Freedom Struggle and Social Reform in Andhra: 1800s to 1947 Notes for APPSC & AP Police

The Andhra story between the early 1800s and 1947 is tested in almost every APPSC, AP Police and DSC history paper, yet it is rarely taught as one connected narrative. Students tend to learn it as a heap of names: a palegar who was hanged, a forest rebel with a bow, a reformer with a widow remarriage, a flag designer, a newspaper founder. The questions then mix them up. The better way to revise is to see three streams running side by side. The first is armed or semi-armed resistance in the countryside and the hills, from the palegar and tribal risings to the Rampa rebellions. The second is social and cultural reform, led by teachers, writers and journalists in the Godavari and Krishna deltas. The third is the organised national movement, which in Andhra moved from the Vandemataram agitation of 1907 through the Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and Quit India phases.

This guide builds that picture with dated tables, short case studies and the exam traps that cost marks. It goes deeper than the brief overview in AP personalities: freedom fighters, poets and reformers and does not repeat that page. The creation of a separate Andhra State and the later reorganisation are covered in a sibling post, Andhra movement to 1956 and 2014, so here they are only cross-referenced. For the wider exam map see the Andhra Pradesh government exams 2026 guide.

A note on spellings and dates. Telugu names are written in several English forms (Kasinadhuni or Kasinathuni, Gopalakrishnayya or Gopala Krishnaiah, Venkayya or Venkaiah, Sitarama Raju or Seetharama Raju). Where reputable sources disagree on a date or number, this page says so. Questions usually avoid contested details, but where they do not, learn the version your syllabus book uses and treat the rest as background.

1. The big picture in one table

Period	Main current	Regions most involved	Typical exam hook
1800-1857	Palegar and agrarian resistance after the Nizam ceded districts in 1800	Rayalaseema (Ceded Districts)	Narasimha Reddy, 1846
1840-1886	Hill-tribe risings (Koya, Rampa) against muttadars, police, toddy rules and traders	Godavari and Visakhapatnam Agency	Rampa, 1879
1870s-1919	Social reform and Telugu press	Rajahmundry, Kakinada, Machilipatnam	Veeresalingam, Venkataratnam Naidu
1905-1911	Vandemataram and Swadeshi	Rajahmundry, Kakinada	Harisarvottama Rao, Bipin Chandra Pal
1916-1923	Home Rule, Non-Cooperation, local tax and forest campaigns	Krishna, Guntur, Nellore, Madras Presidency	Chirala-Perala, Palnadu, Vijayawada 1921
1922-1924	Second Rampa rebellion	Godavari and Visakhapatnam Agency	Alluri Sitarama Raju
1930-1934	Salt Satyagraha and Civil Disobedience	Coastal Andhra	Prakasam, volunteers to Konaseema
1942-1943	Quit India	Guntur, Nellore, Godavari, Rayalaseema	Kurnool Circular
1946-1951	Telangana peasant armed struggle	Hyderabad State (summary only)	Andhra Mahasabha and the Communists

2. Palegars and the Ceded Districts: the background to 1846

To understand the early revolts you need one geographical fact. In 1800 the Nizam of Hyderabad ceded a block of districts to the East India Company, and the area, roughly today's Rayalaseema, came to be called the Ceded Districts. Sir Thomas Munro served as its administrator from 1800 to 1807 and introduced the ryotwari system of revenue. District histories note that Munro subdued more than 80 palegars in the tract and built his revenue system on that foundation, so the forts and armed retainers of the old chieftains were the first problem he had to solve. The Ceded Districts covered what are now Anantapur, Kadapa and Kurnool along with Bellary, and the name stayed in everyday use through the Company and Crown periods even though it carried no formal administrative weight.

A palegar (also spelt poligar) was a local chieftain who held a territory, usually in return for military service and a share of the revenue. When the Company replaced this arrangement with direct revenue collection from cultivators, the palegar lost both status and income. Historians therefore read many early risings as reactions of dispossessed local elites joined by peasants and hunters who had their own grievances against the new revenue system. Do not describe them in the exam as simple "nationalist" revolts. Say that they were anti-Company, rooted in local loss, and later remembered as part of the freedom narrative.

3. Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy and the 1846 revolt

Narasimha Reddy belonged to a palegar family of Uyyalawada in present-day Kurnool district. One widely used account, which quotes the 1886 Kurnool district manual, says he was born on 24 November 1806 at Rupanagudi as the youngest son of Mallareddy, and was a grandson of Jayarami Reddy of Nossam, whose line lost its lands. When the Nossam line was declared extinct in 1821, the government refused to enlarge the pension of his family, and Narasimha Reddy received only a small monthly allowance (Wikipedia gives Rs 11 a month, while historians quoted by The News Minute call it a paltry sum without a figure, so treat Rs 11 as reported and not as settled). The immediate trigger of the revolt is told in two ways. The popular story is that a tahsildar at Koilkuntla insulted his messenger when the allowance was claimed. Historians also point to the wider burden of revenue and the loss of palegar privileges.

