CHAPTER ONE

Rayalaseema: A Political History

We noted in the introduction that the empirical context for this

study of the phenomenon of 'factions' is Rayalaseema, a region in the south Indian

state of Andhra Pradesh. 1 We also stated there that it is our intention in this thesis to

extend earlier arguments on this subject, which found factions to be essentially a

village level phenomenon with no significant connections with either other village

factions or district and regional level factions? Thus the emphasis on the region takes

us beyond the precincts of a village and allows us to trace the interlinkages that

village factions might have with factions within other villages, and the way these

linkages form factions through political networks within a particular district within

1
The notion of region has been thought of and defined in different ways in the social sciences. While
scholars have come up with typologies and sub-typologies of regions, "most definitions of regions
begin with a geographic component and develop out of the relationship between geographic features
and man's adaptation to the physical environment" (Cohn, 1990, p. 101). This component in the
definition of a region has been mostly preferred by human geographers, while for other social science
disciplines, historical, linguistic, cultural, social structural criteria and/ or the interrelations among
these kinds of variables have been more significant. Obviously, such a rigid classification is seldom
appropriate for marking a region as a distinct entity as, significant components of all these variables
might come to define a single region. For example, as Iravati Karve has pointed out, " ... a linguistic
area is a culturally unified area. Its chief characteristic is that, (1) it is a stretch of contiguous territory
where one language with its various dialects is spoken. Commonness of language, however, is not the
only feature, which distinguished such a region from others. On the other hand this commonness of
language is only an outward and the most obvious symbol of an underlying cultural synthesis, which
embraces all aspects of social life. Such an area shows (2) common usages as regards marriage,
kinship systems and family organization. (3) There is also a recognizable similarity in dress, utensils
and food preparations ofthe people. (4) They pay homage to the same saints, tell the same stories, sing
the same songs and even show the same attitude towards certain situations in life" (quoted in ibid,
p.l23).
Further, any notion of a region assumes its location vis-a-vis a centre, or a core area. Thus, in the
Indian context, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, "the real centre of political and cultural life was a
metropolitan centre such as Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, or Madras, each of which was the administrative
headquarters for several cultural or linguistic regions ... Each region had a core area which had usually
been the traditional centre of cultural activity or political rule, and there was a constant movement of
intellectuals and political leaders between this regional heartland and the metropolitan centre where
they met end competed with representatives of other regional cultures" (Leonard, 1967, p.6l ).
2
See the brief review of literature on anthropological and political studies of village and district
factions by scholars such as Ralph Nicholas, Oscar Lewis, F.G. Bailey, Paul Brass and others
discussed in the introductory chapter.

53
the region, and to assess the ways in which such interlinkages determine the political

structure within a whole region of the state.

The emphasis on a region also underlines the fact that the nature of

factions might have a specific regional and cultural origin, which necessitates

specifying the political history of a region in relation to that of the state as a whole.

Further, the territorial integrity of the present state of Andhra Pradesh was always

open to political interrogation. There had always been discontentment among the

three regions - Telengana, Rayalaseema, and the Coastal districts/ the Circars-

comprising the state, and it figured prominently in state politics since the emergence

of the state in 1956. This precipitated in violent agitations in the state, first in

Telangana and then in the Andhra region for separate statehood between 1969 and

1973. Thus a focus on the region in the context of Andhra Pradesh gains an added

significance if we look at the trajectories of the formation of the state and the debates

and agitations surrounding the regional disparities that have characterized Andhra

politics in the run up to its formation and beyond.

In this chapter, the region of Rayalaseema would be described

demarcating its spatial, social-structural, political, and historical contours within the

broader question of the state of Andhra Pradesh; and the role of caste, faction and

party in the political history of the state and the region. The latter question would then

be analysed to outline the networks between the three categories--caste, faction and

party-in shaping the political history of the state. Further, it would also be discussed

how factions within a village, within a caste and that within a political party articulate

to shape the political structure of the region of Rayalaseema. Finally, the

54
 transformations from the traditional structure of politics to the modem democratic

one would be mapped in order to understand the changing significance of caste,

faction and party in the politics of the state and that of the region of Rayalaseema.

As the avowed objective of the study is to understand the

phenomenon of 'factions' in this region of Andhra Pradesh, detailed analyses of the

component of 'factional' politics in demarcating the political culture of the region,

and the interlinkages between village and regional level factions, would follow in the

subsequent chapters. This involves an analysis of the specific character of 'factions'

in the region, their role in shaping the political fabric of the region and the

transformations therein.

Rayalaseema and the formation of the state of Andhra Pradesh

The region of Rayalaseema, formerly known as the Ceded districts,

was a part of the composite Madras Presidency.3 The then Madras Presidency

comprised of heterogeneous territories in terms of language, culture, social structure

and geography; its administrative and formal political unity was fashioned only by

the fiat of an imperial power. There were five major linguistic areas in the

presidency-Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Canarese and Oriya, which, subsequent to

the reorganization of the provinces according to linguistic divisions in independent

3
These districts are called ceded districts because they were ceded by the then Nizam of the princely
state of Hyderabad to the British in the year 1800. The change of name from the Ceded districts to that
of Rayalaseema was effected during a number of conferences in November 1928 and was coined and
popularized by C. Narayana Rao. Rayalaseema derives its etymology from the illustrious Vijayanagara
king, Sri Krishna Deva Raya and literally means the land of (Sri Krishna Deva) Rayalu (Narayana
Rao, 1973, p.I66).

55
 India, corresponded to the states of Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka

and Orissa respectively.

There were two principal regions in the Telugu speaking districts of

the Madras presidency; coastal districts also known as Circars and interior districts

known as Ceded districts. The erstwhile Ceded districts comprising of Anantapur,

Bellary, Cuddapah and Kumool, "were thinly populated and were roughly half in area

and population of the Circars districts. With a slight rainfall, mostly infertile soil and

few large irrigation works, the Ceded districts had suffered more consistently than the

other districts of the Madras Presidency from famines and scarcities ... " (Narayana

Rao, 1973, p.l45).

The social structural composition of the three regions was markedly

divergent from each other. The Circars or the coastal districts were culturally and

politically much ahead of the other two regions, namely, Telengana and

Rayalaseema. Brahmins were the main participants in cultural and political leadership .

in this region, with modem English education being their particular forte. They were

the harbingers of the movement for a separate Andhra province within Madras

Presidency. 4 In the Telengana region, although Reddis formed a larger part of the

population, the Brahmins played significant roles in stimulating cultural and political

activity. The Rayalaseema population was dominated by Reddi landlords, non-

Brahmin peasant proprietors, who owned the majority of the village lands and

4
K.V. Narayana Rao writes, "the movement for a separate Andhra Province had its origin in the
prosperous coastal delta districts where the spread of Western education engendered a spirit of social
reform and accelerated the growth of political consciousness. A growing interest in Telugu language
and literature and the consciousness of belonging to a linguistic group with a significant cultural
legacy sharpened a feeling of contemporary backwardness in the· new order of educated and made
them think of ways of bettering their lot" (Narayana Rao, 1973, p.312).

56
monopolized the positions of village headman (Leonard, 1967, p.63). Owing to its

proximity to Madras, there were relatively more non-Telugus in this region than in

the Circars (ibid, p.l46).

