Home / Latest News / Dominant caste and territory in South India: The case of the Kammas of Andhra Pradesh (Speech & Transcript)
Dominant caste and territory in South India: The case of the Kammas of Andhra Pradesh

Dominant caste and territory in South India: The case of the Kammas of Andhra Pradesh (Speech & Transcript)

This video about the Ph.D thesis on the rise of Kammas has been making waves on social media. Her doctoral thesis explores the relation between dominant caste and territory in South India through a detailed ethnography of the Kammas of Andhra Pradesh, with an emphasis on their migration patterns and upward social mobility, from landed farmers to businessmen, industrialists and professionals. The aim of her work was to unveil the mechanisms of power and control that are used by the dominant castes to perpetuate their hegemony. Here is the Ph.D thesis paper by Dalel Benbabaali, which she read out in the video above -

Dominant caste and territory in South India: The case of the Kammas of Andhra Pradesh

In the existing literature on caste, the concept of territory, which can be defined as social, economic and political appropriation of space, is very often absent. My argument is that one cannot understand caste dominance without taking into account territorial control. This argument is all the more relevant in the case of Andhra Pradesh, where the demand for a separate Telangana State is partly related to questions of caste domination. Traditionally, the Kammas are dominant in Coastal Andhra, whereas the Reddis are dominant in the interior regions of Telangana and Rayalaseema. These two castes have been controlling the politics of Andhra Pradesh since the formation of the State in 1956, and even before, since they were at the forefront of the movement for a linguistic Telugu State.

Both these castes are originally farming communities – in varna terms, Shudras -, which means that their ritual status is relatively low. However, they claim that they are Kshatriyas (the traditional warrior varna), because some of their ancestors were local kings or army commanders under the Vijayanagar empire. They are not commonly perceived as Shudras because of their upward social mobility in the last century, which explains that today they are not entitled to « backward caste » or OBC reservations, unlike other agrarian castes of North India like the Kurmis.

Both Kammas and Reddis are landowning communities. The main difference is that Kamma property is concentrated in the agriculturally rich Krishna and Godavari deltas, where land is fertile and irrigated, whereas Reddis own land in the arid Deccan plateau, where irrigation is rare. In terms of assets, Kammas are therefore more prosperous, but in terms of political power, Reddis have been dominating the State through their control of the Congress Party since Independence. It’s only in the 1980s, with the creation of a regional party called the Telugu Desam Party (the TDP), that the ex-movie star N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) became the first Kamma Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, followed by his son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu.

Kammas have a very high propensity to migrate, wherever they see investment opportunities, whether in new irrigation projects, or business and real estate in the cities, especially in Hyderabad. They also migrated to other South Indian States like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and abroad, mostly to the United States. Since we are in Princeton, I should mention that New Jersey has the highest concentration of Kammas in America, along with California. In the US, they are mostly entrepreneurs or work in the IT industry, and they are dominant among the Telugu diaspora. They control the Telugu Association of North America (TANA). The Reddis resented this domination and created their own organization, called American Telugu Association (ATA). This shows that the rivalry between these two dominant castes of Andhra Pradesh exists even in the US.

What I’d like to talk about today is the link between migration and upward social mobility, but also the power mechanisms that prevent the mobility of the castes dominated by Kammas in the territories they control. The aim of my research was to re-define the concept of dominant caste, which was first studied in 1950s by M.N. Srinivas at the village level, to make it relevant in contemporary India by taking into account the rapid urbanization and increased social and spatial mobility of the elites. According to Srinivas, “For a caste to be dominant, it should own a sizable amount of the arable land locally available, have strength of numbers and occupy a high place in the local hierarchy.”

