CHAPTER TWO. Factions, Social Structure and Politics

Transcription

1 CHAPTER TWO Factions, Social Structure and Politics This chapter is an exposition of the genesis, nature and transformations of factional struggles in three districts of the Rayalaseema region- Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kurnool. However, the intent here is not to trace I historically the origins of factional conflicts in the region but to demonstrate the general features of the origin of a conflict, which can be termed as factional. This then would also mean that there are important changes in the ways in which factions originated in the past and the reasons for their occurrence now. The objective in this chapter is to show the different ways in which the genesis of factional conflicts have been a function of changes in the material, social, and institutional matrix in the region of Rayalaseema. As we have argued in Chapter One, district level factional conflicts become crucial in a political system that is defined by the interlinkages between village, district and provincial level political manoeuvres. This was seen to be so as the district level leaders act as mediators between leaders at the village level and at the state level for political gains at the district and the state level besides being influential during elections for state and union legislative bodies, when their support is solicited by political parties to come to power. Nagamaheswara Reddy, in his study of district politics in Cuddapah, has argued, "owing to its continuity from Mughal to British to postindependence times, the district has become a level at which not only the administration but also political and social communications have crystallized", with 92

2 "association of various castes, other primordial systems of social communication, community alignments between elite groups and social factions in state politics" all getting articulated at the district level (Reddy, 1990). An emphasis on the district thus provides a vantage point from which we can understand how village level factional conflicts are manipulated and controlled by the district level leaders in order to gain leverage in state politics and influence the latter at crucial moments. This usually comes about because "close interactions between social factions and political factions condition the political process at the district level and in tum at the state level..." (ibid). This chapter, then, would focus on the ways in which village level factions arise and when and how such village level factions become significant within district politics. The discussion on village level factions would also include the networks that these have with district, regional and state level politics in terms of caste and party factionalism. Generically, factions in the village societies throughout the region have crystallized around powerful village families having economic and social standing. This structure of factions wherein a dominant or leading family formed a faction in the village society is quite typical of such formations. Thus, Edward Muir in his study of vendetta and factions in Friuli of southern Italy, found that factions "masquerade under the names of leading families and dissolve only on closer inspection into more amorphous groups of often unrelated men bound by friendship and patronage and to some extent by endogamy" (Smail, 1996, p. 788). In several cases of factional rivalries in the Rayalaseema region, these initially emerge due to contestations of honour and prestige in the village or. 93

3 among a group of villages under a leader's control. Factions between villages arose in the struggle for supremacy among leaders either belonging to the same village or a neighbouring village. Often, one of the parties to the conflict would be the headman of a village, who is usually referred to as 'Reddy', belonging to the dominant caste in that village or a powerful family in. the village. Traditionally, these were generally dominant caste factions, mostly among the Reddis and the Kammas. The Reddis and the Kammas are traditional landowning castes that enjoy social power due to their economic dominance within a village or several villages. Alluding to this state of affairs, Bruce L. Robert reports, "In the 1920s an Anantapur cooperative official claimed that, power and prestige must at any cost be secured by having a large number of village people at his [rich ryot] disposal" (Robert, 1979, p.169). This was usually achieved by lending money to the rural poor with little hope of collecting the interest; instead, "the ryot lender was more often interested in gaining a lien on his debtor's crop, a promise of his labour, a pledge of loyalty in case the need might arise during a faction fight, or perhaps, the prestige associated with magnanimity" (ibid). Further, in British times, two prominent persons in a village was the village magistrate and the village accountant or Karnam. 1 Christopher Baker notes, "The business of assessing and collecting revenue, keeping records, and policing the villages fell to the village officers. The village headman, who made collections, kept order and often arbitrated in petty disputes, was often the rich ryot in the village... the karnam was often a major landholder as well. Even where they were lesser men, they 1 Interview taken in the field with CPI leader and advocate, Shri Obalesappa, in January His statement concerning the genesis of factions in the Rayalaseema region is, mostly, general in nature and is therefore indicative of a process rather than the specific nature of factional politics in the three districts under study- Anantapur, Cuddapah and Kumool. 94

4 resided in the village and were tied closely to its economically and socially powerful members" (Baker, 1976, p.l8). The former, in the Rayalaseema region especially, belonged to the Reddy caste and the latter usually to the Brahmin caste. The latter was responsible for surveying the village land for settling the land revenue, which would be collected by the village magistrate. These posts were often hereditary. Thus, the two power centres in a village was the village magistrate and the kamam, and differences arose between the two over wielding power in the village. In the case of both asserting their rights over the village, the village would be divided into groups taking sides with either of these power centres. These two power centres would in their tum influence superior officials like the Revenue Inspector, who exploited this situation to control both these power centres. Factional groupings formed around these two centres with superior officials taking sides with either the village magistrate or the kamam, depending on the situation. In their tum, these village leaders were able to get access to institutional power in the government machinery. Their proximity to the government officials gave them immense power within the village to influence and gain the support of their caste members and others who do not have access to these resources. Village society, which was divided into conflicting groups on these basis until the mid-1930s experienced further schisms when the local board elections transformed several pre-existing conflicts into electoral struggles within the village. In the contests for local board and panchayat elections, the village magistrate and the kamam often supported rival parties in continuation of their tussle for village supremacy. Further, external political interference in village affairs found formal avenues, with the introduction of local body elections with a third party often 95