As a part of the Madras Presidency, with the administrative centre

located at Madras, the Telugu population missed most of the spoils that British

administrative and institutional machinery provided to their Tamil counterparts. As

John G. Leonard has argued, "cultural pride and nationalistic feelings remained a part

of the Andhra movement's appeal, but the emotional response to the cry of 'one

language, one people ... one state' formed only part of the support for an Andhra state

for the chief source of support came from dissatisfaction with the current state of

Madras politics" (ibid, p.64), which was tilted favourably to the Tamils, especially

the Tamil Brahmins. Hence, for the Telugu Brahmins, who largely spearheaded the

movement for a separate Andhra, cultural and linguistic unification of the Telugu

people was a necessary step to achieve political and social change for them.

However, finding a political solution to their disadvantageous

position vis-a-vis the Tamils was only a part of the problem. The Telugu Brahmins

who led the movement faced a daunting task in garnering the support of the Telugu-

speaking districts of Rayalaseema, which took on the character of regional and caste

sentiments early on in the movement for a separate Andhra. The Rayalaseema region

was not only distant from the Circars in terms of its geographical location, but also in

terms of educational and economic status. As Leonard has put it, "largely unaffected

by the Telugu cultural revival and cut off economically from the adjacent Circars, the

Rayalaseema leaders accepted the metropolitan control of the Tamil-dominated

57
Madras Government and initially resisted the appeals of Circars Brahmins to join in

the agitation for a linguistic state" (ibid, p.66). Moreover, caste came to play a major

part in the movement with anti-Brahmin sentiments setting the tone for the opposition

of Rayalaseema to the movement. In Rayalaseema, "the initial hostility came from

the non-Telugus and non-Brahmans ... they looked upon the movement in the early

stages as a Brahman movement for securing political and administrative offices and

power" (Narayana Rao, [Link]., p.315). Thus, the apparent Circars hegemony in

political and economic spheres led to the intra-regional rivalry, which also hampered

the movement for a separate province for Telugu speaking people. Caste rivalries

between Brahmins and Kammas in the Circars region and that between Circars

Brahmins and Reddis in the Rayalaseema region saw caste groups entering politics in

a big way during that period.

Because most of the Circats Brahmins leading the movement

belonged to the Indian National Congress, the Congress became the main political

party in that region to agitate for the Andhra movement. Within the Congress party,

the question of a separate province led to divisions and bargaining between the

Tamils and Telugus of the presidency on the one hand, and the regional Congress

units. To summon Leonard again, "the dispute of the Andhra Congressmen with the

national Congress leaders helped to renew the Telugu-Tamil animosity in Madras

politics, and dissensions within the Andhra Congress organization weakened it vis-a-

vis other political parties", namely, the Justice Party (Leonard, [Link]., p. 70).

While Congressmen in the Circars and Rayalaseema reconciled to

the demand for a separate linguistic province, the non-Congressmen in Rayalaseema

58
opposed it. Thus, in a series of conferences between 1913 and 193 7, leaders from the

Circars and Rayalaseema deliberated on the separate province question, which

culminated in the Sri Bagh Pact, providing for the "guarantees and safeguards that

may be sought by Rayalaseema prior to working with other Telugus towards the

immediate formation of an Andhra province" (Narayana Rao, [Link]., p.164). The

pact conceded weightage in the Legislature by distributing seats on an equal district

basis, gave priority to the irrigation needs of the region, and a University centre in

one of the districts of the region, which would enhance the educational opportunities

of the people in the region. This pact, then, paved the way for the much-needed

support of the Rayalaseema leaders in the joint agitation for a separate Andhra

province. However, it was almost another 20 years before the present state ofAndhra

Pradesh finally came into existence.

While the principle of linguistic organization of provinces was

accepted by the Congress party in its Nagpur session in 1920, "the demand for a

separate Andhra province gained momentum after the Congress ministry was sworn

in Madras in 193 7" (ibid, p.1 72). However, even then, the Rayalaseema leaders could

not completely agree to the Circars demand for a separate Andhra and let their

grievances be known at most of the provincial level Congress committee meetings

and in the meetings of the Andhra Maha Sabha, the organization which led the

Andhra movement. From 1937 (the year the Sri Bagh pact was signed between the

Circars leaders and the Rayalaseema leaders) until 1947, there were innumerable

tussles between the Rayalaseema leaders and the Circars leaders for equal

representation of people from Rayalaseema in government jobs and for favourable

59
and efficient execution of the Tungabhadra project that would be economically

beneficial to the people of Rayalaseema.

The struggle for a separate Andhra province was all along tied with

the broader movement for national independence. As the Congress party provided the

leadership in the Indian freedom struggle, most of the regional level organizations

were populated with Congressmen. The leadership for a separate Andhra was also

predominantly drawn from the Congress. Personal rivalries among the ieaders within

the Congress resulted in the delay of the formation of the separate Andhra province.

Here too the tussle centred on those who belonged to the Circars districts and the

Rayalaseema leaders. Most of these tussles took place on the leadership issue of the

Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) and the Madras Legislature Congress

Party, with leaders such as N. Sanjiva Reddy from Rayalaseema and T. Prakasam and

[Link] from the Circars contending for the top posts. Thus, internal political

rivalry within the Congress, Tamil-Telugu rivalry within the administrative and

regional set-up, and the discontent among the two Telugu speaking areas of the

Madras Presidency were the factors, which repeatedly disrupted the movement for a

separate Andhra province.

In the fluid political situation after India's independence, there was

a deadlock between the central government and advocates of separate Andhra

province. For some time Jawaharlal Nehru refused to concede to the demand for

separate Andhra, citing dissenting voices among the leaders of the movement itself

and other disagreements such as the inclusion or non-inclusion of Madras city within

the new Andhra province and the location of the Capital, the High Court and the

60
University in accordance with the Sri Bagh pact. 5 However, such a situation was

disturbed by the fast-unto-death of Potti Sriramulu, an ex-Congressman and social

worker, who died on the 58 1h day of his fast, triggering widespread protests and

demonstrations against the government at the centre and against Nehru in particular.

Subsequently, an Andhra state consisting of 7 Circars districts, 4 Rayalaseema

districts and the 3 taluks of Bellary district was formed in October 1953, with

Kurnool in the Rayalaseema region as the temporary Capital.

The third Telugu speaking area neighboring the Madras Presidency,

namely, Telengana, was not involved in the movement for a separate Andhra until the

1920's. 6 While the Andhras of the Circars districts were demanding an Andhra

province, the Telugu speaking people in the Hyderabad state had begun organizing

themselves, mostly under the leadership of the Communist Party in Telengana. The

successful use of the separate Andhra issue by the Communists, both in Telengana

and the Circars districts won them a large number of seats in the 1951-52 elections.

Once the separate Andhra state came into being in 1953, the leaders of the movement

envisaged a greater Andhra or Visalandhra, comprising of all Telugu areas, including

Telangana. This vision of a greater Andhra had however been on the anvil for most of

the leaders of the movement for a long time. The Visalandhra Maha Sabha was

5
Following his defeat and eventual exit from the Congress, T. Prakasam had opposed the formation of
the separate Andhra province when the Dar Commission had visited Andhra districts in 1948. As K.V.
Narayana Rao has speculated, " ... it is possible that, in 1950 Prakasam feared that the formation of an
Andhra Province would increase the strength and prestige of the already dominant legislature group of
Pattabhi (Sitaramayya) and, to prevent such an eventuality, he may have put up his dissent hoping that
the government of India would not be anxious to create a new province in the absence of unanimity on
vital issues like the status of Madras City, the capital ofthe Andhra Province and the apportionment of
assets and liabilities" (Narayana Rao, 1973, p.220).
6
The Native state of Hyderabad under the dominion of the Nizam comprised of three linguistic
regions-the Telugu speaking Telengana, the Marathi speaking Marathwada and the Kannada
speaking Kamataka. Telengana comprised more than 50% of the area and about 50% of the population
ofthe state (Narayana Rao, 1973, p.270).