Item	What sources say
Place of rising	Koilkuntla and nearby villages, Kurnool district
Year	1846 (July for the attack on the Koilkuntla treasury; one account gives 10 July and another 12 July)
Size	Often given as about 5,000 followers; one popular article claims 9,000; sources differ on how many were armed
Capture	Late 1846, after months in the hills; the district manual quoted by Wikipedia says he was caught on a hill near Perusomala in Koilkuntla taluk, and one account gives the night of 6 October
Execution	22 February 1847, hanged at Koilkuntla at 7 a.m. before a crowd of more than 2,000, according to the acting collector's report as quoted by Telangana Today; some accounts name the riverside spot Jurreti, and Wikipedia's infobox gives 23 February
Associates	Vadde Obanna is named as his chief lieutenant; the body is said to have been displayed in a cage at Koilkuntla for years afterwards (the end year is given as 1877 or 1887)

Exam points. First, the date of the hanging, 22 February 1847, is the safest anchor. Second, he is described as the leader of the 1846 Kurnool-region revolt, and the revolt is placed in the palegar tradition, not in 1857. Third, the number of followers, the exact day of the treasury attack and the place name for the gallows (Koilkuntla or the Jurreti riverbank beside it) vary between sources, so a well-set question will not rely on them. Fourth, Rayalaseema's memory of him is strong in local culture, but an exam answer should stay with the documented facts above.

4. Tribal risings: Koya, Rampa and the forest laws

Tribal resistance in the northern Andhra hills is easier to learn if you separate it into two layers: the grievances, which stayed the same for decades, and the rebellions, which erupted at particular moments.

The grievances. Four things recur in the sources: the loss of free use of forests, restrictions on podu (shifting) cultivation, new taxes on toddy tapping and sale, and exploitation by moneylenders, traders and local officials called mansabdars or muttadars. The Madras Forest Act of 1882 tightened the first two and angered the hereditary muttadars who lost their old powers.

The Koya rebellions. The Koya people of the eastern Godavari hill tracts rose several times over the nineteenth century; one educational summary lists risings in 1803, 1840, 1845, 1858, 1861 and 1862, then the great Rampa rising of 1879-80, and a last phase in 1886 under a leader called Raja Anantayyar. Wikipedia's list of pre-independence tribal revolts separately records the Koya revolt of 1862 against the muttadars in Godavari district, so that year has a second source. For the earlier years and for 1886 I found no second source, so use the broad pattern (repeated Koya revolts against muttadars, police and moneylenders) rather than memorising each year unless your syllabus lists them.

The Rampa rebellion of 1879. This is the one to know well. It began in March 1879 with attacks on police stations in Chodavaram taluk of the Visakhapatnam Hill Tracts Agency, and the first target was the police station at Rampachodavaram, from which arms were taken. The trigger was a rule that made domestic toddy tapping illegal and introduced a toddy tax, together with unfair contracts imposed by lowland traders and the favouritism shown to them by the government. The leader is usually given as Tammanna Dora of Bhupatipalem near Rampachodavaram (spelt Tomma Sora or Tammandora in other sources). Wikipedia's article on the 1879 rising, which cites Fürer-Haimendorf's Tribes of India, names Chandrayya and others as the commanders instead, so sources differ and a question should not hinge on the name. One educational summary says the rising ended after Tomma Sora's death in late 1880, a detail I could not confirm. The revolt spread to the Golconda hills and the Bhadrachalam area and was put down in 1879-80 with large forces: several police companies, six Madras infantry regiments, cavalry, sappers and a regiment from Hyderabad. Many rebels were sent to the Andaman jail. The government later arrested the mansabdar, and some reforms followed. It is called the First Rampa rebellion to distinguish it from 1922-24.

The second Rampa rebellion, 1922-24

The second rebellion is the best-known tribal event in Andhra history and is associated with Alluri Sitarama Raju, whom people call Manyam Veerudu, "hero of the forest region". His birth date is 4 July. The Government of India's own feature in the PIB Heroes of Freedom series gives the year as 1897, which is the year to use, although Wikipedia notes that some references say 1898. The birthplace is the more disputed point: the PIB feature says only a small village near Visakhapatnam, while other accounts name Pandrangi, Mogallu or Bhimavaram, so do not rely on a village name. The sequence of the rebellion is better documented.

Date	Event
22-24 August 1922	Raids on the police stations of Chintapalli (22 August, with over 300 men according to PIB), Krishnadevipeta and Rajavommangi; arms and ammunition taken
23-24 September 1922	Ambush at the Dammalapalli ghat in which two police officers, named Scott and Heiter in the PIB feature, were killed; sources give 23 or 24 September
Autumn 1922 onwards	Government sends the Assam Rifles and later the Malabar Special Police; the Agency Commissioner announces Rs 10,000 for Raju and Rs 1,000 for each of his two lieutenants
7 May 1924	Raju is caught and shot, at Koyyuru according to most accounts, and later buried at Krishnadevipeta; T. G. Rutherford had been sent to end the rising in April 1924
6 June 1924	His associate Gam Gantamdora is killed

The rebellion was a guerrilla campaign, not a mass movement in the Gandhian sense. Raju drew on the grievances listed above, and he is reported to have adopted some Non-Cooperation ideas, such as discouraging liquor, while still using arms. His associate Gam Mallu Dora was imprisoned and later elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952. The PIB feature records that the government deployed hundreds of Malabar Special Police and Assam Rifles soldiers, that over 400 people were booked on charges including treason after Raju's death, and that more than Rs 40 lakh was spent to defeat the rising, which shows how seriously the administration took it. A postal stamp honoured Raju in 1986, 4 July is observed as a state festival, and the Alluri Sitarama Raju district was created in 2022 with Paderu as its headquarters.

Exam traps. The rebellion was in the Godavari and Visakhapatnam Agency, not the Nallamala hills. Rampa 1879 and Rampa 1922 are separate events with different leaders. Raju did not lead the 1879 revolt. The 1882 Forest Act came after 1879 and is a background cause of 1922, not of 1879. Finally, "Manyam" refers to the hill country and should not be confused with a district name.

