from other general revenues of the state. In addition, the Nizam Nawab used
to be given Rs. 7,000,000 per annum from the state treasury.

The jagir areas constituted 30 per cent of the total state. In these areas, paigas,
samsthanam, jagirdars, ijardars, banjardars, maktedars, inamdars, or
agraharams, were the various kinds of feudal oppressors. Some of these used to
have their own revenue officers to collect the taxes they used to impose. Some
of them used to pay a small portion to the state while some others were not
required to pay anything.

In these areas, various kinds of illegal exactions and forced labour were the
normal feature. Some of these jagirs, paigas and samsthanams, especially the
biggest ones, had their own separate police, revenue, civil and criminal systems;
they were sub-feudatory states, under the Nizam’s state of Hyderabad which
was itself a stooge native state under the British autocracy in India. In jagir
areas the land taxes on irrigated lands used to be 10 times more than those
collected in diwani (government) areas, amounting to Rs. 150 per acre or 20-30
maunds of paddy per acre.

The major portion of the lands cultivated by the peasants came to be occupied
by the landlords, during the first survey settlement. These people who had
power in their hands got lands registered in their names without the knowledge
of the peasants who were cultivating them and the peasants came to know of it
only afterwards when it was too late to do anything. Thus, these feudal lords got
possession of unlimited vast lands and made them their legal possession.

VETTI SYSTEM

(Forced labour and exactions)

Telangana vetti system was an all-pervasive social phenomenon affecting all
classes of people, in varying degrees.
In a small hamlet (palle) each house will send one man. Their daily job
consisted of household work in the house of the patel, patwari mali-patel or
deshmukh, to carry reports to police stations, taluk office (tehsil); keep watch on
the village chavadi and the poundage.
For carrying post or supplies they were supposed to get an anna for two and a
half miles, which was of course not even honoured in practice. This system was
known as “kosuku visam” in Telugu (i. e., 1/16th of a rupee for a distance of 2½
miles).
Further the harijans, who carried on the work of cobblers, tanning of leather and
stitching shoes, for drawing water from wells were forced to supply these to the
landlords free of cost.
Certain other backward communities, like bayalu, bestalu and chakali
(washermen) were forced to carry on their shoulder’s men and women of the
landlord families in specially made carriers (pallakis or menas) over long
distances from one village to another.
Weavers had to supply clothes to the landlords’ household servants. The
carpenters and blacksmiths were to supply all agricultural implements to the
landlords free and also carry out free repairs.

They had to till the lands of the village officials and landlords before they could
take up work on their own fields. And till the landlords’ lands were watered, the
peasants would not get water for their fields. Agricultural labourers had to work
in the fields of the officials and landlords without any remuneration and then
only go to other peasants’ work for their livelihood.
The worst of all these feudal exactions was the prevalence of keeping girls as
“slaves” in landlords’ houses. When landlords gave their daughters in marriage,
they presented these slave girls and sent them along with their married
daughters, to serve them in their new homes. These slave girls were used by the
landlords as concubines

The land concentration in Hyderabad state and the Telangana region was
tremendous. The administrative report of 1950-51 gave figures to show that in
the three districts of Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Warangal, the number of
pattadars (landlords) owning more than 500 acres were about 550, owning 60 to
70 per cent of the total cultivable land. The extent of exploitation indulged in by
these jagirdars, paigas and samsthanams can be imagined from the fact that 110
of them used to collect Rs. 100,000,000 every year in various taxes or exactions
from the peasantry. Out of this amount, Rs. 55,000,000 used to be appropriated
by 19 of them, while the whole revenue income of the Hyderabad state before
1940 was no more than Rs. 80,000,000. This was only the legally admitted
collections. But it was a well-known fact that total collections, legal and illegal,
amounted to thrice this amount. When the Nizam issued his firmana banning
illegal exactions, it mentioned 82 varieties of illegal exactions.

WRETCHED CONDITIONS OF WORKERS AND MIDDLE-CLASS

EMPLOYEES

In 1941, in the Telangana area, there were about 500 factories employing about
28,000 workers. Many of the big factories like textiles, mines, paper mills,
engineering factories were heavily subsidised and large amounts of loans
granted by the Government to these owners – Salarjung, Babu Khan, Lahoti,
Alauddin, Dorabji, Chenoy, Tayabji, Laik Ali, Pannalal Pitti, etc.

They made huge profits during the war, selling their goods in the black market.
But the workers were miserably paid, the textile workers’ wage being Rs. 10 to
15 per month. Eighty per cent of the wage earners got Rs. 15 per month. In the
Azam jahi Mills of Warangal, 4,000 workers’ wage bill was Rs.13.63 lakhs in
1943, while the managing agent’s commission amounted to Rs. 7.44 lakhs; in
the Ramgopal Mills of Hyderabad 1,500 workers’ wage bill was Rs. 4 lakhs
while the managing agents’ commission was Rs. 1.35 lakhs.
The higher government officials, numbering 1,500, were paid Rs. 50 million per
year, while the wages for many lower categories varied between 12, 16, 30 and
60 rupees per month.
Nearly two lakh Muslims were employed in various government services, in the
name of ‘Muslims are rulers’ (annal mulki) but most of them got monthly
salaries varying from Rs. 12 to Rs. 30. It is no wonder that these government
employees were forced to supplement their meagre salaries by various other
devious methods. Quite a large number of Muslims used to depend on many
handicrafts like carpet-making, printing textile (nagansazi), handlooms, etc.,
and were forced to eke out a miserable living.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ANDHRA MAHASABHA

The Nizam Nawab’s rule was an autocratic rule. There were no elected bodies
at any level, from the village to the state. He used to have his own nominated
advisory council and his nominated Chief Minister. He used to run the
administration by issuing firmanas, which had the same effect of legislation and
executive order rolled into one. He appointed nazims, departmental secretaries.
There were no civil liberties whatsoever. Even for literary associations, or
holding any public meeting even for literary purposes, previous permission of
the local officer had to be obtained. It was the autocratic rule of officers from
top to bottom.
The Nizam state had its own monetary system and customs; and in its name, a
large number of customs-posts were created all-round the state, which
effectively barred every kind of progressive literature. With his own mulki
rules, and a large number of police guards, every entrant into the state being
noted, address taken, and watched and harassed,
It was against such a regime that the growing number of intellectuals and
liberals, influenced by the development of the national movement in India,
finally succeeded in organising themselves into the Andhra Mahasabha in the
Telangana region, into the Maharashtra Parishad and Kannada Parishad in the
other two regions.
was in 1928 that the Andhra Mahasabha was organised under the leadership of
Sri Madapati Hanumantha Rao and others. In conferences, it used to pass
resolutions demanding certain reforms in the administrative structure, for more
schools, for certain concessions for the landed gentry, for certain civil liberties,
but did not try to mobilise the people and launch struggles against the
oppressors or against the Nizam’s Government.
In Hyderabad state, in the Telangana region, the Andhra Mahasabha became
their forum, their organisation and they tried to develop it as a broad political
organisation.

It was in 1938, when the Nizam authorities banned the singing of Vande
Mataram, in those days the national anthem of the Indian people struggling for
independence, that students backed by all democratic forces in the state, started
their struggle to vindicate their right to sing their patriotic song. It spread to
schools and colleges all over the state. When colleges were closed, a large
number of these patriotic students went to the neighbouring states, studied there
in the colleges and returned to carry on the struggle in their own state. It was
after this movement that an effort was made to organise the State Congress. But
it was banned; a satyagraha struggle was launched by the State Congress, in
which many active leaders of the Andhra Mahasabha also participated.