Kammas form only 5% of the population of Andhra Pradesh, but more than 20% in the Krishna delta where they own 80% of the agricultural land. Despite their relatively small numbers at the State level, they occupy key positions in the politics and economy of Andhra Pradesh, and to a lesser extent of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Taking territory into account is essential to understand the change in the scale and nature of caste dominance and to study its regional variations. When the Telugu Desam Party won the elections in Andhra Pradesh, the Kamma control over State power helped them consolidate their influence. They also dominate the Telugu media and cinema, which gives them sociocultural preeminence. These new attributes of dominance, which are ideological and not only material, have a hegemonic character. However, this hegemony is challenged by the growing resistance of Dalits to caste and class oppression. Kamma cultural domination has also been contested by the supporters of a separate Telangana State. Now that the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh has been announced, Kammas’ interests are likely to be harmed, at least in Telangana. Before trying to examine whether the creation of Telangana will lead to a decline of Kamma dominance, I’d like to go back to the history of this community to trace both their spatial and social trajectories.

Kammas’ early history is associated with buddhism, which was very influential in the Krishna valley in the 3rd century. According to epigraphical records, the Krishna delta area at that time was known as Kammanadu, and the main farming community living there was called Kamma. But it is only after the 10th century that the name Kamma started referring to a specific Hindu agrarian caste. Most Kammas were small farmers, but some of them worked as soldiers for the Kakatiya kings of Warangal. The Kamma historian K.B. Chowdary tries to prove the martial origin of his caste based on matrimonial alliances between Kammas and members of the Kakatiya dynasty. It is based on his book that Kammas continue to claim Kshatriya status, although traditionally their main occupation is agriculture. During the Vijayanagar empire, more and more Kamma farmers were employed as soldiers, and even as army commanders, to participate in the conquest of the Tamil country. At that time, war was the main migration factor, and this explains the presence today of a large Kamma community in Tamil Nadu, which is the consequence of military migrations from the 15th century onwards. In times of peace, the Kamma settlers engaged in agricultural activities on the conquered territories of South India. Since they needed manpower to clear the forest lands, and service castes to take care of so-called “polluting” tasks, they brought with them Telugu speaking untouchable communities, known today in Tamil Nadu as Sakkiliars.

Along with this process of military conquest in the South, Kammas also acquired land in the interior regions of the Deccan Plateau. Agricultural colonisation was another major factor of migration for the dominant castes, and it led to the dispossession of tribals and smalls farmers from their lands. The Telangana region at that time was under the control of Muslim rulers who collected taxes through members of the dominant castes that were given the title of chowdharis. Muslim princes thus played a role in reinforcing caste hierarchy because they saw it as a guarantee of social order among their Hindu subjects. Kamma chowdaris used their title to consolidate their holdings in Telangana, while a few became zamindars or big landlords in Coastal Andhra. The Nizams of Hyderabad even called Kamma farmers from Andhra to develop agriculture in Telangana, generously granting them titles to land, since they were considered expert rice cultivators due to their experience of irrigation in the deltas.
In the mid-19th century, the Britishers had built two big dams in Coastal Andhra on the Krishna and Godavari rivers. Kamma farmers benefitted tremendously from the agrarian development that followed the introduction of canal irrigation in British-ruled Andhra. Even the middle peasantry that was paying taxes directly under the ryotwari system became richer thanks to irrigation and the introduction of cash crops like sugarcane, tobacco and cotton. In a context of generalised commodification of land, the value of their properties increased so much that by selling one acre of land in the Krishna delta, they could buy 10 acres in the dry areas of Telangana. The main crop grown in the fertile deltaic lands was paddy or rice, which soon became a commercial crop thanks to the surpluses produced. The commercialisation of agriculture in Coastal Andhra led to the development of transportation infrastructures, urban growth and industrialisation. The small town of Vijayawada became a thriving commercial market and an important railway junction. Kamma farmers diversified their activities by migrating to urban areas while keeping land in their villages. They used their agricultural surplus to invest in bus companies or in food processing industries like rice mills and sugar factories. They also started commercialising their own agricultural production and became moneylenders, thus bypassing the traditional merchant castes and business communities.