Chenchus and the Palnadu forest satyagraha

The Chenchu people of the Nallamala forest also appear in this period. Do not attach them to Alluri. One online summary credits Alluri with a Chenchu revolt in the Nallamala hills in 1898, and that is wrong on every count: the PIB feature gives his birth as 1897, so he was an infant in 1898; his rebellion was in the Godavari and Visakhapatnam Agency from 1922 to 1924; and the Wikipedia pages on the Nallamala hills and the Chenchus mention no such revolt, while its list of Andhra tribal revolts names Alluri only for 1922. The documented link is the Palnadu (Pullari) forest satyagraha of 1921-22 in Guntur district, where the Chenchus of the Nallamala hills are reported to have joined villagers. The leader was Kanneganti Hanumanthu (born around 1870, at Minchalapadu), and the target was the pullari tax on grazing and forest produce. People socially boycotted revenue and forest staff by denying them food, laundry and barbering. The official T. G. Rutherford is reported to have offered him the zamindari of 45 villages, which he refused. He was shot by the police on 22 February 1922 (reports say 24 to 26 times), and is said to have kept shouting Vandemataram for about six hours. A local village official is reported to have betrayed him. Palnadu belongs to the Non-Cooperation story and not the armed-rebellion story, which is how an exam would classify it.

5. What about 1857 in Andhra?

Students often expect a parallel to Meerut or Jhansi, and the honest answer is that the Madras Presidency remained largely quiet in 1857. Secret meetings were reported in North Arcot, and many Madras Army sepoys were later court-martialled for various offences. In the Andhra region the Cuddapah area records some local agitation and a leader named Sheikh Peer Shah of Yellampet, who is described as having tried to build Hindu-Muslim unity. I could not confirm this from an official record or gazetteer, and the details are thin and vary by source. For exams, use a safe line: the 1857 revolt had only limited and scattered echoes in Andhra, and the larger regional resistance came earlier (palegars, 1846) and later (Rampa, Vandemataram, Non-Cooperation). If a question asks for the major 1857 centres, Andhra will not be the answer.

6. Social reform: who, where and what

The reform movement in Andhra took its form in the 1870s to 1910s, in the Godavari delta towns above all. It was influenced by the Brahmo Samaj, which was less a mass organisation here than a circle of teachers, lawyers and writers, and by the Theosophical Society, whose headquarters were at Adyar in Madras. Its causes were widow remarriage, women's education, an end to child marriage and the bride-price system, an end to the devadasi practice, and a more open attitude to caste.

Kandukuri Veeresalingam (1848-1919)

Veeresalingam was born at Rajahmundry on 16 April 1848 and died at Madras on 27 May 1919. He is called the father of the Telugu renaissance and sometimes compared with Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

Year	Event
1874	Opened a girls' school at Dowleswaram (the likely source of the stray "1874" in some notes)
1876	Started the monthly Viveka Vardhini, first printed at Madras and later from his own press at Rajahmundry
1878	Began serialising Rajasekhara Charitramu in his journal Viveka Chandrika
1880	Rajasekhara Charitramu published as a book, regarded as the first Telugu novel
11 December 1881	First widow remarriage that he arranged, after he had formed a remarriage association
1885	Attended the first Indian National Congress meeting
1887	A Brahmo Mandir in Rajahmundry
1893	Rao Bahadur title from the government; he later set up a home for widows
1908	Hithakarini school, linked to his Hithakarini society

His 1974 commemorative stamp (25 paise) is a common one-liner. The 1876 date for Viveka Vardhini is the one given by Wikipedia and by the Indian Liberals biography, so use it and treat 1874 as a confusion with the Dowleswaram school. The traps: the first widow remarriage was in 1881, not in the 1850s (the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act of 1856 is a national law and a different fact); Rajasekhara Charitramu is a novel, not a play; and he worked in Rajahmundry and Madras, not Vizianagaram.

Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu (1862-1939)

Born on 1 October 1862 at Machilipatnam, he was a disciple of Veeresalingam and a Brahmo leader, and the Brahmo community gave him the title Brahmarshi. He worked against untouchability and the devadasi system, founded a Social Purity Association in 1891, and served as principal of Mehboob College in Secunderabad (1899-1904) and from 1905 of the Pithapuram Raja College in Kakinada (Wikipedia lists his term as 1905-19), where he founded an orphanage and a hostel for Harijan boys and girls. Wikipedia lists him as the first elected Vice-Chancellor of Madras University (1925-28) and records a knighthood in 1924; I could not confirm either point from an official source, so treat them as lower-priority facts. He died on 26 May 1939. Link him with Kakinada and Brahmo, and Veeresalingam with Rajahmundry.

Theosophy, Besant and Madanapalle

The Theosophical Society's headquarters at Adyar gave Andhra a different kind of reform influence, mostly through education. The Besant Theosophical College at Madanapalle began on 19 July 1915. On 28 February 1919 Rabindranath Tagore visited and, at the urging of Margaret Cousins, prepared an English version of his song, titled "The Morning Song of India". Margaret Cousins wrote the Western notation, and her husband James Cousins, the Irish poet, was the vice-principal. This is the English version linked with the national anthem's text and a very common state-level question. Do not say that the anthem was composed at Madanapalle; it was written in Bengali, years before the visit.

Annie Besant announced her Home Rule League in September 1916 with headquarters at Adyar. It was strongest in the Madras Presidency, which had 132 branches in 1917, and its membership across India grew from about 7,000 in March 1917 to about 27,000 by December. Besant became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress at the Calcutta session of December 1917.

Gurajada Apparao and Kanyasulkam

Gurajada Apparao (1862-1915) wrote the play Kanyasulkam, which appeared in 1892, and a completely revised second edition followed in 1909. Its title means bride-price, and it is a social drama that exposes hypocrisy, the sale of brides and the condition of widows in traditional Brahmin families. Many critics call it the greatest Telugu play. It supported the reform agenda, so a question that links it to Veeresalingam's movement is fair, but I did not find a reliable source for the claim that it was the first Telugu social play, and Veeresalingam's own plays of 1880 came earlier.