5 exploiting the differences between the village magistrate and the kamam. Both the village magistrate and the kamam were nominated government posts; hence it was necessary for a political party to put up a candidate other than those who held these posts. By the late 1930s, two most prominent political parties were the Congress and the Communist Party. Rayalaseema, which was a part of the composite Madras state, had Congress party in power post elections. 2 Usually, the person chosen for contesting local body elections was from the dominant castes such as the Reddis and the Kammas. In the case of the village magistrate supporting the Congress party, the kamam was most likely to support the Communist party's candidate. In this way, with the entry of political parties, villages were divided on party lines also. Further, with the entry of political parties in villages, the space for political participation was made wider with aspirations to district level leadership gaining ground among those who were powerful in the village political structure. Thus political rivalries then developed between village level leaders with equal social standing to compete for district level influence and authority. Factionalism accompanied by violence was the expression of these conflicts of interests, mostly political, which resulted in attempts at the elimination of one group by the other in anticipation of one's desired goals. While political contests in the village were predominantly between communists and the Congress party, factionalism as an intra-party phenomenon was mostly associated with the Congress party, as most of the leaders belonged to that party. Thus, once two groups are formed 2 The political influence of the Congress party in Andhra Pradesh has been discussed in the previous chapter. 96

6 in a village, the consequent friction between the two groups divides the village into rival groups. Followers of a leader in a village either come from the leader's own caste members, or his sub-caste members, or people of the same village or the same neighbourhood, or because of personal loyalties. Once such groups crystallize in a village, any dispute that arises in the village does not remain confined to the disputing parties. The prevalent factional groups in the village take sides and incorporate the disputing parties into their respective factions. In another case, if one party to the dispute approaches one faction leader, the rival party approaches the opponent. This is how the village itself is divided into two rival camps, with arbitration powers resting on the more powerful of the faction leaders. Hence, it is not just the original dispute between the leaders but the disputes between the people of the village, which contribute to the perpetuation of the factional confrontations. In this process, the principal objective of each group is to uphold their leaders' authority, primacy and social standing against all odds. Thus, the structure of a faction is organized around a leader, who is socially and economically powerful within a village society, and his caste- men and followers who does not belong to his caste but are related to him through bonds of personal loyalty flowing from relations of clientage to the leader. Followers from other castes would be mainly from backward caste such as the Boyas, and Scheduled castes such as the Malas and Madigas. Thus, a faction leader's followers may be discerned as forming either a core or a periphery. Following James Scott who has argued in the context of "patron-client clusters" in South-east Asia, "at the periphery of a man's following are 97

7 those clients who are relatively easy to detach while at the core are followers who are more firmly bound to him. The periphery is composed of clients bound largely by instrumental rewards, while the core is composed of clients linked by strong affective ties, as well as clients who are attracted to a patron by such strong instrumental ties that seem unbreakable" (Scott, 1972, p.99; emphasis in original). While such a neat classification of leader-follower relationship is not observable on the ground, as a pattern in patron-client formations, kinship ties often make up the core of the faction leader's following while non-kin ties form the periphery. However, whether kinship ties are merely based on affection and non-kin-ties on instrumental needs is an open question as loyalty to a leader is determined by complex workings of both affective and instrumental needs. As we have discussed in the introductory chapter, while this type of relationship is characteristic of societies based on personal loyalties, in a democratic setting, this relationship is tempered by the introduction of a democratic political system based on political parties. Thus, it is important to look at the articulation of a traditional system based on personal loyalties with that of a purportedly democratic and impersonal system and what happens to relationships of a factional kind in such a setting. The transformations from a traditional political system to a modem one was buttressed by changes in the social and economic processes that not only brought about a change in the nature of formation of factional groupings but also changed the idiom in which the previous system was based. The vote and the electoral process are essential features of a representational parliamentary democracy based on political competition between 98