This process of capital accumulation by the rich Kamma farmers led to an increased polarisation of the agrarian social structure, with the emergence of a class of Kulaks within the Andhra peasantry. In spite of this class differenciation, the Kammas made conscious efforts to remain united by using caste as a social capital. They created their first caste association in the beginning of the 20th century and used the funds to provide scholarships to children from poor Kamma families and to build Kamma hostels in the cities. Education was seen as a key to social mobility and even small farmers were eager to send their children to study in English-medium schools outside the villages. That’s what M.N. Srinivas calls “westernization”, as opposed to “sanskritization”, which is another way of improving one’s status by adopting the Brahminical rituals. There was a brief attempt at sanskritization by Kammas when some caste members became priests to celebrate weddings within the community, but the rationalist anti-Brahmin movement also had a strong influence on Kammas.

Some joined the non-Brahmin Justice Party which was supported by the middle castes asking for reservations in the Madras Presidency. The Britishers accepted those demands in order to break the hegemony of Brahmins in the administration, because they suspected them of being nationalist. In the 1930s, with the economic depression, and rise in taxes which was harming farmers’ interests, many Kammas shifted from their pro-British position to a nationalist one. The Andhra Communist Party was supported mostly by the Kamma peasantry, who saw in this new party a vehicle for political power, since the Congress Party in Andhra was controlled by the Reddis. Some Kammas took part in the Telangana rebellion against feudal landlords in the 1940s.
One year after India got Independence, Nehru sent the army to forcibly annex the princely State of Hyderabad to the Indian Union. This led to a massacre, affecting mostly Muslim villagers. Telangana was later merged with the Andhra province, and Hyderabad became the capital of Andhra Pradesh, the first Indian State to be formed on a linguistic basis. The demand for a Telugu State, separated from the Tamil province, was an old demand by the Telugu-speaking dominant castes. Kammas’ support of the Communist Party can also be explained by the fact that the Andhra communists were in favor of Telugu regionalism, against the domination of Tamils in the multilingual Madras State. But the formation of linguistic States mostly served the interests of dominant castes, as the Dalit leader Ambedkar noted: “In our country, linguism is only another name for communalism. Take Andhra. There are two major communities spread over the linguistic area. They are either the Reddis or the Kammas. They hold all the land, all the offices, all the business. The untouchables live in subordinate dependence on them. In a linguistic state, what would remain for the smaller communities to look to?”

After the formation of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Communist Party lost one of its main electoral argument and started declining. The Congress won the State elections and remained in power for almost three decades, mostly in the hands of the Reddis, even though some Kamma Congressmen were also present in the State Legislative Assembly, where the dominant castes continue to be overrepresented till today. These territorial recompositions encouraged the migration of Kammas from Andhra to Telangana, especially to Hyderabad. Kamma settlers were educationally more advanced and wealthier than Telangana people who had lived under the Nizam rule, so migration from Andhra was perceived as a threat by the locals. In fact, the States Reorganization Commission was not in favor of the formation of Andhra Pradesh because of the lack of homogeneity between Telangana and Andhra due to their distinct history and geography. Coastal Andhra is naturally endowed with rich plains of fertile and irrigated lands, whereas agriculture in the arid Deccan plateau is not as developed. Under the Nizams, Telangana was characterized by feudal relations in agriculture and a very restricted access to modern education. Even the landlords of Telangana were lagging behind the capitalist Kamma farmers who benefitted from the British rule.

This uneven development continued after Independence, since most of the new irrigation projects took place in Coastal Andhra, where the Green Revolution was introduced in the 1960s. Kammas were the main beneficiaries of the Green revolution, since they had enough capital to invest in the new techniques of production and they were generally entrepreneurial. Their wealth tremendously increased. They resented the Land Ceiling Act which they perceived as a direct attack against their economic power by the Brahmin Chief Minister Narasimha Rao. However, the land reforms didn’t radically change the agrarian structure. The big landlords may have lost some of their property, but the middle peasantry was not really affected because they could manage to divide their lands among family members. The landless farmers, who mostly belonged to the Dalit castes, didn’t benefit from the reforms.
The Green Revolution accelerated the process of economic diversification in the rural areas of Coastal Andhra. The rich Kamma farmers were no longer dependent on agriculture. They invested in agro-industries, transportation business, and they were able to send their children to Hyderabad for higher education. They became more and more urban-oriented, in search of new avenues of employment. When they migrated to rural areas, it was mostly to new irrigation projects, because they knew they could buy cheap lands in Telangana or in the neighbouring State of Karnataka, and then improve their plots once irrigation was available and thus benefit from land appreciation. Even in cities like Hyderabad, when they bought land, it was often speculative as they were very active in the real estate business.