7. The Telugu press and the Kalankari link

Newspapers gave Telugu readers a shared political vocabulary long before universal literacy. The ones to know:

Newspaper	Facts
Krishna Patrika	Started on 2 February 1902 at Machilipatnam as a weekly by Konda Venkatappayya and Dasu Narayana Rao; Venkatappayya was its first editor until about 1905, and Mutnuri Krishna Rao edited it from 1907 until his death in 1945
Andhra Patrika	Founded by Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao on 9 September 1908 as a weekly (one biography page gives 1909 and Bombay as the place of publication); moved to Madras in 1914 and became the first lasting Telugu daily
Swarajya (Gadicherla)	A Telugu weekly begun in 1908 with Bodi Narayana Rao; the editor was charged with sedition over an article titled "Viparita Buddhi" and sentenced to three years
Swarajya (Prakasam)	Launched in 1921 to carry the Non-Cooperation message

Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao (1 May 1867-11 April 1938) is also remembered for the Amrutanjan balm (his company dates from 1893), received the title Desoddharaka from the Andhra Mahasabha, and was given an honorary doctorate, Kalaprapoorna, by Andhra University in 1935. Mutnuri Krishna Rao was born in 1879 and died on 25 June 1945; as editor of Krishna Patrika he is credited with inviting Bipin Chandra Pal to tour Andhra in 1907. The early Telugu press was not only about politics: it carried campaigns for schools and reading rooms and was read aloud to villagers.

The topic list for this page mentions Kalankari, which is better known today as kalamkari. Pedana and Machilipatnam in Krishna district are its Andhra centres, and the craft is a resist-dyed, hand-painted or block-printed textile with older export roots. Sources agree that colonial-era machine textiles undercut it and that formal revival came after independence (Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay is linked with the Handicrafts Board). I found no dated Swadeshi-era event for kalamkari that is firm enough for an exam, so treat it as a cultural and economic background topic, and note that the Swadeshi call to prefer handmade cloth belongs to the same story of local industry.

8. The Vandemataram movement, 1905-1907

The Bengal partition took effect on 16 October 1905, and the Vandemataram and Swadeshi campaign spread from Bengal. In Andhra its peak came in 1907, with Rajahmundry and Kakinada at the centre.

• Bipin Chandra Pal's tour, April 1907. He came at the invitation of Mutnuri Krishna Rao, the editor of Krishna Patrika, and one account lists Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Rajahmundry, Vijayawada and Machilipatnam among his stops. His lectures drew large crowds and inspired students, and the e-PG Pathshala (INFLIBNET) history text credits his 1907 tour with giving the movement in Andhra and Madras new strength. This is why exam material calls it the Vandemataram movement in Andhra.
• The student action at Rajahmundry. After a lecture by Pal, students at the Teachers' Training College wore Vandemataram badges. The principal, Mark Hunter, demanded that they remove them. Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao, who led the protest, refused and was dismissed.
• The writer. Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham (26 September 1867-17 June 1946) was a Telugu instructor at the Government Arts College in Rajahmundry who followed Veeresalingam's tradition of writing on social themes. He was blind for most of his adult life and wore khadi in support of the national movement. I could not confirm the popular story of an extempore poem before Pal from a source I could open, so it is left out.
• Kakinada. In July 1907 a medical officer, Captain (Dr) Kemp, is reported to have struck a boy for shouting Vandemataram, after which a crowd of more than 300 attacked the European club. This is the Cocanada riot case, described in one account as the first criminal case in Andhra's political field. Details beyond that are thinly documented online, so keep it to a short mention.
• Swadeshi. The national school and industrial education ideas followed the boycott call. Some notes credit P. Anandacharlu of Chittoor with introducing the Swadeshi resolution at a Calcutta Congress in 1908, but I could not confirm that from any source, and Anandacharlu died in January 1908, before that year's Congress session, so avoid the claim.

Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao was born at Kurnool on 14 September 1883 and died on 29 February 1960. He started the Telugu weekly Swarajya in 1908 with Bodi Narayana Rao, was sentenced to three years for sedition over the article "Viparita Buddhi" (the first use of the sedition law in Andhra, and a biography dates his imprisonment 1908-1911), and was a pioneer of the library movement, founding the Edward Corporation Library at Nandyal. He served as secretary of the Andhra Home Rule League and was elected to the Madras Legislative Council in 1923 on the Swarajya Party ticket. At the 1917 Andhra Mahasabha session he proposed district-wise voting to ensure fair representation.

A common trap: who named Rayalaseema? Popular accounts credit Harisarvottama Rao, but the better-sourced account, which Wikipedia's Rayalaseema article states in detail, says that Chilukuri Narayana Rao, a Telugu lecturer and activist from Anantapur, objected to the word "Ceded" as derogatory and moved the resolution for the name Rayalaseema, which the delegates accepted, at the Andhra Mahasabha and Ceded Districts conference at Nandyal in November 1928. I could not find an official or archival record of the resolution, so a careful question asks about the Nandyal conference of 1928 and not a single hero.

9. Home Rule, Non-Cooperation and the Congress in Andhra

From 1916 to 1923 the story moves into the Congress organisation. Five events matter, plus one organisational step described after the list.