8 several national and regional political parties. Factional alignments are important links between political party leaders and their constituents at the village and the district level, as the case may be. With changes in the political institutions and the nature of political participation, then, the nature of traditional factional alignments change from a relationship between a patron and his client to that between several patrons and their clients. James Walston, in his study of clientelism in post-war Calabria, southern Italy, has distinguished between "notable clientelism" to characterize traditional patron-client relationships, and clientelism m modern societies. "Notable clientelism", according to Walston, "is a set of vertical relationships in which the solidarity of clients of the same class is overcome by the solidarity between patron and client",... and "the actors need not be 'unequal' in the usual terms of social class, but they will have different access to resources" (Walston, 1988, p. 7 & p.9). The nature of patronage relationships changes from what Julian Pitt-Rivers termed as a "lopsided friendship" to horizontal solidarities between patrons of the same class, the friendships usually being based on the coveted resources that either of them could provide to each other. However, "when instrumental friendship reaches a maximum point of imbalance so that one partner is clearly superior to the other in his capacity to grant goods and services, we approach the critical point where friendships give way to the patron-client tie" (Wolf, p.16). In what follows, we discuss factional politics in the three districts of Anantapur, Kurnool and Cuddapah which is followed by a discussion of the regional pattern of factionalism taking into account the similarities and differences in the nature of and transformations in factional conflicts obtaining in each of the three 99

9 districts. This is done in order to understand the regional political culture of Rayalaseema vis-a-vis the political idiom prevalent in the other regions of the state. ANANTAPUR The District: Anantapu? is the biggest district in Andhra Pradesh. It lies in the drought prone 'dry' region of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. Formed in the year 1882 as an administrative ~ivision, it was expanded twice, once in 1910 and then in 1956 by the addition of several areas from Cuddapah and Bellary district m Karnataka. This district is the southernmost of the "Ceded districts", and is surrounded on the east and the north, by Cuddapah and Kurnool districts respectively and on its southern and western side by the state of Karnataka. Land is not very fertile in this district, with red soil and black cotton soils being the characteristic type. In the northern part of the district, larger areas of black cotton soils are found while the central and southern region of the district has sandy red soils of average to poor productivity. Being situated in the territory between two coastal belts, this district of the 'dry' Telugu region has been often visited by droughts and its consequent famines. Anantapur was one of the worst affected districts from famines and drought and barring the 1880's, this region of the Presidency had witnessed several famines, the most severe occurring in 1799, , and 1824 (Kumar, 1992, p.104). Subsequently, scarcity conditions amounting to famine occurred in , 1838, 3 Historical and socio-economic features of the district have been discussed in some detail in the introduction. 100

10 N f Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh) Karnataka Cuddapah Ma nit to Scale 0 DiECrid~ River Nsbonal~ Major Road Road Railway Track Dillllrict Headqual'18f Taluk~ TIIWII Te""" Copyright (c) Mapiencelndia Umlted 2001

11 and This state of conditions has continued in the firsfhalf of the 20th century with drought conditions resulting from the failure of monsoons prevailing in the district in 1920, 1934, , 1943 and (District Census Handbook, Anantapur District, 1964). The geographical position of the Peninsula render Anantapur the driest part of the state and rains are usually rare in this district:. This makes agricultural conditions precarious resulting in frequent crop failures. Along with failure of rainfall, the amount of land irrigated is meager. Of the 9-lakh. hectares of agricultural land, only 40,000 acres of land is irrigated. 4 This in tum reflects on the agrarian wage structure in the district. Dharma Kumar reports, "wages in Anantapur, which is one of the less fertile districts, were significantly lower than in the other Telugu districts; in the Deputy Collector of the Gooty division reported that in ordinary seasons the agricultural labourer earned from 244 to 391 seers of cholum per annum and even these low rates would fall at the time of famine", (Kumar, op.cit, p.160). Payment of wages was usually in grain except in periods of scarcity, both for attached farm labourers and the casual ones (ibid, p.145). Most' agricultural labourers in Anantapur belonged to the untouchable castes of Mala and Madiga, and Boya castes. While the former two were 'attached' to the raiyats (ryots) and were paid in kind, the latter were paid in cash. The Malas and Madigas comprise '. the bulk of the landless agricultural labourer class even today (ibid, p.4 7). Historically, the district, along with Cuddapah and Kt.irnool, has been under the influence of 'palegars' or royal chieftains after the disintegration of 4 Data cited in the manual on factionalism in Anantapur, Karuvu Zil/alo Kotha Pa/egar/u, published by.. the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Hyderabad. Translated from Telugu. 101