This flow of capital from Andhra to Telangana was not perceived by the locals as a positive sign of economic development for their region, but as exploitation of their poorer conditions. Kamma settlers in Telangana claim that they « turned the desert green », which is a typical colonist narrative. In fact, they were looking for cheaper land and cheaper manpower. When land was not available for sale, Kammas used to practice « reverse tenancy », by taking land on lease from poor farmers and lending them money. When the local farmers became too indebted to their rich Kamma tenants, they ultimately had to yield their lands. In Hyderabad, people coming from Andhra had an advantage to access higher education and employment because they had benefitted from English schooling in their region, which was long controlled by the Britishers. This harsh competition from Andhra migrants led to the first Telangana separatist movement in 1969.

It is only in the 1980s that the number of Kamma settlers in Hyderabad increased significantly. According to some Kamma informants, they felt encouraged to migrate to the capital-city after the Telugu Desam Party came to power in 1983. For the first time a Kamma Chief Minister, N.T. Rama Rao (NTR), was leading the State, and many of his caste fellows felt that this would open new opportunities to them in the capital-city. The victory of the Telugu Desam Party, just a few months after its creation, can be explained by the interference of the central government from Delhi in choosing the Congress Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh. NTR won the elections after a campaign on the regionalist theme of « telugu pride », which was supported by the media, especially by the Telugu newspaper Eanadu, owned by the Kamma billionaire Ramoji Rao, who also owns ETV. The control of the regional media by Kamma businessmen helped NTR to capture State power. His charisma as an ex-movie star and his populist promises like welfare schemes and food subsidies are also important factors behind his victory. On top of his personal fortune, he benefitted from the financial support of big Kamma industrialists who wanted a Chief Minister from their caste to serve

their interests. Before NTR’s election as the head of the State, there was a discrepancy between Kammas’ economic wealth and their lack of decisive political power, since they were sidelined by the Reddis dominating the Congress.
NTR’s trajectory from an agricultural family to cinema and then politics is typical of Kammas pattern of upward social mobility. The Telugu film industry, which is the second in India after Bollywood, in terms of number of movies released every year, is dominated by Kamma directors, producers and actors, with some exceptions like Chiranjivi, the Kapu superstar- turned-politician. Corporate health and education are also major sectors in which Kammas have invested their money. The first generation of Kamma doctors, who migrated to the United States in the 1960s, accumulated capital abroad and came back to Hyderabad in the 1980s, encouraged by NTR, to invest in private hospitals. Apart from medicine, engineering is one of the most common career option among the young Kamma generation, but since they are not entitled to reservations, they generally study in private colleges, generally owned by Kamma businessmen. The cost of these educational institutions is so high that other communities can hardly afford to study there. This corporatisation of health and education in Andhra Pradesh was started by Kammas in the 1980s, even before the liberalisation process that took place at the national level after 1991.

From 1995 to 2004, under the regime of the Chandrababu Naidu, NTR’s son-in-law, economic reforms and the disengagement of the State accelerated this phenomenon. TDP Chief Minister Naidu became the darling of the corporate media and of the World Bank which granted him a loan for the development of his. It was the first time that an international institution like the World Bank gave a loan to a subnational entity. Naidu made Hyderabad a showcase for his neoliberal policies. He focused on urban infrastructure and global growth sectors like Information Technology. He decided to develop HITEC City in the western periphery of Hyderabad, near the residential areas of Jubilee Hills and Kukatpally, were most of the Kamma settlers live. This led to a tremendous appreciation of their properties. Kamma businessmen who benefitted from political patronage and privileged access to information for real estate speculation could make a lot of profit by investing in those areas. Chandrababu Naidu was accused of corruption, nepotism and casteism since his development choices clearly benefitted to his own Kamma community. In 1999, a post-electoral survey showed that 87% of Kamma voters re-elected him for a second mandate.