61
 \

formed towards gaining that objective in 1949. Here too, as in the case of the

Rayalaseema leaders earlier, the Congress faced stiff opposition from the Telangana

Congressmen who thought that a merger with the Andhra province would deprive the

people of Telangana their due share in the administration of the state. However,

subsequent to the decision of the States Reorganisation Commission's Report in 1955

on the integration of Telangana with the Andhra Province, leaders in Telengana

sought safeguards from the Andhra leaders on the lines of the Sri Bagh pact. The

safeguards provided to the Telangana region came to be known as the 'Gentleman's

Thus the movement for separate Telugu linguistic state saw the rise

of non-Brahmin castes to political leadership in the newly formed state of Andhra

Pradesh. With the social and political ascendancy of the Reddis and Kammas,

whether they belonged to the Congress party or the Communist party, it introduced a

political process of consolidation of the bases of these non-Brahmin castes both

within the party system and in the society in general. Leonard has argued, "politics,

then, has added a new dimension to the basis of secular power and its achievement"

(Leonard, [Link]., p.75).

Within Andhra Pradesh political history, regional differences are

complemented by the greater or lesser dominance of one particular caste or the other.

In Andhra at the time of its inception, there were two most important castes, which

dominated the political scenario-the Reddis and the Kammas. While the Reddis

were dominant in the Rayalaseema and the Telengana regions, the Kammas
7
These safeguards were mainly for economic, administrative, educational, and employment purposes,
and for the formation of a Regional Council which would look into the "all-round development" of the
Telangana area "in accordance with its needs and requirements" (Narayana Rao, 1973, p.30l-3).

62
dominated the Coastal/ Circars districts. The former were mostly identified with the

Congress while the latter with the Communists, although the Reddis were fairly

represented in the Communist party as well. The rise of these "local dominant castes"

(Reddy, 1987, p.61) was the result of the non-Brahmin mobilization to redress social

and economic disparities between the traditional authority of the Brahmins and other

castes in all spheres of public life.

Caste as a distinct sub-continental phenomenon and its significance

in the political life of the various national territories has been amply studied, within

the subcontinent as a whole and in the Indian case in particular. 8 As we have noted

earlier, caste has been a significant currency in the political history of Andhra

Pradesh, right from the inception of the state when the Brahmin/ non-:Brahmin

conflict had taken centre-stage during the negotiations for a separate province.

However, as has been demonstrated by several scholars, the mobilization of castes on

a purely caste based identity was far from the truth as other considerations were

equally important in the political fabric of the state. One such category that has been

emphasized by scholars is the factional groupings within castes, which were in tum

8
Caste, as an ascriptive status of a majority of the population of the subcontinent, has been seen as
constituting the basis of society. As a social-structural phenomenon, it is the most significant criteria of
identity based associations and mobilizations. Studies, which have dealt with caste and its articulation
with other categories such as, class, politics, religion etc. are too numerous to be mentioned here
individually. However, for our purposes, let us suffice by defining castes as enduring endogamous
groups that are hierarchically ranked with recognized systems of ritual and ceremonial principles and,
with significant regional and cultural variations within the Indian society.
Different scholars have keenly debated the articulation of caste and politics and it remains
one of the most studied issues among political scientists, sociologists and social anthropologists alike.
The difference in the way that these different disciplines look at this issue has thrown up divergent
viewpoints based on the different disciplinary concerns. While political scientists have mostly looked
at the articulation of caste and politics in the context of political mobilization either at the time of
elections or to consolidate the social base of one political party or the other, sociologists and social
anthropologists have focused more on the socio-religious and economic dimensions of castes and their
symbolic manipulation by political parties in order to characterize a political structure or system,
whether that be a village or a district or a region or an entire state.

63
manipulated by political parties to consolidate themselves. In what follows, an

attempt is made to chart the various ways in which castes, factions within and

between castes and political parties came together at specific junctures in

characterizing the political landscape of the state of Andhra Pradesh in general and

Rayalaseema in particular.

Rayalaseema within the Political History of Andhra Pradesh: Caste, Faction and
Party

In the following few paragraphs, an outline of the economic and

social structure of the region of Rayalaseema has been documented to show how

certain castes and certain political formations dominated the society at different

junctures of its political history. This has been done to underline the fact that the

political trajectory of Rayalaseema have been largely determined by complex

processes in which castes, factions and political parties have combined to characterize

regional politics.

The region of Rayalaseema which belonged to the erstwhile Madras

Presidency9 has been a perennially drought prone area. Land is the primary source of

9
Dhanna Kumar describes the region covering the Madras Presidency thus: "After it had been rounded
off by conquest and cession, and excluding North Canara, the Madras Presidency covered about
140,000 square miles of southern India, between 8° and 16° N., with an outlying spur (the districts of
Godavari, Kistna, Vizagapatam and Ganjam) stretching to the north-east. The bulk of the Presidency
fell into three physical groups: the strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the Western Ghats (the
districts of South Canara and Malabar); the strip between the Bay of Bengal and the Eastern Ghats (the
districts of Tinnevelly, Tanjore, South Arcot, Madura, Chingleput and Nellore); and the territory
between these two coastal belts (the districts of Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Salem, North Arcot,
Trichinopoly, Cuddapah, Kurnool, Anantapur and Bellary). Between these twenty-one districts there
were important differences. On the West Coast the monsoon rainfall is so lavish that double and treble
cropping are common in Malabar and the low lands of South Canara. But on the East coast, only
Tanjore has abundant rain, while in the centre it is both scanty and capricious. Far and away the most
abundant crops grown in the Presidency were cereals (rice, cho/am, cambu, and ragi) although there

64
livelihood for a majority of the population and agricultural produce· was mostly

determined by the amount of rainfall in a particular year, especially because these

regions were devoid of the natural advantages of a river or any other water source. 10

At the time of the advent of British rule in Madras region, land was possessed by a

few local landed families and "in general, the agrarian society of the 'dry' zone was

as stratified in 1900 as it had been in 1800; and, in some ways, the stratification was

even more clearly defined" (Washbrook, 1973, p.68). This was mostly brought about

by the economic dependence of large sections of the rural population on the handful

of rich peasants who controlled the agrarian economy. Their dependence was

however not due to their landlessness alone, as they had to depend on the rich peasant

for services such as water and capital for loan for a range of needs not related to

subsistence. Thus, a rich peasant could build a network of dependents around himself

who were indebted to him for more reasons than one. This in tum gave the rich

peasant a large measure of control over the economy and society of their localities.

Once the local economy opened up with the introduction of trade

and commercial activities, these rich peasants, who Washbrook terms as the "rural-

local boss", entered the "world of urban and inter-district commerce"(ibid, p.78), thus

extending their bases of control to newer ventures. As Washbrook has argued, " ... the

economic inequalities that existed when the British arrived in Madras widened under

were vegetable gardens everywhere, and during the course of the nineteenth century there were to be
experiments with such cash crops as cotton, indigo and cinchona ... " (Kumar, 1992, p.7-8).
10
The description of the social and economic structure of the region of Rayalaseema draws mostly
from David Washbrook's The Emergence of Provincial Politics. The Madras Presidency 1870-1920;
and his 'Country Politics: Madras 1880 to 1930', Modern Asian Studies, 7 (3), 1973. The work of
economic historian Dharma Kumar (Land and Caste in South India, Cambridge, 1965; Manohar, 1992)
has also been helpful for our purposes.