1. Home Rule League, 1916. Besant's league had its headquarters at Adyar and was stronger in the Madras Presidency than in any other region.
2. Vijayawada, 31 March and 1 April 1921. The All India Congress Committee met at Bezwada. It set a target of one crore rupees for the Tilak Swaraj Fund by the end of June. During the meeting Pingali Venkayya's flag design was presented, and Gandhi announced it on 1 April. The volunteers of Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya's Rama Dandu were prominent, and one account says Maulana Muhammad Ali called them the "Red Army of India". Treat this last detail as reported.
3. Palnadu and Pedanandipadu, 1921-22. The Palnadu forest satyagraha (Section 4) and the Pedanandipadu no-tax campaign in Guntur district, led by Parvataneni Veeraiah Chowdary, were local forms of Non-Cooperation. The Pedanandipadu campaign is described in one teaching summary as a no-tax movement of 1922 with a volunteer corps, and I could not confirm any other detail of it, so keep it as a one-line example.
4. Chirala-Perala, 1921. See below.
5. Kakinada, 28 December 1923 to 1 January 1924. The 38th session of the Congress was at Cocanada under Maulana Muhammad Ali. Its Seva Dal resolution, which placed the volunteer body under the supervision of the Working Committee, is a familiar question.

The organisational step was the creation of a separate Congress province for the Telugu districts. The All India Congress Committee decided in April 1917 to constitute it, and the Andhra Congress council was formed in January 1918 with N. Subba Rao Pantulu as its first president and Konda Venkatappayya as secretary. Some summaries give 1923 for the Andhra Provincial Congress Committee, which seems to reflect a later reorganisation, and Wikipedia's page on Konda Venkatappayya lists him as its president from 1918 to 1923, so sources differ on who held which post. Learn the 1917-18 sequence and keep the names as background.

Pingali Venkayya and the flag

Pingali Venkayya was born on 2 August 1876 and died on 4 July 1963. The Ministry of Culture, speaking at the 146th birth anniversary function in August 2022, gave 1876 as the year, so use it; some sources say 1878. He served in the Second Boer War in South Africa, where he is said to have first met Gandhi, and the story is that seeing Indian soldiers salute the Union Jack set him thinking about an Indian flag. In 1921, at the Bezwada session, he presented a design to Gandhi; the original had red and green bands (read as the two major communities), and Gandhi suggested the addition of white. The Ministry of Culture factsheet describes the 1921 flag as three stripes with a spinning wheel in the centre. A 1931 resolution adopted the flag with a small change, replacing red with saffron. The flag in its present form was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947, and the spinning wheel was replaced by the Ashoka chakra, so Venkayya's flag was a foundation and not the final national flag. India Post released a commemorative stamp in his honour on 2 August 2022, and Wikipedia also lists a 2009 issue.

The Chirala-Perala movement

The movement began as a dispute over municipal status. Chirala and Perala, twin settlements, were to be merged into a single municipality, and the residents feared a steep rise in taxes (the figure usually given is from Rs 4,000 to Rs 40,000 a year). In January 1921 they refused to pay, and the government answered with arrests, prosecutions and prison terms. After the Bezwada session Gandhi advised a non-violent withdrawal beyond the town limits, which would also make a depopulated municipality meaningless. In April 1921 Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya led residents out of the town to a temporary settlement called Ramanagar, where he set up an assembly and a court of arbitration. Nearly 13,000 of about 15,000 inhabitants are said to have left (a teaching summary gives 13,572 on 25 April), and the exile lasted about eleven months before it collapsed.

Duggirala was born on 2 June 1889 at Penuganchiprolu and died on 10 June 1928 at Guntur, aged 39. He organised the Rama Dandu corps (volunteers in saffron clothes with rudraksha beads), became the first Andhra leader to be an AICC secretary, joined the Swarajya Party in 1925, and received the title Andhra Ratna. The exam characterises Chirala-Perala as a non-violent civic protest and not an armed one.

10. Salt Satyagraha and Civil Disobedience in Andhra

Gandhi's Dandi march ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930, and he was arrested in early May. In Andhra the campaign was strongest in the coastal districts. Reports describe salt-making camps and marches in East and West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur, with organisers working in Ganjam, Visakhapatnam, Nellore and Madras city as well; the Vedaranyam march under C. Rajagopalachari was the Madras Presidency's counterpart of Dandi.

Person	Role
Tanguturi Prakasam	Led a salt march from Devarampadu in 1930
Kotagiri Venkata Krishna Rao	A zamindar of the Gampalagudem estate; led 120 volunteers on foot from Vijayawada to Konaseema to make salt; imprisoned from 30 April 1930; Gandhi is said to have remarked that his action boosted the campaign in coastal Andhra
Konda Venkatappayya	Organised the campaign in the region; jailed in 1930, 1932 and 1942
Durgabai Deshmukh	Took part in the 1930 Salt Satyagraha and was jailed three times between 1930 and 1933
Duvvuri Subbamma	Took part in the Salt March and civil disobedience; jailed for a year at Rajahmundry and a year at Vellore

I could not verify a single list of all salt camps in Andhra from reliable open sources, so avoid questions that rest on a specific village unless your syllabus text lists it.

Prakasam: Andhra Kesari

Tanguturi Prakasam was born on 23 August 1872 and died on 20 May 1957. His title Andhra Kesari ("lion of Andhra") is linked to the Simon Commission protest in Madras in 1928, when he is said to have bared his chest before armed police. He launched Swarajya in 1921, was Premier of the Madras Presidency from 30 April 1946 to 23 March 1947, and became the first Chief Minister of Andhra State on 1 October 1953; his government fell on 15 November 1954. Prakasam district, formed around Ongole on 2 February 1970, is named after him (Wikipedia dates the adoption of the name to 1972). He championed the abolition of zamindari in Madras, which became law the year after his premiership. The trap is the date layer: Andhra State was 1953, Andhra Pradesh 1956.