12 the Vijayanagar Empire in the 16th century. 5 The conflict between the 'palegar' of Anantapur and Rayadurg in the 18th century is a significant landmark in the political history of the district (APCLC, 1996, p.5). Around the year 1800, the whole of the Ceded districts (Anantapur, Bellary, Cuddapah and Kurnool) had 80 'palegars' of which 4 belonged to Anantapur. In Anantapur, 'palegars' had their influence in Anantapur, Tharimela, Nadimidoddi and Kamlapadu with the last of them offering some resistance to British rule. For administrative purposes, the district has been divided into 3 Revenue Divisions- Anantapur, Dharmavaram and Penukonda- consisting of 63 Revenue Mandals. Each mandai has been divided further into several gram panchayats, which in turn comprise of several revenue villages. Factions in Anantapur Contemporary factional conflicts in Anantapur district have often been viewed as emerging due to the influence of Cuddapah and Kumool districts which are noted for their factional violence for a long time (ibid, p.2-3). It has also been argued that factions in Anantapur are not widespread throughout the district and s Christopher Baker has documented the presence of poligar or 'palegar' estates in the 19th century in the south of the Tamil area, which comprised of the districts that make up present day Rayalaseema. In this area, "large poligar estates [were] established between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries by the Nayak rulers at Madura" (Baker, 1976, p.2). Some of these poligar families traced their lineage back to Telugu warriors whose ancestors had come into the country as the military captains of their kinsmen, the Nayak rulers at Madura. Others belonged to families, which had been settled in the area before the Nayak invasion and had been gradually drawn into the Nayak administration usually to help police the frontiers. The poligars were seen as military agents and their role was "wholly political and not economic" as their chief duties had been "to police their territories and to supply troops for the sovereign" or for their own defence or aggression after the disintegration of the Vijayanagar empire in the 17th century (ibid). Baker reports that barring those poligar estates, which were dismembered by British conquest or the "economic strains of the mid-nineteenth century", some 30 large estates and several lesser ones remained which in most cases were still held by the original families (ibid, p.3). 102

13 are less violent in comparison to the other two Rayalaseema districts. Further, unlike the other two districts, in Anantapur, traditional village factions have been confronted by communist groups and in some parts of the district, revolutionary communist groups have effectively quashed factions of landlords to enforce a semblance of democracy in the villages. However it is not uncommon to observe that such confrontations too typically took the form of factions of backward castes led by a dominant caste leader. In a particular case in Anantapur, a Kamma landlord confronted the supremacy and authority of Reddis in his village and the surrounding villages. His faction, consisting of his kinsmen and people described as chinna janam or small people such as the Boyas, Kurubas, Eedigas, Malas and Madigas, contested the Reddis in elections and in financial affairs for avenging the atrocities done to the backward castes in those villages (ibid, p.sl-2). Thus, certain factions in the district display aspects of class conflict although the basic rivalry is between two dominant caste landlords, one of whom had rallied the backward castes to combat the authoritarianism of the Reddi landlords. At present, a number of factions engage splinter groups from the communist parties to avenge their adversaries. The communist groups involve themselves in such tussles in order to quash a particular oppressive factionist in favour of the other. 6 6 Factional fonnations based on patron-client relationships have often been understood in social science literature as a conceptual structure that would help explain political activity that does not depend solely on horizontal or primordial sentiments. Insofar as patron-client networks have been seen as providing a link between the local society and the macro-structure of the state, what have been glossed over are the bases of such relationships in inequality. Clearly, a patron in order to be patron would have an advantage in tenns of wealth, power and status over his clients. This fundamental disparity is thus one of the assumptions that an analysis based on the concept of patronage overlooks, and what is presented as a cohesive, homogeneous society, may have cleavages based on caste and class solidarities. The local strife between factions could thus conceal "their covert dimension of class I 103

14 An illustrative case of the ways in which factional conflicts often took the veneer of class conflict is provided by the struggle of a landlord for the poor in his village against other Reddi landlords. Govindappa, a Kamma landlord, was opposed to some Reddy landlords in the village where he had settled after giving his daughters in marriage to wealthy families in that village. Since Govindappa was not a native of the village, the Reddis who were in authority in that and its surrounding villages resented his way of gaining authority and supremacy by helping settle disputes in and around that village. 7 He encouraged his followers, who came from the Ediga and Boya castes to rise against the authority of the Reddis in and around the village. He also often took up their issues against the Reddis and in one such incident, he defended the Edigas against the Reddis' control of their toddy society. He provided support to all those who were willing to fight the rural bosses in and around the village. However, it was "commonly believed that he was favoured by the poor of the area but he was equally ruthless with poor people who were in the opponent's group or who failed to act on his word" (ibid, p.l4). Thus, although a leader may conflict, as the contending elite factions buil[d] downward coalitions with segments of the lower classes...in this way, class tensions were converted and maintained in a different form" (Blok, 1988, p.122). Consequently, factional politics is also seen as non-ideological, where leaders often changed parties, where political allegiances and ideological opinions are subservient to family or clan allegiances (Wilson, 1988, p.304 ). Even in the case of Mediterranean societies where patron-client ties are given primacy in micro-political processes, "emphasis on the predominance of 'vertical' patronclient ties over 'horizontal' class ties among the lower classes obscures the fact that 'horizontal relations among the dominant classes may be strong. It obscures the way changing structures of intermediation can be associated with political centralization forged through elite solidarity or cooperation between elite factions in developing new patterns of class domination" (Gledhill, 1994; 2000, p.l28-9). While the analysis of solidarities based on caste and class is not in the scope of this study, it nevertheless acknowledges the complexity of the political structure in the region of Rayalaseema and looks at patronage networks as one of the ways in which political solidarities are articulated in this region. 7 Blok, in his study of mafia in Sicily, has demonstrated that "in various ways and in different degrees," peasants "were drawn into and constrained by the power domains of the landlords and their retainers. As a result, there were fewer violent class confrontations... People were dependent upon kinsmen, friends, and powerful protectors for sheer physical survival. To right wrongs, to settle conflicts, and to solve problems of various sorts, they could hardly rely on the police and law courts. The very fact that they only rarely appealed to State-institutions for protection and to settle wrongs reinforced the power domains of local private magnates" (Blok, 1988, p.21 0). 104

