: The chief who led Andhras now-forgotten first mass rebellion #IndiaNEWS #Andhra Pradesh Hyderabad: Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy is hailed as the 19th-century hero who led the first mass rebellion in

The chief who led Andhras now-forgotten first mass rebellion #IndiaNEWS #Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad: Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy is hailed as the 19th-century hero who led the first mass rebellion in Andhra Pradesh against the British.
Descendant of a dispossessed Polygar family, once a powerful feudal class of chieftains who looked after administrative matters in villages, he led a mass uprising against the tyranny of the British in 1846.
He organised an army of 5,000 villagers in Koilkuntla Taluk (now in the Nandyal district of Andhra Pradesh) and was executed in the cruelest manner. His skeleton was kept hanging in a cage for several years until 1877.
However, the revolt went down in history as inspirational for the later struggles for Indias freedom.
Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy a Telugu language biopic released in 2019 highlighted the story of one of the early freedom fighters. With superstar Chiranjeevi playing Narasimha Reddy, the movie projected the 19th century hero with a high dose of nationalism.
However, historians are of the view that the rebellion led by Narasimha Reddy was not about nationalism. According to them, as the chieftain of Koilkuntala, Reddy challenged the British after the latter tried to remove the privileges accorded to the Polygars and also attempted to acquire their estates.
Narasimha Reddy, whose real name was Majjera Narasimha Reddy, was a descendent of a disposed Polygar of Uyyalawada in Koilkuntla Taluk. He was the youngest of three brothers related on their fathers side to the Polygar of Uyyalawada.
K. Venugopal Reddy, history professor at the University of Pondicherry, wrote in Dominance and Resistance: A study of Narasimha Reddys Revolt in Andhra Pradesh that the revolt in Koilkuntla was mainly against colonial oppression and all sorts of dominations.
The ruthless policy of the British to root out the Polygars was equally met with stiff resistance from the former overlords. Thus, it was a revolt against the illegitimate British hegemony and its attempts at subduing the people and colonizing the territories. The peasants and other classes of people, who were mostly affected due to the oppressive policies of the East India Company, also supported those who took up arms against the alien rulers.
According to Venugopal Reddy, economic distress of peasants and of all sorts of economic grievances of Kattudadies and Bhattavartithies in Koilkuntla Taluk led them to revolt against the British for which Narasimha Reddy had assumed leadership.
The revolt of Narasimha Reddy in the Ceded districts was a unique instance of thousands of peasants taking up arms when their livelihood was threatened by the proposed Inam regulations.
Confiscatory proceedings and unlawful regulations coupled with fiscal oppression attracted the disinherited sons of the soil to the standard of revolt raised by Narasimha Reddy, the poor son of a former Polygar.

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