04/07/2025
July 4 ,1946 is the martyrdom day of Doddi Komarayya, a young man from a poor peasant family of Kadivendi village of the then Nalgonda district. (Now it is in Warangal district of state, TS.) He was the first among thousands of communist and peasant revolutionaries of Telangana People’s Revolutionary Movement (1940-51) who were killed by the ruling classes, represented by the Nizam of princely kingdom of Hyderabad upto the Police Action of September 13-18, 1948, and later by Indian Government.
This martyrdom is regarded as a milestone indicating the beginning of the later, armed phase (1946 July -51 October) of the peasant movement. Legendary leader of the Telangana Armed Struggle and the Frist General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) . P Sundarayya Writes:
"With the above incident, (Successfully defeating the plan of Visnur Ramachandra Reddy, the hated deshmukh of Jangaon taluka, in one of his villages, Palakurthi, to forcibly take possession of land belonging to a washer-woman, Ailamma, who was a staunch supporter and worker of the Sangham and seize the harvest directly from the fields) Visnur deshmukh was very much enraged. He took it as a big defeat, the like of which he had not experienced in his life-time. He planned to murder the leaders of Kadavendi village with the help of the police. As a part of this plan, he launched cases on tens of people, got 15 of them arrested. They were later released on bail. In those days, at the slightest notice, people used to gather before the Sangham office and discuss their programme. To put a stop to this, he thought that if he could frighten them with legal cases, he could go ahead with his murder plans. The police officers planned out everything with the zamindar and his goondas and left the village, leaving him a free hand.
It was July 4, 1946. Goondas who were drunk, pelted stones at the houses of the leaders. The people, armed with lathis and slings and raising slogans, took out a procession. When it came near the house of the zamindar, which was on the main road, goondas who had taken shelter in a shed near the zamindar’s house, fired many shots at the people. Village Sangham leader Doddi Komarayya, who was leading the procession died on the spot, hit in the stomach by a bullet. His elder brother, Doddi Mallayya, got hit in the leg and fell down. Mangali Kondayya had his forehead bruised and his brother Narasayya was hurt in the arm. But the people did not run away in panic. They surrounded the zamindar’s house, shouting “blood for blood.” The goondas who were in the shed next to the zamindar’s house, thought that they would not be able to save their lives from the wrath of the people and jumped into the zamindar’s house, thinking that its high walls would give them protection. But the people had already surrounded it. News was sent to the surrounding villages and they came with dried grass and other fuel to set fire to the house of the zamindar. The crowd increased to nearly 2,000. Some had surrounded the gadi (bungalow), some were keeping watch outside the village and some were parading the village streets. People were boiling with rage. Hearing this news, Visnur Ramachandra Reddy’s son, Baburao (Jagan Mohan) came from Visnur with 200 goondas armed with swords, daggers and pistols. People who were on the look-out outside the village raised sky-piercing slogans and showering stones from slings rushed towards the goondas en masse. Seeing the enraged mass, the goondas thought that even firing would not stop the on-rushing people and leaving everything behind, they ran for their lives. People chased them to a distance of three miles. Many goondas were hit with stones. Many of them, while running away, took shelter in Madapuram tanda, but the people there, sensing trouble, drove them away. Anumula Ramreddy, a known goonda, was caught hold of at one place and given a thorough beating, knowing that he was one of those who had poured urine in the mouths of Comrades Bheemireddi Narasimha Reddy, C. Yadagiri Rao and others. The carts in which the goondas had come were broken to pieces. There was not a single tree left in th zamindar’s mango grove.
Just at this time, about 60 reserve policemen came to the village. They told the people that they would take action against the goondas and asked them to go home. And when the people dispersed, the police handed over the goondas to the zamindar safely. On top of this, six cases were launched against Sangham leaders, the charges being that they had attacked the goondas, surrounded the gadi and tried to set fire to it, and poured urine in the mouth of the goonda leader. But no goonda was arrested nor any case launched against them. But in spite of this, the people were undeterred . After the post-mortem on the body of Doddi Komarayya, thousands of people took it in a big procession in the villages and cremated it. People from neighbouring villages also took part in this procession. All of them pledged that they would not bend down before the zamindar but would, with renewed energy, work for the Sangham. For the next 3 months, they did not allow the zamindar’s men to come to the fields and do work. After this incident, people always used to sing songs in praise of this immortal hero of theirs.
Komarayya’s death and martyrdom set ablaze the pent-up fury of the Telangana peasantry. People rose in all talukas in Nalgonda en masse. The song saluting and praising the immortal hero used to be sung at all meetings and processions which took place all over the district. People of one village armed with sticks and slings would march to the neighbouring villages and rouse them. They would jointly hold public meetings before the gadi (brick-built strong-house of the deshmukh or the landlord), hoist the red flag and declare: “Sangham is organised here. No more vetti, no more illegal exactions, no evictions.” If the landlord or the deshmukh did not carry out these orders of the Sangham he was socially boycotted. None shouldwork for him in the fields, no barber, no washerman, no house-maid, no domestic servant. These orders of the Sangham were carried out. It was the local leaders who marched, addressed and spread this movement"