15 sometimys take up the cause of his followers, it is because leaders are seen as powerful patrons for poor clients who depend on him for most of their needs, and such disputes are, in the final analysis, between locally powerful people for establishing their dominance. Village factions in Anantapur, a common feature of rural social structure in India, have existed for a long time. In Anantapur district, traditional factions had formed around powerful village families who were mostly landlords wielding authority and influence within a radius of several villages. He was usually a member of the dominant caste 8, a Reddy or a Kamma. These tussles were built around property disputes, dispute over women and incidents that affected one's reputation and honour in the village, and tussle over peddarikam or authority (ibid, p ). These were primarily village factions which did not have extra-local influence and were confined to certain pockets of the district such as Pamudurthi, Dorigallu, and Kowkuntla, to mention a few. Organized on traditional principles of patron-client relations it was necessary for the leader of a faction to financially help his followers or clients in return for their continued loyalty. These traditional factions, then, gave as much importance to symbolic goods such as prestige and influence in village society as on economic or material gains. Faction leaders in the past indulged in those activities, which added to their prestige and prominence even at the cost of financial losses on their part. The local patron owed his local leadership to. his 8 M.N. Srinivas has used the notion of the dominant castes to denote those castes, which are "numerically" strongest in any village or local area, and exercise influence both economically and politically. By this parameter, Reddis and Kammas in Andhra Pradesh quality as dominant castes, whose most important source of power is control over land. 105

16 personal skills, his wealth, and occasionally to his connections with regional leaders-- all of which enhanced his capacity to build a personal following. The continuing availability of resources was thus an important factor in guaranteeing the continuity of his patronage and hence local power. Hereditary office holding in local bodies and landholding provided continuity to a family's sway in local affairs, which were reinforced in both colonial and postindependence times with the creation of new resources for patronage such as political party connections, development programmes, nationalized enterprises, and bureaucratic power. James Scott has argued that in South-east Asia "different resources have risen <:>r plummeted in value as a basis of patronage depending upon the nature of the political system", whereby "the capacity to mobilize an armed following was particularly valuable in the precolonial era; access to colonial office was a surer basis of patronage than armed force in the colonial period; and the ability to win electoral contests often became the central resource with the advent of independence" (Scott, op.cit., p.l 05-6). However, in our case, it is important to look at the patronage structures from the village to the regional level, which are seen as combining both armed might as well as the resources of a public office and positions of executive power. Faction leaders in turn were feared and respected (bhayamu-bheeti) by their followers, which helped them to gain supremacy in the matters of the village. Although violence was a pervasive feature of factions at all times, murders and destruction of rival property were not so common as it is found in present days. Moreover, traditional factions mostly recruited members from village society itself. 106

17 With the factions extending their activities to the towns of the district, factions started recruiting mercenaries who are beneficial for the kind of needs that the factions now have, for example, bootleggers, 'street rowdies', 'professional killers', people who contribute to the leaders' economic and political advantage. Because of this, engagement with violence in the present context has reached proportions unassociated with traditional factions. These changes in the idioms of f(lctional conflicts came about at a particular time in the political history of the district with the entry of a few leaders having district and region wide influence, accompanied by changes in the ways that traditional factions functioned. The major change th~~ came about in the traditional functioning of factions was due to the appropriation and nurturing of these factions for explicitly political purposes. The roots of such politicization of factions could be found in Cuddapah and Kumool towards the end of the 1970s and early 1980s (ibid, p.16). In Anantapur district, political factions in Tadpatri mandai, which is proximate to Cuddapah and Kumool district, gained prominence when a Congress leader and MLA from Tadpatri came under the patronage of a prominent Congress leader and factionist from Kumool district. Subsequently, another important Congress leader from Cuddapah who was a rival to the Kumoolleader propped up an opponent for the MLA from Tadpatri. Thus, district and regional leaders created local leaders for the continuation of their rivalries at the district and in state politics, with the support of the local leaders whom they patronized by giving political and economic patronage. The local leaders in their tum garnered support of village level leaders owing allegiance to them. In return, the village bosses were rewarded with 107