Durgabai Deshmukh

Born at Rajahmundry on 15 July 1909, died 9 May 1981 at Narasannapeta. At about the age of 12 she left school in protest at English-medium teaching and is said to have started the Balika Hindi Pathasala for girls, at Kakinada in most accounts (Wikipedia says Rajahmundry). In 1923 she was a volunteer at the Kakinada Congress, in charge of the khadi exhibition. She took part in the Salt Satyagraha, founded the Andhra Mahila Sabha in 1937, took a law degree in 1942, sat in the Constituent Assembly (as the only woman on its panel of chairmen) and the Planning Commission, and founded and chaired the Central Social Welfare Board in 1953. She received the Padma Vibhushan in 1975.

11. Quit India in Andhra, 1942

The Quit India resolution was launched on 8 August 1942. In Andhra the Provincial Congress Committee had circulated a document known as the Kurnool Circular, so named because police seized a copy during a raid on the Kurnool Congress office. It was drafted by Kala Venkata Rao on 29 July 1942 and sent for approval to the Working Committee through Pattabhi Sitaramayya, a member of that committee. The Circular envisaged breaking prohibitory orders, lawyers giving up practice, students leaving colleges, picketing, cutting telegraph and telephone wires, travelling without tickets, pulling train chains, refusing taxes other than municipal ones and flying the national flag on government buildings. The PIB article on the movement in Andhra and Telangana is the source for this section.

Date (1942)	Place	Event
12 August	Tenali	Complete hartal after the arrest of Congress leaders; attempt to burn the railway station; police firing killed three according to the PIB article, which names Bhaskaruni Lakshminarayana, Majeti Subbarao and Sripathi Panditaradhyula Srigiri Rao; Tenali's local remembrance speaks of seven martyrs, so the casualty figure differs by source
12 August	Chirala	A procession of about 500 students marched to the sub-magistrate's court
13 August	Guntur	A crowd of about 2,000, mostly students, gathered at Hindu College; police firing left two dead and several injured
12 August (night)	Dowleswaram-Rajahmundry	An attempt to cut the telephone wires; the eight arrested got 18 months of rigorous imprisonment each (wires were cut the same day between Palacole, Lankalakoderu, Bhimavaram and Vendra)
12-13 August	Nellore, Kavali	Processions, damage to streetlights and railway equipment at Nellore; at Kavali the headmaster's room of the local board high school was set on fire; the principal of Venkatagiri Raja College hoisted the national flag

Leaders detained in Andhra included Pattabhi Sitaramayya (held at Ahmednagar Fort), Ayyadevara Kaleswara Rao, Tanguturi Prakasam, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy and Maganti Bapineedu. The agitation was at its peak in August and the first half of September 1942, and it continued into 1943. The trap is the name: Kurnool Circular, drafted by Kala Venkata Rao, not a Working Committee resolution.

12. Institutions: Andhra Mahasabha and Andhra University

Two Andhra Mahasabhas. The first Andhra Mahasabha met at Bapatla in 1913 under Sir Bayya Narasimheswara Sarma, with Konda Venkatappayya as secretary (popular accounts give 26-27 May and about 800 delegates, figures I could not confirm from an official source). A different Andhra body in the Telangana region began in 1921 as the Andhra Jana Sangham, a society of about a dozen members, and held its first major conference, as the Andhra Mahasabha, at Jogipet in 1930 under Suravaram Pratapa Reddy. The second body is the one linked with the later peasant struggle in Hyderabad State. Do not confuse them. The Mahasabha also gave the title Desoddharaka to Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao.

Andhra University. It was set up in 1926 under the Andhra University Act of 1925 and is now at Visakhapatnam (Waltair). Sir C. R. Reddy was its first Vice-Chancellor, and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan also held the office in the 1930s. The Maharaja of Jeypore, Vikram Deo Verma, donated lands and about two million rupees and went on to give large annual grants. Its motto, Tejasvi navadhitamastu ("may the divine light illuminate our studies"), is taken from the Taittiriya Aranyaka. The university grew out of the linguistic-identity movement but is a separate topic from statehood.

13. Communists, peasants and the Telangana struggle (summary)

The peasant story in Andhra has three layers: tax and forest campaigns (Pedanandipadu, Palnadu, Chirala-Perala), zamindari and ryotwari grievances in the coastal districts, and the Telangana struggle in Hyderabad State. Only the third is documented in enough depth by the sources I used, so it alone gets a summary here.

The Telangana peasant armed struggle ran from 1946 to 1951 in the princely State of Hyderabad. Its usual starting point is 4 July 1946, when police fired on a procession of peasants at Kadavendi village and killed the local leader Doddi Komarayya. It began as protests against forced labour (vetti) and the oppression of landlords and the Nizam's regime, led by the Communist Party of India and an Andhra Mahasabha that communists had turned into a militant mass organisation. The Communist Party endorsed armed rebellion in September 1947. Indian Army forces entered Hyderabad on 13 September 1948, and the struggle then continued against the Indian Union's own forces. The Communist Party called on the rebels to lay down arms on 25 October 1951. Exam angle: it took place in Hyderabad State, not in the Madras Presidency, and it has to be separated from the Andhra State movement.