It is under Naidu’s regime of almost one decade that the Kamma caste really became hegemonic in Andhra Pradesh. I borrow here Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, which refers to a kind of domination that is not only material, but also ideological. By migrating to urban areas, Kammas started enjoying new attributes of dominance, not based on landownership alone, but on control over the media, culture and politics. After seizing State power, they were able to impose on the rest of society the neoliberal ideology which served their capitalist interests best. This led to a lopsided type of development which increased social and spatial inequalities, by affecting poor farmers and rural areas most. Between 1997 and 2004, more than 3000 farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, especially in the less developed

regions of Telangana and Rayalaseema. The liberalisation of agriculture led to an increase in production costs, so even in Coastal Andhra, agriculture is not very profitable anymore.
However, Kammas generally don’t sell their lands when they migrate to the cities. For them land is an important symbol of prestige and power, therefore they prefer to give it on lease to tenants because they know that the value of land is not going to decrease, and agricultural incomes are not taxed anyway. The land around Vijayawada in the Krishna delta has appreciated tremendously since the formation of the Telangana State because of the speculation on the future status of Vijayawada as a possible capital-city for Andhra. Even Kammas living abroad are sending remittances back to India for their families to buy more land in the Krishna delta, as a purely speculative investment. Land is also used as dowry. Kammas are known in Andhra Pradesh for having the most conspicuous weddings and for giving the highest dowries to their daughters, especially in the form of land and gold.
Though Kammas have retained their economic power, they have lost some of their political influence after the Congress party came back to power in the 2004 State elections. The formation of Telangana might harm their economic interests in Hyderabad, but if Vijayawada becomes the new capital of Andhra, they might very well repatriate their investments and make them thrive there as well. Kammas may also capture State power in the new Andhra State. The decline of Kamma dominance therefore is not so much economic or even political, but mostly social and cultural, because of the increasing resistance to their cultural hegemony in Telangana, and the social contestation of their caste domination by the Dalits, whom they have used as agricultural labour and oppressed for centuries.

The Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh started organizing after a massacre perpetrated by Kamma landlords in 1985 in a village called Karamchedu, one of the richest and most developed village of coastal Andhra. This goes against the argument that caste atrocities happen only in backward regions. The two main Dalit communities of Karamchedu, the Malas and Madigas, benefitted quite early from the Christian missionaries’ activities, and then from the reservation policy. They started sending their children to school, getting employment outside agriculture, and becoming politically aware. This is precisely what the dominant caste had a problem with. Dalit assertion meant that Kammas could no longer control their votes and transform their economic dependence into political loyalty. After the creation of the Telugu Desam Party, the Dalits of Karamchedu continued to vote for the Congress, against their Kamma employers who supported the TDP. This Dalit resistance was perceived by the Kammas as a dangerous sign of rebellion and contestation of their traditional dominance, so they decided to attack them to “teach them a lesson” (which is the expression they use). The pretext for retaliation was an incident that opposed a Kamma boy to a Madiga woman who scolded him for washing his buffalo in the pond used by Dalits for drinking water. This was seen by the Kamma landlords as a sufficient provocation to plan a punitive expedition to the Madiga hamlet, burn down their huts, rape three women, beat up men with axes, leaving many terribly injured and six murdered.