18 government contracts, political party ticket for local body elections, arms and ammunition and all the paraphernalia that goes in making the village bosses particularly feared in the rural locality. Rural factional organization underwent a change in character with the district level leaders themselves creating and sustaining the factions for their own political and economic advantage. Earlier, the rural leaders belonged to one political party or another at the constituency level and their rivalries were fought out within the workings of the political party in the local body elections and for capturing power in the district boards. For the present generation of leaders, village factions are support bases for them to achieve political mileage at the district and the regional level in order to influence state politics. Village factions, even in the present days, are usually within a single caste, either between Reddis or Kammas or Boyas. With the coming of the TDP in power, the backward classes such as the Boyas, who are stronger in a village or a mandai, are being patronized by district level leaders. These village or mandai level leaders owe allegiance to leaders in a different village or a mandai belonging to the same party as theirs. Thus, a leader from the Boya caste could have a Reddy patron within a single mandai or a district by virtue of being members of the same political party. Inter-caste solidarities within a village or a mandai become possible with common membership in political parties. A particular caste faction within a village could link up with another village where a different caste faction is dominant. However, the patron in this case would still be the dominant caste leader with the backward caste leader owing his loyalty to the former. The dominant castes that had monopoly in local and district level politics had to contend with the rise of the backward castes. While this process certainly saw some democratization of politics, it 108

19 did not completely erase the patronage that the dominant castes bestowed on the lower castes, which were new entrants in the political field. Further, the process of decentralization of administrative establishment effected by the TOP government during its first term saw the division of a district into mandals as administrative units above the level of the gram panchayats in the place of taluks which were three times bigger than the mandals. The TDP government's rationale for introducing the mandai system was to reorganize and reduce the number of gram panchayats attached to the sub-divisional revenue units to make them more viable. It was argued that the then existing local and revenue administration system with large territorial units only helped vested local leadership in the villages, which had resulted in faction fights and groupism \\ithin the village, defeating the original purpose of deepening democracy. 9 The opposition Congress (I) had alleged then that this was done to oust the incumbent Congress (I) representatives from the local bodies, as it made the previous system defunct and called for fresh elections based on the mandai system of administration. In the changed system, Mandai Praja Parishads (MPPs) each consisting of about 35,000-50,000 people living in about a dozen villages directly elected the president of the MPP and the entire electorate in the district simultaneously elected the chairman of the Zilla Praja Parishads (ZPPs). The direct election of these two important functionaries eliminated the uncertainty in the earlier system in which the panchayat samithi president and ZP chairmen faced a no-confidence motion every 6 months, and the samithi presidents and sarpanches changed their loyalties frequently, creating 9 Newstime (Hyderabad), 21 April

20 problems. 10 After the introduction of the mandai system of administration, political party based factions came to hold centrestage as the elections of MPP representatives and ZPP chairmen were contested on party lines. Post 1987, village factions were distinctly divided into two rival political parties and it was often seen that if one faction owed allegiance to one particular party, the other faction would inevitably support the other party. However, in some cases, village factions owing allegiance to different district level leaders belonging to the same political party, e.g. the Congress (I) supported a single party in the MPP and ZPP elections. In such cases, village supremacy and political rivalry were interlinked which gave the factions a distinctly political flavour. In addition to factions emerging due to political rivalry, village factions arise over competition for economic ventures such as dealership of fair price. shops, arrack contracts, and government contracts for village amenities etc. In such cases, leaders in the villages vie for the influence and power of district level leaders who patronize these leaders for consolidating their support base in the village for their own advantage during elections. This has brought about new elements into the network of factional organizations such as bootleggers and intermediaries who provide their services to the political leaders in return for monetary benefits. The nature of village factions have thus undergone substantial changes with their activities being interlinked with personnel outside the village and with no direct connection to the local dispute of the factionists. Present day factions and factional leaders have thus widened their networks from the village to the towns and even to 10 The Hindu (Madras), 15 February