14. Master timeline

Year	Event
1800	Nizam cedes districts to the Company; Munro administers them until 1807
1846	Narasimha Reddy's revolt at Koilkuntla
22 Feb 1847	Narasimha Reddy hanged
1848	Veeresalingam born
1879-80	First Rampa rebellion (began March 1879)
1881	First widow remarriage (11 December)
1882	Madras Forest Act
1876	Viveka Vardhini
1892	Kanyasulkam
1902	Krishna Patrika
1907	Vandemataram movement peaks; Pal visits
1908	Andhra Patrika; Gadicherla's Swarajya
1913	First Andhra Mahasabha at Bapatla
1915	Besant Theosophical College, Madanapalle
1916	Home Rule League, Adyar
1917-18	AICC decision (April 1917) and formation of the Andhra Congress council (January 1918)
1919	Tagore at Madanapalle (February); Veeresalingam dies (May)
1921	Vijayawada AICC (31 March-1 April); Chirala-Perala exodus (April); Palnadu satyagraha
1922-24	Second Rampa rebellion
1923-24	Kakinada Congress
1926	Andhra University
1928	Simon protest at Madras; Nandyal conference naming Rayalaseema
1930	Salt Satyagraha
1942	Kurnool Circular; Tenali, Chirala, Guntur incidents
1946-51	Telangana armed struggle (4 July 1946 to 25 October 1951)
1931	Congress resolution adopting Pingali's flag with saffron for red
22 Jul 1947	National flag adopted by the Constituent Assembly

Other personalities not to forget

• Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya: born 24 November 1880 at Gundugolanu, died 17 December 1959 at Hyderabad; a medical graduate who practised at Machilipatnam before turning to public life; founded Andhra Bank at Machilipatnam on 28 November 1923; co-authored a history of the Congress; was held at Ahmednagar Fort during Quit India; became Congress president (1948-49, Jaipur session); sat in the Constituent Assembly; and was the first Governor of Madhya Pradesh, from November 1956 to June 1957.
• Konda Venkatappayya: 1866-1948, Congress leader, co-founder of Krishna Patrika, secretary of the first Andhra Mahasabha at Bapatla, AICC secretary in 1923, and translator of Motley's work on the Dutch republic into Telugu while in jail at Cuddalore (completed in 1922).
• Duvvuri Subbamma: 15 November 1880-31 May 1964, independence activist, a founder of the women's Congress committee (1922) and of Andhra Mahila Sabhas.
• Kala Venkata Rao: drafter of the Kurnool Circular.

Common exam traps

• Narasimha Reddy 1846 (palegar, Kurnool) versus Rampa 1879 and 1922 (hill tribes, Agency tracts).
• Alluri Sitarama Raju (born 4 July 1897) is linked to the 1922-24 rebellion only, not the 1879 revolt or an 1898 "Chenchu revolt".
• The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act was 1856 and Veeresalingam's first widow remarriage was 1881.
• Kasinadhuni founded Andhra Patrika; Konda Venkatappayya founded Krishna Patrika.
• The two Andhra Mahasabhas: Bapatla 1913 and the Telangana body (Andhra Jana Sangham of 1921) whose first conference as the Andhra Mahasabha was at Jogipet in 1930.
• Madanapalle is the site of the English "Morning Song of India", not of the composition of the song.
• Pingali's flag was a foundation: red was replaced by saffron in 1931, and the final flag with the Ashoka chakra was adopted on 22 July 1947.
• Chirala-Perala and Palnadu were non-violent tax and forest campaigns, not armed risings.
• Andhra State 1953 versus Andhra Pradesh 1956 versus 2014 bifurcation (see the reorganisation guide).

Key facts for exams

• Ceded Districts: ceded by the Nizam in 1800; Thomas Munro administered them to 1807.
• Narasimha Reddy was hanged on 22 February 1847 for the 1846 Kurnool-region revolt.
• Rampa 1879 began in March 1879 over toddy rules and trader exploitation; leader named Tammanna Dora.
• Rampa 1922-24: raids on 22-24 August 1922; Raju (born 4 July 1897) killed on 7 May 1924, at Koyyuru in most accounts.
• Veeresalingam: born 16 April 1848; Viveka Vardhini 1876; first widow remarriage 11 December 1881.
• Venkataratnam Naidu: Brahmo leader, Kakinada principal from 1905, listed as first elected VC of Madras University.
• Tagore at Madanapalle on 28 February 1919; Besant college started 19 July 1915.
• Vijayawada AICC on 31 March-1 April 1921; Tilak Swaraj Fund target one crore.
• Chirala-Perala exodus in April 1921 to Ramanagar under Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya.
• Kurnool Circular drafted on 29 July 1942 by Kala Venkata Rao.
• Andhra University: 1926; first VC Sir C. R. Reddy.
• Andhra Mahasabha: first session at Bapatla in 1913 (reported as 26-27 May).

Ten practice questions

1. Narasimha Reddy was executed on which date? (A) 22 February 1847 (B) 22 August 1922 (C) 7 May 1924 (D) 12 August 1942 Answer: A.

2. Which pair correctly matches the Rampa rebellions? (A) 1879 with Alluri Sitarama Raju (B) 1879 with a leader named Tammanna Dora (C) 1922-24 with Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya (D) 1922-24 with Kanneganti Hanumanthu Answer: B.

3. The first widow remarriage arranged by Veeresalingam took place in: (A) 1856 (B) 1874 (C) 1881 (D) 1906 Answer: C.

4. Who is credited with launching Andhra Patrika on 9 September 1908? (A) Konda Venkatappayya (B) Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao (C) Mutnuri Krishna Rao (D) Pingali Venkayya Answer: B.

5. The English "Morning Song of India" was prepared by Tagore at: (A) Rajahmundry (B) Kakinada (C) Madanapalle (D) Machilipatnam Answer: C.

6. Which of these was an action of Chirala-Perala in 1921? (A) A raid on police stations (B) A residents' exodus to Ramanagar (C) A ban on toddy (D) A student hartal at Hindu College Answer: B.