As a response to this event of extraordinary violence, a strong mobilisation led to the creation of the Dalit Mahasabha that soon spread across the entire State. This organization fought for the culprits to be punished, but NTR, who was then the Chief Minister, had Kamma relatives in Karamchedu, one of them directly involved in the massacre, and whose name was not even included in the list of the 92 accused. 23 years after the killings, only one accused was condemned to life emprisonment, and 30 others to 3 years in jail. The victims consider that this judgement didn’t bring them justice. NTR’s relative, who premeditated the massacre and escaped from the court, was later killed by Naxalites. The Peoples’ War Group was the main naxalite organization in Andhra Pradesh at that time. They were very active in Telangana, where the struggle took shape along class lines rather than caste. The Maoists consider Kammas and Reddis as “class enemies” more than “dominant castes”. There is a very strong correlation between caste and class and it is often difficult to disentangle both. The big landlords and the ruling class of Andhra Pradesh mostly belong to the dominant castes and they used State power to crush the Naxalite movement which was threatening their interests.
Let me quote here the human rights activist Balagopal: “After the Telugu Desam party came to power, the ruthlessness of the repression on Maoists has increased manifold, and its class content is clearly revealed in the exchanges in the State Legislative Assembly, which is populated by the cream of the absentee landlords, contractors, financiers, businessmen and brokers. Suppression of the rural poor is an important requirement for the strengthening of the hegemony of this class. It is not just that payment of higher wages would affect its accumulation, or that the demand for land redistribution would affect its property; it is a political requirement, too.” Both under NTR and Chandrababu Naidu’s regimes, the paramilitary forces killed hundreds of Naxalite guerillas as well as un-armed tribal sympathisers in fake encounters. This is why the Maoists have moved from Andhra Pradesh to the neighbouring State of Chhattisgarh.

It clearly appears that caste dominance has to do with territorial control, and that access to State power is essential to promote specific caste and class interests. This is why the Kammas of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are not as hegemonic as the Kammas of Andhra Pradesh, because outside their State of origin, they are considered a Telugu linguistic minority and they don’t have so much political power. However, they are locally dominant in some pockets of north Karnataka, where they have become very rich after migrating to buy lands in the new irrigated belt of the Tungabhadra river. They are also dominant in cities of Tamil Nadu like Coimbatore, where they own most of the textile factories and other industries.
I have conducted fieldwork in all these places, to compare the nature and level of Kamma dominance depending on the territory they live in and how much control they have over it. My methodology was mostly qualitative, based on interviews and ethnographic studies, but I have also used a questionnaire to do a survey among a sample of 200 Kamma households, one hundred in a village of the Krishna delta, called Godavarru, and another hundred in a suburb of Hyderabad, known as Kukatpally, so that I could make a quantitative analysis and compare the socio-economic profile of Kammas both in rural and urban areas.

The questionnaire was about their migration patterns, educational levels, family structures, professional mobility, economic position, social and political participation. Migration was found to be an important aspect of Kammas social mobility. Even in rural areas, 20% of Kamma households had a family member abroad sending remittances that improved their economic status. The educational level of Kammas in Hyderabad was obviously higher than in the surveyed village, but in rural areas too, Kammas invest a lot in their children education so that they can move out of agriculture to enter urban professions. Most live in nuclear families and have no more than two children to avoid the division of property. Endogamy is strictly respected with a very few exceptions. Subcaste doesn’t matter anymore: Kammas belonging to different subcastes don’t mind intermarriage. Though the socio-economic status of Kammas in Hyderabad is far higher in terms of incomes and assets, the Kamma rural elites enjoy a stronger dominance over the backward and dalit castes.

Kamma dominance in urban areas is of a different nature. To understand what caste dominance means in the cities, I did a comparative study of two regional towns, Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. In Vijayawada, Kammas form a class of bourgeois neo-rich who acquired their wealth in a short time by doing all kinds of businesses, including illegal activities. In Coimbatore, Kammas have built their wealth in the textile industry over a long period of time, since they first migrated there as cotton farmers. Some belong to old aristocratic families who settled in Tamil Nadu a few centuries ago as army commanders or big landlords. Their culture is totally different from Andhra Kammas and they rarely intermarry. They speak a Telugu which is mixed with Tamil words, and they are much more cultured and well-read. That doesn’t make them any less exploitative of their manpower in the textile factories, where they generally employ lower caste girls who migrate to the mills, sign a 3 year contract, at the end of which they get married with the little savings they could gather for their dowry. The short contracts are favored by the Kamma bosses to avoid the unionisation of their workers who keep changing and have no time to organize. That’s how they have put an end to the strikes that were common in Coimbatore textile industry. This extremely wealthy capitalist class tries to improve its image through philanthropy. They fund hospitals and educational institutions through their trusts, whereas in Vijaywada, both health and education are a business only aimed at making profits, owned by very aggressive Kamma entrepreneurs. In Coimbatore, Kamma dominance is less political than in Vijayawada, where business, caste and politics are very much intertwined. A violent rivalry opposes Kapu and Kamma politicians in Vijayawada, which led to political murders and riots between the two communities.