65
their rule" (ibid, p.82), making the rich peasants the central political figure in rural

politics.

The introduction of various institutional and administrative

machinery by the British further changed the ways in which the already dominant

"rural-local boss" could participate in the wider arena of district and regional politics,

often through networks of economic and social ties. Washbrook notes that, " by the

191 Os, for example, groups of rural-local bosses in some areas had begun to identify

among themselves common political interests and to act as pressure groups on rural

government for the improvement of commercial facilities. Equally, marriage

networks among them began to extend- thereby also extending the means by which

they could mobilize credit and other economic resources" (ibid, p.84). A measure of

this dominance could be gauged by the instance cited by Christopher Baker, of a

certain rich peasant family headed by one Chinnarappa Reddi in the Anantapur

district whose dominance extended over a number of villages. He is referred to as

'sirdar' and described as the 'sole monarch of forty villages' (Baker, 1976, p.88). As

M.N. Srinivas has demonstrated, rural society was divided into territorial divisions,

each division under the control of a 'dominant caste', that is, a caste that controlled

most of the land and possessed effective political power (Srinivas, 1962). In the

traditional political structure of Rayalaseema society, most such segments are under

the control of persons belonging to the Reddi caste.

Their control over the village society got further tightened with

their authority getting integrated into the colonial power structures through the office

of the village headman. British rule in India was above all characterized by a

66
political domination geared towards economic exploitation. Generation and collection

of revenue from land and taxes from the various services and trade and commercial

interests was one of the key tasks of British administration in India. It had to rely

heavily on the local collaborators for gathering information and execute its fiat

regarding the matters relating to land. The people who performed these roles in

Rayalaseema as elsewhere were influential people in the village society, mostly the

headman of a particular village, who happened to be the "rural-local boss" of a

particular cluster of villages. Washbrook notes that, " from the later nineteenth

century, as British administrative activity increased, the office of the village headman

became further inflated" as he was given powers of administration of loans,

conservation of forest resources, arbitration in civil disputes, running village co-

operatives, and disbursing benefits during natural calamities (Washbrook, [Link],

p.l52-3). Thus, "all orders going into the village and all information coming out of it

had to pass through the hands of the headman's establishment" (ibid), making the

office of the headman more powerful than ever.

Even as these changes helped in further tightening the grip of the

'rural local bosses' on the groups subordinated to them, they precipitated in the

proliferation of arenas for conflicts between the "rural-local bosses" who vied for the

institutional positions thrown up by changes in the local administrative system of the

Madras Presidency. These disputes took, what Washbrook terms as 'factional' form.

According to him they were the fallout of the "isolation of the rural-locality" and "the

continued ability of the rural-local boss to hold down subordinate groups in the

locality", to grab power in an administrative, institution oriented political structure.

67
 Further, of all the institutional changes effected by the British for

the purposes of administering the province in the Madras Presidency, the most

significant for causing 'factional conflicts' was the introduction of local self-

government institutions 11 • These institutions from their very inception became the

battlefield for political and economic gains between the 'local bosses'. As C.J. Baker

has argued in relation to the history of local government in South India, " ... local

administration and political organization were intimately connected, not least because

the participants were often the same. Nearly all of the prominent figures in provincial

and nationalist politics in this period had some interest in local government" (Baker,

[Link], p.324-5).

Moreover, local self government boards at various levels played a

crucial role in linking together rural localities with towns and other, previously

unrelated, interests in religion, education and public welfare by constituting

municipal councils in the towns, district boards in the districts and taluk boards for

each of the subdivisions of a district, with members in each of these boards having

regular interaction in the matters of administration of the province. Similar to the

village headman's position that was paramount in the administration of the village

and that attracted the families with economic and social dominance, local self-

government too attracted people with economic and social capital. These people

11
Local self-government boards were set up in 1884 by the legislation of Lord Ripon. Under his local
self-government refonns, at the lowest level of the government, village unions were created to look
after the administration of basic amenities in the village; above them were the taluk boards which
supervised the affairs of the village unions and possessed direct responsibility for such services as
constructing roads and schools; above the taluk board was the district board which directed the overall
development policy in the district. Under Ripon's scheme, provision was made for a continuing
decentralization of administration and the gradual transfer of power from officials to non-officials by
means of elections and the placing of executive posts in the hands of non-officials (Madras District
Boards Act of 1884, cited in Washbrook, 1976, p.l66).

68
mostly belonged to rich and highly educated families with stakes in temple

management and charities, big businesses, educational institutions etc, besides often

being large landholders.

Thus, local self-government provided the vital linkages through

which new types of political activity was introduct;d in the rural locality, both in

terms of the number of contenders in the political arena as well as the spoils that were

to be grabbed. Washbrook writes, "much faster and more purposefully than the

expansion of trade, the extension of the administrative locality brought members of

the rural elite into contact with each other and forced them into alliances and battles

in arenas which outlined broad areas" (1973, p.165). This was facilitated, as he

further notes, by the formation of several committees to administer different spheres,

such as forests, which brought together men from a wider area who may have never

had "political contact" before, competing and fighting for limited resources within

that terrain. These struggles at the local level were often carried further to the district

and the provincial level, with local level leaders forming alliances with leaders at the

district level through patronage networks. These networks were then used to settle old

scores between rivals at the village level. Washbrook cites the example of such a

rivalry where one of the parties used the combined powers of an elected post to oust

his rival from all local self-government offices. Thus, local structures of political

power shifted from the dominance of one powerful "rural-local boss" to that of

several such bosses who formed 'factions' to compete and contest for institutionally

backed political power.

69
 Thus, the political office made available by the introduction of

British institutional practices accentuated economic and social dominance. With this,

the mode of struggles and contests within the rural locality also underwent changes

- "the traditional fight with sticks and knives between tiny private armies was

rapidly being replaced by the less bloody but infini!ely larger, strategically considered

war of attrition between factions which balanced the interests of dozens of rural-local

bosses" (ibid, p.173; emphasis added). These conflicts were 'factional', as termed by

Washbrook, insofar as they lacked any "wider social or ideological" component.

These were then conflicts for personal prestige and individual political power albeit

within an institutionalized political setting. Caste and community rarely played a

significant role in the conflict between elite politicians insofar as they were seldom

manipulated in gaining political power. Personal enmity was often the sole reason for

the formation of alliances between rival groups, as has been documented by Baker, in

the several cases of municipal and legislature party elections during the rule of the

Justice Party in Madras. 12

Similarly, community based campaigns not only benefited from the

help of other community members but also subsided as soon as one particular "rural
'
magnate" occupied a position of power. Baker cites instances where Brahmans

spearheaded Kamma campaigns and a Reddi campaign in Anantapur in 1926 turned

out to be actually "the work of some very influential village officers" (Baker, 1976,

12
Baker reports that during the rule of the Justice Party between the 1920s and 1937, there were
innumerable such instances where alliances were ostensibly forged without paying attention to the
ideological basis of the party to outdo a rival candidate, due to personal enmity (Baker, 1976; see
especially p. 70-1 ).

70
p.ll7). Studies have shown that kinship, rather than caste or community ties have

aligned several powerful families within the region.

