Hyderabad: The festival of harvest (Sankranti) on Jan. 17 only brought misery for nearly 1,200 families of scheduled tribes and backward classes in the predominantly rice-growing village of Timmasamudram in Prakasam district. Over 1,000 upper caste men led by a local Telugu Desam MLA, Karanam Balarama Krishnamurthy, raided the harijanwada, reduced their hutments to ashes and let loose a reign of terror on the hapless residents. “While the police led by a DSP, a circle inspector and four sub-inspectors along with 50 armed policemen stood silent spectators, the upper caste men led by the TOP MLA descended on us, setting fire to our houses and beating up our women and aged,” said Rattula Yadaiah, whose brother was greviously injured and was admitted to the government hospital at Chirala. Incidentally, Timmasamudram is hardly 7 km from Karamchedu village, which witnessed a similar daylight carnage by upper castes in 1985 in which nearly 12 Harijans were killed.
The trouble between the upper caste (mostly Kammas) and the weaker sections in Timmasamudram started brewing last year when the latter started cultivating nearly 100 acres of government land under the aegis of the Andhra Pradesh Dalitha Mahasabha. The land was identified and formally given to the Harijans by the district collector. The upper castes, however, considered the idea of backward classes owning and cultivating land independently as an insult to the landed gentry, who mainly depended on the weaker sections to work on their land for a pittance. According to Katti Padma Rao, general secretary of the Mahasabha, the upper castes led by the TOP MLA of Martur constituency had tried to thwart their attempts to start cultivating the land in 1990, but strong interference by the local officials saved the Harijans from losing their land allotments. (Telegraph Jan.18).