21 the state capital in order to strengthen their economic arsenal, as the organization of factions today require strong finances. This also indicates that the present day factions maintain a range of personnel providing various services to the faction leader. There are three key positions that a modem faction utilizes. At the apex of such a hierarchy is the faction leader himself; next to him in the hierarchy comes the person who manages the group and looks after the finances of the faction; and lastly, the person who strategises the ways of taking on the opponent of the faction leader, either physically or economically ( op.cit. p.29). It is rare to have all the three positions combined in a single person and more than one person can hold the second and third positions in the hierarchy simultaneously (ibid). The trusted personnel in the faction are usually from the leader's native village or a family member or a political ally, associated with the leader through bonds of kinship or friendship. In mapping the genesis, nature and transformations of factions in Anantapur district of the Rayalaseema: region, we have outlined the differences between traditional and modem factions and how at particular junctures in the political history of the district and the state in general, new elements have been introduced into the structure and activities of factions, which have metamorphosed the traditional factions into their present garb. Political and economic changes have been significant parameters in this change. Traditional family and intra-caste factions have given way to predominantly political factions, and the rise of the backward classes has resulted in the formation of factions within and between dominant caste and backward castes. The emergence of factions owing allegiance to two different political parties was possible due to the coming into power of the Telugu Desam Party in 1983, which ended the one party domination of the Congress (I) in state Ill

22 politics and resulted in village factions being wooed by political parties of different hues to strengthen their political currency in state politics. As the days of traditional faction leaders waned, places of intense factional activity too shifted from these traditional locales to those places where present day faction leaders have their bases. Tadpatri, Dharmavaram and Penukonda are the centres synonymous with intense factional disputes and factional violence in present day Anantapur, although violence associated with factions could take place almost anywhere within the district and the region. Although traditional factions continue to exist in their traditional centres, it is the present district level leaders and MLAs in Anantapur who concentrate factional activity in their respective constituencies. This in turn means that factions today are determined by their articulation with democratic political system in which political parties and their fortunes decide the emergence and termination of a faction. Unlike factions in earlier times which continued for generations, present day factions have their high and low points depending on the fate of the respective faction leader in district and regional politics and ultimately in state politics. It could be argued then, that faction and factional politics in Rayalaseema takes various forms, differing in their nature and political articulation within the region as a whole. However, as a form of elite politics, factionalism involves a basic patron-client relationship, whether obtaining between the leaders in a particular district belonging to the same political party, or leaders within the region of Rayalaseema, or that between leaders and followers within any given faction. In the next two sections, the discussion centers on the nature of factional conflicts in Kurnool and Cuddapah, the two other districts of Rayalaseema known for factional 112

23 violence, and the ways in which the idioms of factional politics in the three districts define the regional political structure of Rayalaseema. KURNOOL The District Kurnool derives its name from its district head quarters Kurnool town. It is an old urban settlement and served as capital of the former Nawabs and it was also capital of the Andhra state from October 1953 to 1 51 November, The district has boundaries with Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers and Mahabubnagar district on the north, with Cuddapah and Anantapur districts on the south, the state of Karnataka on the west, and with Prakasam district on the east. Although the topography of the district is roughly similar to that of Anantapur district, the Pennar and the Hundri rivers drain Kurnool. It is also characterized by two mountain ranges, Nallamala and Erramala which runs parallel from North to South of the district, with the latter dividing the district into two welldefined tracts- east and west. These mountain ranges facilitate some rainfall in the district. The eastern tract of the district comprising of 25 mandals has predominantly black cotton soils while the western part comprising of 28 mandals has mostly black cotton soil in the northwest and predominantly red soil in the southeastern parts. This district also lies on the 'famine zone' of the region with the exception of the central part of the district, which gets irrigation from the Kurnool-Cuddapah canal (KC canal), 11 and some other parts of the district at the base of the hills. The eastern part villages in Kumool taluk, 21 villages in Nandikotkur taluk, 17 villages in Atmakur taluk, 32 villages in Nandyal taluk, 26 villages from Koilkuntla taluk got irrigation from this canal. See Eenadu, April 8,

24 Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh) Mahbubnagar Map net to Seal& Rlvw NatioN~~~ Major Road Anantapur - 0 Road Rallwlly Track Dlalrlct Headquarter Taluk Headqllater Town Copyright (e) Mapienoe India UmiU!d 2001 Cuddapa:h

25 of the district yields superior and frequent crop outputs as it has a better natural supply of surface and underground water. The rest of the district, especially the Owk mandai gets the least quantity of rainfall and suffers from scarcity more often. 12 This was the region, which suffered most from the periodic droughts and famines in the district. The major share of the land-holdings in this district are owned by. the Reddis and the Kammas, while the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes own semi-medium landholdings (Rao, 1998, p.65). Other castes have more of individual land holdings, with the number of marginal cultivators being higher than other categories of cultivators in all the castes (ibid). Available data on the wage pattern in the district show some decline in wages (Kumar, op.cit., p.160). Payments were made in cash but only for cultivation of special products such as cotton, although in some cases payments were made in kind (ibid, p.145). Although sharecropping was prevalent, in actuality sharecroppers were agricultural labourers, getting around 25 per cent of the crop for their labour (ibid, p.170). Bonded labour was reported to be prevalent even after independence. In 1977, one Venkata Ramappa of Bommanapalli in the Pattikonda taluk of the district was arrested under Internal Security Act on the complaint of some 'sugali' women that some 40 families were kept as bonded labour at his place. 13 The principal agricultural castes in the district are the Kapus (Reddis), Kammas and Balijas. The Malas and Madigas, who form the two principal sub-castes under the Harijans, are largely labourers, both agricultural and non- 12 District Census Handbook, Kumool District, Government of Andhra Pradesh, See Eenadu, June I 0,