Carolyn M. Elliott cites the case of a Reddy family in a backward

taluk of Chittoor district, which had secured important positions in district politics

through marriage ties with influential political families. She states that, "they have

staffed three important levels of politics, maintaining a strict division of labour. Until

the 1962 election there was one nephew in Parliament, another in the State Assembly,

and a third resident in the district to watch over business and local politics. With the

1967 election, there is no representative in Parliament, but his wife has taken the

Assembly post while the local man has become chairman of the district council"

(Elliott, 1970, p.139-40). Her study thus illustrates that factional politics appeals to

horizontal kinship ties to extend the networks between people with similar life-

chances while the vertical component of factional ties are forged within the rural

locality through patron-client relationships between the rural notables and their

dependents. Her analysis also points out that politics was a means to secure positions

of executive power and in most cases, 'factional' politics endeavoured to put one's

own people in the government machinery to further the networks of influence and

individual interests.

The emergence of politics at the provincial level was hinged on the

networks of "rural-local bosses", who were important intermediaries between the

town and the village. However most of the provincial politicians at that time were

mostly concentrated in the Madras City. Most prominent of these influential people in

Madras City were known as the Mylaporeans - after a locality in the city where they

71
reside - which was the centre of political activity around the year 1900 and

thereafter. The rise of the politicians of the Mylaporean creed was attributed to their

"success in gaining the confidence of both government and important elements in

south Indian society" (Baker, [Link], p.25). However, here too, the distinctive feature

of the politics of Madras City was its division into many 'political factions', which

resented the supremacy of the Mylapore faction and posed as opposition to them

during several agitations, the most noteworthy being the one for a separate Andhra

province.

One of these factions had eventually formed the Justice Party,

which had ruled Madras from 1920 to 1937. Baker has argued that the Justicites'

ostensible non-Brahmin cause was a fayade to "oust the overmighty subjects of

Mylapore" (ibid, p.30). He saw the same political aims as that of Mylapore at work in

the Justice Party's stance ofNon-Brahmanism, namely, to profit from the devolution

of power that was expected after the setting up of a system of dyarchy or dual

government. Further, the Madras government could not ignore a political demand

from the non-Brahmans as it realized that services in the government were

increasingly being usurped by Brahmans and their kin, in violation of the

government's administrative policy (ibid, Ch.1). Thus, in the arena of formal politics,

appeals to primordial identities such as caste or community did not influence political

alliances, which was mostly a function of networks of influence and power within a

given political setup. The coming to power of the Justice Party in the first elections to

the new Legislative Council in 1920 under the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms was a

story of securing government patronage by projecting themselves as the leaders of the

non-Brahman majority in the province.

72
 The initiation of dual government and the decentralization of power

in the form of the institution of local boards were instrumental in forging alliances

between the local level leaders and the ministers. This was achieved in the form of

patronage ties wherein the ministerial positions gave immense power to manipulate

elections at the various local boards. The ministry could appoint some or all of the

members of the various committees of the local boards and this patronage were

cultivated to extend one's network in the localities. This in tum brought prominent

local men into close contact with the provincial centre, both for nomination to

important positions and for favourable decisions in 'factional' disputes.

Besides the patronage network between the ministers and the local

board members, the local boards themselves were a hub of intense 'factional'

disputes as municipal chairmen and district board presidents were given "exclusive

control over the distribution of contracts and over appointments" (Baker, [Link],

p.ll8), thus prompting patronage networks to emerge and flourish. As the

distribution of patronage hinged on the availability of scarce resources, most boards

were often the scenes of "acute factional rivalries" (ibid, p.l23) between influential

persons. Baker reports that "throughout much of the province, the local boards were

soon taken over by a handful of local magnates who ran them with a firm hand. This

was particularly the case in the smaller towns and in the 'dry' rural areas, where the

local elites were small, cohesive and entirely dominant" (ibid, p.l25). Thus, the

introduction of major political changes brought together previously disparate areas of

the Madras Presidency into articulation with local politicians and provincial ministers

negotiating matters of mutual interests in the administration of the province. This was

more so as most members of the Legislative Councils and the local politicians were

73
the same people and local politics formed one of the springboards for the career of a

prospective M.L.C. (ibid, p.149).

This edifice of patronage networks started crumbling once reforms

m local government, education, temple administration and co-operatives was

introduced in the 1930s, leading to the erosion of political opportunities that had

opened up in the 1920s. The fate of the Justice Party was also sealed as it had been

built around the networks of political influence unleashed by the reforms of the

1920s. A new chapter of 'party factionalism' began in the wake of this as constituent

'factions' within the Justice Party tried to influence government opinion to secure

positions in the ministry, gradually giving way to the Congress in the affairs of the
i

province.

With the emergence of Congress to a position of prominence in

Madras province, agitational and ideological politics gained ground as a means· to

mobilize support. Although the Provincial Congress Committees were in existence

since early-20th century, it only became a significant political force during the period

1916-22 when it launched agitational and oppositional movements against British

Rule, the most significant of such movements being the Home Rule Movement and

the Non-co-operation Movement. Congress in Madras, like the Justice Party, was

peopled with influential and wealthy sections of the society. In the rural localities, the

rural magnates increasingly identified with the Congress in order to protect their

interests in the locality after reforms in the local self-government threatened their

carefully built structures of patronage, and the decline of the Justice Party, which had

earlier provided the link with the government. Congress organizational tactics found

74
favour in the locality as "the organization of local board election campaigns struck a

nice balance between flexibility and discipline, and between provincial direction and

local control. The provincial Congress leaders provided the framework, while local

men filled in most of the details" (Baker, [Link], p.274).

With its entry into local politics, the Congress organization also

witnessed "much of the intrigue, faction-fighting, personal squabbles and

transactional bargaining of local politics" (ibid, p.282-3). These factional disputes

within the organization was used by the Congress to extend its machinery as more

and more people within the Congress started recruiting new followers from hitherto

unexplored areas. [Link] and Dr. B Pattabhi Sitaramayya were two such

Congressmen, who irt order to increase their spheres of influence in the

province, especially the Ceded districts and the Andhra region.

The 1937 elections for the new Legislative Assembly to replace the

old Legislative Council had all the characteristics, which had marked the elections to

the local bodies earlier. Within the Congress party, personal and facti?nal disputes

had already manifested since its entry into local politics in the middle of the 1930s.

These disputes took the form of factional disputes, which aligned district and state

level leaders together in order to gain control of the local bodies and berths in the

provincial Congress committees. Baker reports, "in 1936 there were complaints that

those in command of the Andhra provincial Congress committee were rigging the

district quotas of delegates to the provincial Congress so that they could include

friends and exclude enemies" (ibid, p.285). Factional disputes in district Congresses

75
invariably arrayed themselves behind the rival parties m the Andhra Pradesh

Congress Committee. Thus with the expansion of the Congress organization in the

Madras Presidency, more and more people vied for the power and influence that were

there for grabs. At the same time, Congress wooed leaders who had considerable

influence to win back dissidents in the wake of its success in the local body elections

in 1936. Baker found out that, "offers were made to prominent faction leaders to

transfer to Congress in return for a suitable reward, and often these blandishments

were effective. For instance, one [Link] Reddi, who had sat on the Justicite

benches in the Legislative Council throughout the 1920s, led eight members elected

to the Kurnool district board on a Justicite ticket over into the Congress camp and

was rewarded with the office of vice-president of the district board a few weeks later.

Similarly, six Justicite members in Anantapur transferred their allegiance to the

Congress after the polls and their leader was subsequently elected vice-president by

the Congress party in the board" (ibid, p.279-80). Thus, the Congress had built its

organizational edifice in the Madras Presidency in the 1930s by a network of rewards

and manipulations, both in the lower levels of administration and in the matter of

choosing leaders at the state level. Personal animosities and one's proximity to the

party high command decided who ultimately rose to a leadership position in district

politics. This was evident in the run up to the crucial 193 7 elections which witnessed

the formation of rival groups within the Congress with each trying to gamer support

and influence top leaders to protect their own interests.

