The Karamchedu Killings and the Struggle to Uncover Untouchability

Abstract

Three cases of caste-based violence, occurring in coastal Andhra, are central to the postcolonial history of Andhra Dalits. The first case occurred in the village of Kanchikacherla (Krishna district) on 24 February 1968; a boy was tied to a post in the middle of the village, beaten and then burnt alive. Another extremely grave instance took place in Karamchedu village (Prakasam district) on 22 July 1985, resulting in the deaths of six Dalits, while the third, with eight fatalities, was in Tsundur village (Guntur district) on 6 August 1991. These brutal events were all carried out by local dominant castes as comprehensive attacks on Dalits in the most prosperous part of the Telugu-speaking regions, which was Andhra Pradesh state until 2014. While the event in Kanchikacherla was central for the first generation of activists during the postcolonial period in this state, the cases in Karamchedu and Tsundur have shaped the second generation. These events occurred a generation or two earlier to Rohith Vemula's suicide at the University of Hyderabad. The history of the Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana has included many important episodes and many different forms of protests. The history of anti-caste mobilizations in Madras, Bombay and other regions at the beginning of the twentieth century is well known. At that time, there were active Dalit leaders in coastal Andhra as well as in Hyderabad city. There had been a radical reform movement concerned with issues such as gender, dowry and untouchability in coastal Andhra run by members of the regional elite in the nineteenth century. But the identity- and caste-based mobilization among Andhra Dalits gained momentum in the early 1920s. The Dalits’ social reform movements emerged at the same time as a strong regional movement in Andhra, which mobilized separation of the Telugu-speaking areas of Madras Presidency. The Dalit movements had a different trajectory and source of inspiration, naming themselves ‘Adi-Andhra’ in 1917 in Vijayawada city (coastal Andhra) and ‘Adi- Hindu’ in 1922 in Hyderabad. They named their organizations with the prefix ‘Adi’ to indicate that they were original inhabitants – indigenous sons of the soil. The Adi-Andhra Mahasabha (great assembly of the natives of Andhra) had counterparts in other regions in colonial India, and these early Dalit movements identified themselves with a wider subaltern critique of the Aryan invasion.