7. The Kurnool Circular of 1942 was associated with: (A) Non-Cooperation (B) Salt Satyagraha (C) Quit India (D) Home Rule Answer: C.

8. The first Andhra Mahasabha session in 1913 was held at: (A) Bapatla (B) Jogipet (C) Nandyal (D) Cocanada Answer: A.

9. Who was the first Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University? (A) Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (B) Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu (C) Sir C. R. Reddy (D) Konda Venkatappayya Answer: C.

10. Which description of the Palnadu satyagraha of 1921-22 is correct? (A) An armed Agency rebellion under Alluri (B) A forest and grazing-tax campaign linked to Kanneganti Hanumanthu (C) A student protest at Rajahmundry (D) A salt march from Devarampadu Answer: B.

Frequently asked questions

Is 1857 important for Andhra questions? Only as a contrast. The Madras Presidency was largely quiet, and most Andhra questions focus on the 1846 palegar revolt, the Rampa rebellions and the national movement phases from 1907.

Are the Rampa rebellion and the Chirala-Perala movement the same type of event? No. Rampa was a hill-tribe armed rising. Chirala-Perala was a civic protest against municipal taxation.

Who should I learn first if I have only a week? Learn the three streams from the first table, then the dated rows in the master timeline, then the people in the order: Narasimha Reddy, Alluri, Veeresalingam, Prakasam, Pingali, Duggirala, Pattabhi, Durgabai.

How should I treat dates that sources disagree on? Learn the date your syllabus book gives, but know that Alluri's birthplace, the exact day of Narasimha Reddy's treasury attack, the leader of the 1879 Rampa rising and the Tenali casualty figure vary between sources, and avoid guessing in an exam.

Where can I find more practice? The mock tests on pareeksha.in include state-level history practice alongside 10 Lakh+ MCQs, 100+ Exams and 5,000+ Full-Length Mocks, and the AP culture notes and AP polity notes complete the static syllabus.

Sources and verification

This page was fact-checked against the pages below, each of which was opened and read for this revision. Official sources are listed first. Wikipedia was used only as a cross-check and is never the sole basis for a firm date where an official or scholarly source exists.

Official and institutional pages opened

• Press Information Bureau (PIB), archive: "The Quit India Movement in Andhra and Telangana" (archive.pib.gov.in/quitindia75/OFea/The Quit India Movement in Andhra and.pdf). Used for the Kurnool Circular, the Tenali, Chirala, Guntur, Dowleswaram, Nellore and Kavali events, and the leaders detained.
• PIB Special Service and Features, 9 August 2016: "Alluri Seetha Rama Raju: A Folk Hero of Rampa Rebellion" (pib.gov.in, printrelease relid 148563). Used for the 1897 birth year, the 22 August 1922 raid, rewards, forces, 7 May 1924 and the cost of the campaign.
• PIB press release PRID 1847641, 2 August 2022, on the 146th birth anniversary of Pingali Venkayya (1876 birth year; 2022 stamp).
• Ministry of Culture factsheet "Evolution of the Indian National Flag", via PIB, 29 July 2022 (1921, 1931 and 22 July 1947).
• Indian National Congress website, page on P. Ananda Charlu (dates and presidency in 1891).
• e-PG Pathshala (INFLIBNET, University Grants Commission) history texts on the Vandemataram movement and the Home Rule movement (132 branches in the Madras Presidency in 1917; Pal's 1907 tour).

Scholarly, press and reference pages opened

• Telangana Today, "The chief who led Andhra's now-forgotten first mass rebellion" (execution at Koilkuntla, 22 February 1847, quoting the acting collector's report).
• The News Minute, "Chiranjeevi's Sye Raa: Why did Narasimha Reddy actually rebel against the British?" (pension, historians K. Venugopal Reddy and Nagi Reddy).
• Colours of Glory, page on Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy.
• Deccan Chronicle, "Tenali people to remember its seven martyrs today" (the higher casualty count).
• Indian Liberals, "Kandukuri Veeresalingam: icon of Andhra's renaissance" (1874 school, 1876 Viveka Vardhini, 1880 novel, 11 December 1881).
• Live History India, profile of Durgabai Deshmukh.
• A. Venkateshwar Reddy's AP history notes on Andhra and the national independence movement (teaching summary; used only for Pal's April 1907 tour, the July 1907 Kakinada case and the Pedanandipadu line).

Reference pages used as cross-checks only

• Wikipedia articles on: Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy; Rampa rebellion of 1879; Rampa Rebellion of 1922; Alluri Sitarama Raju; Nallamala Hills; Chenchu people; Tribal revolts in India before Indian independence; Kanneganti Hanumanthu; Kandukuri Veeresalingam; Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu; Gurajada Apparao; Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham; Pingali Venkayya; Duggirala Gopalakrishnayya; Gadicherla Harisarvottama Rao; Chilukuri Narayana Rao; Rayalaseema; Ceded Districts; Kadapa district; Krishna Patrika; Andhra Patrika; Kasinathuni Nageswara Rao; Mutnuri Krishna Rao; Konda Venkatappayya; Tanguturi Prakasam; Prakasam district; Durgabai Deshmukh; Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya; Duvvuri Subbamma; Kotagiri Venkata Krishna Rao; Besant Theosophical College; Panapakkam Anandacharlu; N. Subba Rao Pantulu; Andhra Mahasabha; B. N. Sarma; Andhra movement; Andhra University; Telangana Rebellion; Pedanandipadu.

Some pages of the Ministry of Culture's Amrit Mahotsav portal, the Indian Culture portal and the Ministry of Culture's Dictionary of Martyrs could not be opened in this check, so they are not cited here. Where a detail rests on a single source, the text above says so.