The formation of the first autonomous provincial Legislative

Assembly in 1937 under the leadership of the Congress was due to its organizational

rigour, campaigning tactics, the Justice party's inability to adapt to the situations

76
subsequent to the Depression and lesser interference in the locality. The last of these

was facilitated by giving a free hand to the local level leaders in the nomination of

candidates who were merely approved by the provincial leaders without interfering in

the local disputes arising out of the selection of candidates (ibid, p.295-7). These

elections also pointed out that the leaders were largely drawn from similar social

backgrounds as the ones who had been active in politics earlier.

Most of these men were rich landlords, merchants and financiers or

professional men who commanded much the same sort of resources as previous

political leaders in the province. Thus, most of them were familiar with the idiom of

politics prevalent in the province, as most of them had earlier served in the local

government. However, Congress' provincial flavour was backed by its resistance to

the colonial rule and, as Baker has argued, "the men who dominated the Congress

governments in the first twenty years of independence in the south were mostly

drawn from the ranks of those who had emerged to the front in the dyarchy period"

(ibid, p.317). After the 1937 elections and with the demise of the Justice Party, non-

Brahmanism faded into the background and more immediate concerns such as the

formation of separate states came to the fore. The new states that came into existence

as a result of the re-organisation of states on linguistic basis followed different

trajectories; while in Tamil Nadu, the rise of the D.M.K. posed serious opposition to

Congress regime in the next twenty years, in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress had a run

for over three and half decades before a regional party on the lines of the D.M.K. in

Tamil Nadu managed to usurp power in Andhra Pradesh.

77
 As has been described earlier in this chapter, the formation of the

state of Andhra Pradesh was occasioned by dissatisfaction with the status of Telugu

speaking people in the Madras presidency on the one hand, and marked by several

discontentments among the socially dominant sections of various regions of the new

province on the other. We have seen how the Tamil-Telugu rivalry and the Brahmin-

non-Brahmin tussles had generated the necessary conditions for the consideration of

the bifurcation of the province into distinctive linguistic regions. Further, we have

also noted various disputes among the constituent regions within the state of Andhra

Pradesh before and after its inception and various agreements and understandings that

marked the provisional resolution of these disagreements. In all of these cases, elite

and upper caste people, especially the Brahmins and the dominant agricultural castes

of Reddis, Kammas and Velamas, played the leadership roles. A large chunk of the

leadership of the Congress party was also drawn from these castes, although the

representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minorities have also been

noted since the Government of India Act of 1935, which introduced reservation of

seats for these classes.

Congress rule in the state in post independence era has witnessed

factionalism within the party and within a single caste. Factionalism was also a

consequence of the regional diversities, which led to discontentment among the

leaders of the various regional Congress committees. Thus, the formation of Andhra

Pradesh Congress Committee and the Hyderabad Congress Committee in 1957 saw

the eruption of regional and sub-regional rivalry, which took the form of factionalism

78
within the party with several groups in each committee. 13 Caste was also a significant

factor in the factional politics of the Congress party. Reddis and Kammas were a

dominant force in the Congress, which perennially struggled to get party spoils in the

form of leadership positions within the party or in the legislative machinery. One of

the more famous tussles between a Reddy and a Kamma within the Congress

organisation was that between N. Sanjiva Reddy and N. G. Ranga, over the Congress

presidentship in 1951. However, it was not always true that there were no inter-caste

solidarity in the conflicts over leadership. As Elliott has suggested, during the conflict

in 1951, Ranga's followers in the non-Kamma areas were often Reddis who stayed

loyal even when his Kamma followers had deserted him, and once Sanjiva Reddy got

elected, three of Ranga's Kamma supporters had joined the Reddy camp (Elliott,

[Link], p.l54). However, intra-caste factional rivalries were more prevalent than inter-

caste disputes as the Reddis and Kammas are unequally distributed in any one area,

thereby foreclosing the possibility of inter-caste rivalries. Intra-caste rivalries mostly

took the form of factional rivalries with each faction building their empires with the

support of not only their kin network but also recruiting followers from· subordinate

castes.

In the decades that saw the rule of Congress in the state, party

factionalism characterized the process of recruitment and selection of candidates both

for organizational positions and in electoral arena. Factionalism within the Congress

Party in the state has been attributed to the fact that the party could attract diverse

sections of the population, thus giving rise to factionalism within the various sections

13
The Hyderabad Pradesh Congress Committee had factional groups led by Swami Ramananda Tirtha,
Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, and [Link] Reddy; the A.P.C.C. had groups led by Pattabhi
Sitaramayya, T. Prakasam, Gopal Reddy and Sanjiva Reddy (Mathew, 1984, Ch.4).

79
that vied for the spoils of executive power, and for the control of party organisation.

Repercussions of party factionalism were seen in the local body elections and trade

unions and student wings ofthe party. [Link], in his study of the Congress Party's

performance in the state, reports that, during the 1962 elections, a vertical clash on

caste lines between Reddis and the scheduled castes and backward classes resulted in

the defeat of Congress candidates by the leaders of local bodies (Vakil in Mathew,

ibid, p.77). Factional politics also saw the formation of various new parties in the

state which arose as an opposition to the Congress rule and these parties, such as the

United Democratic Front and the Telengana Praja Samithi, were mostly comprised of

dissidents from the Congress party who were dissatisfied with the way their leaders

were treated within the party organisation. Throughout Congress rule in the state,

party factionalism remained a pervasive feature of Congress organisation with the

central leaders in Delhi making decisions regarding leadership in the state. Most

often, the success of a Chief Minister of the state hinged on his capacity to

manipulate factionalism within the party. Besides the split in the Congress in 1969

and 1977, factional rivalries added to the diminished stature ofthe party in the state in

popular perception, whichpaved the way for the rise of the Telugti Desam in 1982.

The emergence of Telugu Desam Party (TDP), was a part of an

ongoing process of the rise of regional party systems in India. There were regional

parties in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka before the formation of TDP in Andhra Pradesh

in the early '80s. This was not only a sign of the waning of the power of national

parties such as Congress in Andhra Pradesh, but also signaled the politicization of

groups within a state or a region within the country on the basis of concerns specific

to a region or a state. The victory of TOP in the decisive 1983 Assembly elections

80
 underlined the fact that the "regional idiom, regional language, regional problems and

regional milieu" effectively countered the appeal of a national party of the stature of

the Congress Party, although until then Andhra Pradesh and Kamataka had been the

strongholds of the party. 14 Although the imagery used by the founder of TDP, film

personality N. T. Rama Rao, was drawn from the all-India composite culture, the

appeal of the party was "based on regional aspirations, especially with reference to

the various aspects ofcentre-state relations, namely finance and hierarchy in power

relations" (Naidu, in Mathew, 1984, p.132). Further, another feature of regionalism

was the appeal to the regional language and culture which was mobilized to build

solidarity among the people of the state. This was most clearly evident in the election

slogans of the TDP which urged to the "60 million Telugu people" (Mathew, ibid,

p.169) to be proud of their heritage and elect a party that would restore their self

respect. The 1983 elections were thus crucial in the political history of Andhra

Pradesh as it not only brought the claims of specific regional aspirations to the fore,

but also widened the social bases of power to include such classes who were

previously on the margins of formal democratic politics.