26 agricultural. Other castes such as the Edigas, Y adavs, Kuru bas and Boyas follow distinct caste occupations, besides holding some land as tenants (Rao, op.cit, p.80). The historical trajectory of this district is similar to that of the other districts of the region of Rayalaseema. This district had also seen the uprising of 'palegars' or military chieftains of the Vijayanagar times once the British, under Munro's command, tried to consolidate their rule in the region. Of the 80 'palegars' in this region, 22 were from Kumool (present day Kumool along with Markapuram division). Kothakonda, Kappatralla, Devanakonda, Owk, and Koilkuntla were some of the areas dominated by 'palegars' when the district was ceded to the British (APCLC, 1993, p.7). Most notable among the 'palegars' in this region was Narasimha Reddy who revolted against the Bri~ish for abolishing their zamindari. He was subsequently arrested and executed under Munro's collectorship of this region (ibid). Since 1955, the local administrative set-up of the district is arranged as a three-tier system consisting of gram panchayats, samithis, and Zilla Parishads. Samithis were re-arranged to form mandals after the TDP came to power. At present, there are 821 panchayats, 54 Mandai Praja Parishads (MPPs) and one Zilla Parishad (ZP). Each mandai comprises of 20 to 25 villages of a population of 35,000 to 55,000 and its own Praja Parishad (APCLC, 1993, p.6). The election system and the election procedures to ZPs and MPPs were further modified when the TDP came to power for the second time in 1994 (ibid) The other features of the local administration introduced by the TDP government have been discussed earlier while discussing Anantapur district. These features are uniform throughout the districts of Andhra Pradesh and hence needs no further elucidation. 115

27 Factions in Kurnool: As has been noted in the case of Anantapur district, factions in the Rayalaseema region, to which Kurnool belongs, are a pervasive feature of rural social and political structure for a long time. It has also been noted that it was in Kumool that violent factions first manifested in the early 1970s and then influenced the political culture in Anantapur (APCLC, 1998, p.2). Factions in this district are characterized by the presence of inter-caste factions, for instance, between BCs and Reddis, between two Scheduled Castes, and that between BCs and SCs. Another distinguishing feature of factions in Kumool is the excessive prevalence of "armed" factions and the violence perpetrated by them, when compared to factions in Anantapur. In fact, it has often been argued that the influence of Kumool on Anantapur has led to factions becoming violent in the latter (ibid, p.2-3). Factional politics was mostly characterized in Kurnool by violence where "the bomb culture... can be traced back to 1972 when a man called Eashwara Reddy exploded the first bomb in Allagadda. Until then factions had fought with each other with sickles" (Rao, op.cit, p.88). Village factions in Kumool arose for much the same reasons as that m Anantapur. Traditional factions were mostly Reddi factions, which arose for wielding village supremacy and due to questions of honour related to women and property. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1908 has noted, " there is a widespread prevalence of murders, rioting, and skirmishes between groups of people under the leadership of rural notables, primarily due to envy, land related disputes and age-old 116

28 rivalries. Mostly land disputes led to serious lootings". Traditional factions, as that in Anantapur, were a result of rivalries about property and prestige in rural society, without any economic or political ambitions beyond the village. At times, matters of honour also led to the formation of factions. Traditional factions often started as a small incident of conflict over land or exercising of authority and escalated until every murder had been avenged and all incidents of arson were reciprocated. Under the British regime, rural factions were predominant in the erstwhile taluks along the border of Cuddapah and Kumool, particularly b neighbouring taluks of Kovelakuntla in Kumool district and Jammalamadugu in Cuddapah district. Rural faction rivalries were also prevalent in some villages in Allagadda and Pattikonda taluks during those times. These factions were limited to the village level through taluk board and other village level elections. After the 1970s, however, these village factions crossed the village boundaries to capture points of executive power in the District Boards and the state legislature. The traditional factions that started with taluk and district level political tussles have continued even to this day between powerful families in the district. One such contest for the 1938 elections to the taluk boards between a Congress party candidate belonging to the Backward Classes and a Justice party candidate belonging to a powerful Reddy family had led to rivalries, as the latter could not win the election. This had led to political rivalry between the two families and became centred at the places from which the two candidates hailed. These political rivalries continue to exist in the form of factions between these two families in some areas of Kumool until this day. As these local body elections were contested on non-party lines, they 117