With the TDP, backward classes in the democratic political arena in

Andhra Pradesh were given some weightage. Although touted as a Kamma party, the

TDP in the '83 elections had also selected candidates from the backward classes, the

most dominant group among them being the Kapus. However, as one study has

14
The Congress party's rule in the state has been phenomenal for almost 3 decades. Since 1957, the
Congress, and later on the Congress {I) has ruled the state continuously for 26 years. Even in 1978,
after widespread opposition to the Congress government's imposition of Emergency, Andhra Pradesh
had returned the Congress in the 1977 parliamentary polls with a huge margin. Andhra Pradesh had
been a Congress stronghold "not only for retaining its hold on the state but also to establish its
numerical supremacy in Parliament" (S. Venkat Narayan, 1983, p.26). In fact, if the elections in the
state before the formation of a separate Andhra Pradesh is taken into consideration, the Congress had
been in power in the state ever since the first elections in independent India.

81
pointed out, "While the economic position of the backward castes remains stagnant,

they produce two or three prosperous families" (Reddy, 1987, p.l75-6), which being

socially and economically dominant are harnessed by political parties for political

purposes. This in turn shows that, within a particular caste, dominant members of the

group are given preference over the less prominent. While the dominance of the

Brahmins had been on the wane as they lost out economically and socially to the

Reddis and the Kammas, the rise of the backward castes post 1983 elections has to be

seen in the context of their induction into what Elliott had termed the "dominant

elite" in a region (Elliott, [Link], p.166). This further suggests that backward caste

solidarities, in order to pose a challenge to the existing dominant caste hegemony in

the various regions of the state has to permeate the elite nature of politics which is

characterized by vertical solidarities between the dominant members of castes within

a region. 'Factional' groupings provided one of the most effective ways in which elite

politics is sustained within a system that has traditionally seen the elites defining the

political trajectory of the state and the region ofRayalaseema.

Notwithstanding the political opposition to the Congress's way of

working in the state, the TDP was soon beset with the problems that had

characterized Congress rule in the state. To begin with, N. T. Rama Rao's

'dictatorial' streak came for criticism within the party rank and file. Party members

resented the way the party president, N. T. Rama Rao favoured Congress dissidents

who had joined TDP and his caste-men. Challa Subbarayudu, a staunch Congressman

from Anantapur district in the Rayalaseema region and belonging to NTR's caste was

favoured with an appointment as a member of the State Development Board. This

resulted in discontentment among the legislators belonging to the Rayalaseema

82
 region, with one of the TDP MLAs, Kesava Reddy from Anantapur and a political

rival of Mr. Subbarayudu in the district quitting his membership of the party in

1984. 15 What the TDP had claimed to avoid in the name of Congress culture had

manifested in the party from its earliest days. Dissidence in the party became a

common feature, with almost all the ~istricts having groups of dissidents among

legislators, of those nearer to official power and those who were not. Caste also

became an important consideration of group formation in some of the districts;

otherwise, there were ministerial and non-ministerial groups within the party. 16 The

same reasons that caused dissidence and factionalism within the Congress party in

Andhra Pradesh proved to be the undoing of the TDP too. Lack of inner party

democracy, lack of transparency, nepotism and the authoritarian rule of the party

president were cited as causes for dissidence within the party. 17 Another cause of

concern for the legislators and members of the TDP was the increasing influence

wielded by NTR's family members, notably his two sons-in-law. Among the two, the

ex- chief minister of the state, N. Chandrababu Naidu had influence both within the

party as well as in the state administration. TDP legislators, especially from

Rayalaseema, resented the power that Naidu had in distributing favours among the

party men. 18 Party factionalism was thus an inevitable product of the personality cult

ofNTR, and the granting of favours to caste members and political allies irrespective

of ideology. While many erstwhile Congress members who had changed alliances

and joined the TDP were favoured, sometimes nominations to government bodies

were made on the basis of caste considerations. These resulted in revolt within the
15
See The Financial Express (Bombay), 18 June 1984.
16
Ibid.
17
See The Hindu (Madras), 7 March 1989.
18
The Financial Express, 18 June 1984.

83
 party. One such crisis that hit the NTR government in its early days was crafted by a

former Congress (I) minister and a co-founder of Telugu Desam, Nadendla Bhaskar

Rao, who got himself elected president of a rival faction of the party in 1984,

claiming to have the support of 90 MLAs. 19 In 1989, a similar revolt saw three ex-

MLAs, K.E. Krishnamurthy, K. Jana Reddy and V. Nageswara Rao, deserting the

party to launch a new party comprising of TDP rebels. 20 Most of these rebels were

from the Kapu caste, besides the politically and economically strong Reddy and

Kamma communities, and representatives of Backward Classes and Harijans.

Although the new party's significance in state politics was marginal, it underlines the

fact that party factionalism manifested caste and regional configurations. K.E.

Krishnamurthy, the dissident leader from Kurnool, belonging to the backward class,

for example, had a strong support base in the district. He had been the leader of a

faction in the district when he was in the Congress party against the former chief

minister, K. Vijaybhaskar Reddy. The two groups have been engaged in factional

struggles, resulting in seventy-two murders in the district. 21

Besides the revolt from party legislators, TDP have had to contend

with family rivalries over power and influence in the party. NTR's sons-in-law had

been engaged in tussles over the respective influence each of them wielded within the

party organisation. While one of them had been associated with the party from its

inception and has had a central role in the victory of the party in 1983, the other is

looked upon as a defector from the Congress, which made his loyalty to the party

19
Tribune, 16 August 1984.
20
Newstime (Hyderabad), 26 March 1989.
21
The Telegraph{Calcutta), 3 March 1989; and The Times oflndia (New Delhi), 4 March 1989.

84
 suspect. 22 The second marriage of NTR with his biographer, Lakshmi Parvathi and.

her growing influence in the party promoted by the leader himself became a cause for

rifts within the party which brought into fore the rebellion of his sons. The respective

political ambitions of N. Chandrababu Naidu and Lakshmi Parvathi led to the

formation of two factions within the TDP in 1996- the TDP (NTR faction) led by the

latter and a rival faction led by the former. Earlier, in 1995, Chandrababu Naidu had

usurped the presidentship of the party from his father-in-law, as the bulk of the party

legislators opted for him against the patriarch. The party MLAs were united by the

conviction that with NTR at the helm of affairs, the party was moving towards one

family rule. This was more so as NTR had started promoting his wife as the new

"party mascot". 23

From the above, we come across the phenomenon of party

factionalism being triggered by caste, region and family solidarities, whether it is

during the Congress rule or that of the TDP. Party factionalism and village

factionalism are distinct, especially with reference to Rayalaseema, insofar as village

factions were prevalent in Rayalaseema irrespective of the political affiliations of the

leaders. Both faction leaders in a village could belong to one political party whether it

is the Congress or the TDP. 24 In the case of party factionalism, it was noticed that

regional leaders played a more important role than the village overlords. However,

these district or regional leaders could wield substantial power within their own

districts by controlling several villages. One such leader, an MLA in the first NTR

government, [Link] was a noted faction leader in Kurnool district of

22
Hindustan Times, 16 March 1992 .
23
. Hindustan Times, 13 April1995; Tribune (Chandigarh), 19 September 1995.
24
Patriot (New Delhi), 7 March 1987.

85
 Rayalaseema region. He was a member of the Congress party before joining TDP ·

when it was launched in 1983. His opponent in the district was former chief minister,

[Link] Reddy. Krishnamurthy enjoyed a wide following in the district and

his success in the elections has been due to ·the support and co-operation of the

locals. 25

However, a significant aspect of the interlinkages between leaders

of a political party and their district leaders is the co-operation and support that is

regularly sought by the former during election times. A case in point is the induction

of a prominent faction leader from Cuddapah into the TD party fold when the party

was facing a crisis in 1989, due to his capacity to match his rivals at election time by

using violent means. 26 This was the same person, who after being denied the party

ticket in an earlier election had defected from the party and launched an agitation

against the government to highlight the problems facing Rayalaseema. 27 In fact, his ·

re-entry into TDP had caused a lot of resentment among TDP leaders in the district,

with some even threatening to quit the party.28 Factional struggles have also been

used by the party in power to suppress their· political rivals. During the 1987

Assembly elections, for instance, TD government had taken into custody several of

their political opponents in Rayalaseema, who were faction leaders, under various

provisions of the anti-Goonda Act and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code

meant for anti-social elements. 29

25
Newstime (Hyderabad), 17 November 1988.
26
Hindustan Times, 22 September 1989.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid, 5 October 1989.
29
Patriot (New Delhi), 7 March 1987.

86
 Thus, factional struggles at the village, and party factionalism,

although having independent ways of manifestation, nonetheless seek out each other

in times of crucial events such as elections and in times of inner party crises. District

level factions struggle for control of the village level factions besides serving as the

intermediary between these village level factions and the political parties at crucial

junctures. It may thus be argued that in the political structure of the state of Andhra

Pradesh and the Rayalaseema region in particular, it is the district level factions,

which are crucial in understanding the political dynamics of the region. The

articulation of party factionalism and that of the village level and district level

factions may then be seen as significant aspects of a political structure which come

together at particular moments, while the separate components. retain their autonomy

at other times. Thus, even when a particular political party may remain free from

factionalism, village level and district level factions could exist, which necessitates an

exploration into the specific conditions that makes this possible. This proposition

would be examined in the context of factional politics and the idioms thereof in the

region of Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh. Thus it is the articulation of party

factionalism within a state and the district and village level factions that are

problematized here rather than dealing with the problem of factions as either a

distinct village level phenomenon or a malaise characterizing political parties in the

Indian context.

Village factions, especially in Rayalaseema, have a long history.

Factions here have existed irrespective of party affiliations of the leaders themselves.

Whatever the political affiliation of the leaders, they have held traditional authority at

the village or the taluk (at present the administrative division of mandals) or at the

87
 district level, and were highly respected by the people. 30 The castes from which

leaders of factions emerged were traditionally the Reddis and Kammas. As Elliott has

argued, "the political potential of the dominant castes is increased by their strength in

the population" and often "the leadership of village factions depends on the skill and

application of the faction leader" (Elliott, [Link], p.134). This they do by employing

various techniques of mobilizing and managing loyalties," ... by activating his ties to"

his supporters, " ... being willing to spend money in hospitality, to increase obligations

to him" (ibid). Dominant caste members have a double edge over the smaller caste

groups in a village. Not only do they gamer the support of their caste and kin, but

also the caste group as a whole has the potential of getting the larger chunk of

followers if there is more than one powerful person in the same caste group. From

this it follows that village conflicts are often between the members of a single

dominant caste in the village. Conflicts among the lower castes do not usually assume

similar proportions as that of the dominant castes as they do not command authority

in the village political hierarchy (ibid). The dominance of the Congress party in the

state for over 3 decades had also meant that most factions had leaders owing

allegiance to the party. Elliott writes, "looking over the number of Reddy MLAs, one

Reddy remarked, 'the reason there are so many Reddis in State politics is that there

are so many Reddis in local politics, and that is where politicians come from"' (ibid,

p.l63 ). Elections were ultimately a fight between two groups in Congress (I). 31 . Thus

in the Rayalaseema region, before the emergence of TDP, most faction leaders had

allegiance to the Congress party. They came from the powerful Reddy community,

30
Patriot (New Delhi), 7 March 1987.
31
The Hindu (Madras), 14 June 1981.

88
 which enjoyed considerable power during Congress rule. After the formation of the

TDP, many of the erstwhile leaders had joined the party in the wake of general

discontent with the functioning of the Congress party in the state. [Link]

in Kurnool and [Link] Reddy in Cuddapah are two such leaders who had quit

the Congress party to join the TDP in 1983. With regard to the formation of the party

itself, one observer has noted that the TDP at its inception was a heterogeneous

grouping with a large number of former Socialists, Swatantraites and Congressmen

joining it when NTR launched it as an alternative to the Congress. 32 Further, with the

implementation of informal preferential treatment for Scheduled castes and Backward

Classes at party level particularly in the Rayalaseema region, it has seen the rise of

leaders from these classes. This has displaced some of the traditional authority of

upper caste Reddy or Kamma leaders although it cannot be said that it has translated

into real political currency for the SC and BC members of the population. Caste thus

has acquired a new meaning vis-a-vis factional tussles at the village level as

backward classes see the new leaders as potential rivals to the traditional authority of

the upper castes. Factions at the village level now have distinct groups based on caste

and party. Earlier, since the upper castes had been the uncontested leaders of factions,

there was little choice but to rally around one of the upper caste faction or the other.

In areas where this has changed due to the reservation policy, multi-caste factions

have come up, with the village divided into upper and lower caste factions. Not only

has caste become more significant now but the importance of the party also has

increased as two factions in a village could now have separate party banners from

which to contest elections, starting from the local body elections to that of the state

32
Tribune (Chandigarh), 19 September 1995.

89
legislature. In fact, if in a particular village one particular faction contests elections

on the Congress banner it is inevitable that the other faction would fight on TDP

ticket. Often when one village faction shifts allegiance to another party, the other

faction would join its rival party. Thus, the emergence of the TDP as a major party as

opposed to that of the Congress has seen the articulation of factional conflicts based

on political party affiliations. However, as has been noted earlier, two factions could

have the same party affiliations within the village, whether it is the Congress or the

TDP. This often conceals the nature of the conflict at the village level as it gets

couched in terms very different from local level politics and rather puts forth the

sanctity of a democratic political system. In subsequent chapters, the idioms of such

local level conflicts woulc). be discussed in order to understand its opposition to the

terms set by a democratic political set up.

The difference between traditional village factions and the modem

ones would then lie in the increasing political participation of the lower castes and the

·-
subsequent re-patteming of the bases of political power. Traditionally dominant

castes were also those that were socially and economically powerful. However, in the

changed scenario, political power by itself has become a significant marker of social

prestige. Thus, we find that most factional conflicts today either arises due to election

related animosities where each party tries to outdo the other by thwarting their

opponents' chances of winning. This is especially true about same party factions

where the purpose is to gain the confidence of the district or regionallevelleaders for

securing the prizes of the political position. As NTR had lamented, groupism within

90
 the TDP had reached such alarming proportions that the party candidates as well as

workers strived for each other's defeat rather than victory in the election~33 .

The transformations from a traditional political set-up to that of a

modern one, then, has to be seen in the political recognition of subordinate groups

and the formation of horizontal solidarities among them. While the traditional party

factions have recruited members from the leaders of the lower castes,· what is

significant today is the political power bestowed in these leaders themselves, which

has increasingly changed the ways factions were formed within a village and has also

introduced newer cleavages within castes. However, these processes have developed

differently in various parts of the state and to that extent the regional political history

ofRayalaseema becomes significant for this study.

This chapter has outlined the political history of the regiOn of

Rayalaseema and its articulation with the political history of the state of Andhra

Pradesh as a whole. We have looked at the play of caste, faction and political parties

in the distinctive political history of the region and the state respectively. We now

turn to specific districts within the region to understand the relation between

factionalism within constituent parts of a district (villages and mandals) and other

districts within the region.

33
Newstime (Hyderabad), 28 May 1990.

91