Apart from these two cities, I also conducted fieldwork in rural areas of Telangana and Karnataka where Kammas have migrated in search of « greener pastures ». In Telangana, they were attracted by the Sriram Sagar project in Nizamabad district, and in Karnataka, they went for the Tungabhadra project in Raichur and Bellary districts. Kamma farmers claim that they brought development to those areas by « teaching » rice cultivation to the locals, but their arrival was perceived as a form of internal colonisation, especially in Telangana, where the best lands were acquired by the settlers.

Recently, there was a controversy over a Telugu novel by a Kamma writer, Chandralata, whom I interviewed in Hyderabad and who told me that her book was partly autobiographical since she tells the story of her father who migrated from Coastal Andhra to Telangana in the 1960s to buy land in black cotton soil areas. That explains the title of her novel, Regadi vittulu, in Telugu, which means « Seeds of black soil ». Kammas claim to be experts in the cultivation of this type of soil that can give good yields if water is available. This book was awarded the « best Telugu novel » prize by the Telugu Association of North America (TANA). This prize was contested in Telangana. TANA was accused of caste favoritism since the association is dominated by Kammas living in the US, and the novel was criticized for portraying Telangana people as unable to develop their own lands, and for presenting Telangana culture in a negative light, as backward. This controversy over the book shows that the regionalist sentiment which led to the creation of a separate Telangana is not only about economic domination by Andhras, but also about cultural domination. For example, many people resent the fact that the Telugu film industry, which is controlled by Kammas, makes fun of the Telangana dialects, which are generally spoken in the movies by the villain, under- class or criminals characters.

To conclude, caste dominance can take many different forms: its nature and degree vary according to the territory observed, whether it is a rural or urban area, whether it is a small town or a big city, whether the dominant caste is originally from the place or migrated there. If the concept of dominant caste is still relevant in today’s India, one has to take into account new attributes of dominance which are not related only to landownership, but also to culture and ideology via the control of the media, the entertainment industry and State power. This is why I found the concept of hegemony very useful for my study of the Kamma caste, but it is important to bear in mind that « No hegemony can be so pervasive as to eliminate all ground for contestation or resistance ».

23 comments

  1. sreenivas chandragiri

    MUST Read X llent

  2. She did a good research, It’s completely acceptable one, as I am the one with same feeling whatever she presented.

  3. Kamma cast new version of Indian feudalism

    • Kammas are the most straight forward among the casts in india. They are just basically farmers, thought as over generous, fools, baitu’s.

    • Gary Raj: You haters…. I feel sad for our country where people are fools and hate on each other in the name of caste…jealous people……..

      @ Guru Raju: I know 1000s of people are there like you who are ignorant of truth and just haters.. What did you say Indian feudalism? Do you know the leaders of socialist groups? Do you know the leaders of naxals? Do you know 1000s of people depending on film industry who brought it to Andhra Pradesh? Everyone want to have fruits and no one like to know the effort of gardener. Instead of hating some one because of their growth you too try to develop work hard be creative
      @Aswin: Fools mean?

      you guys your statements showing what you are.

  4. sreenivas Kosaraju

    A thesis written purely on the basis of “qualitative perceptions” rather then reality. Social upward mobility – yes but through sheer competitive hard work; Not through hood winking anybody. I own lots of land – only aquired through honest hard work by going through “education” then doctoral studies and then savings by skimping through life. I am a classic example of how kamma’s prosper which is true for 90% of the middle class families. There are certainly some bad apples – but to be honest who doesnt have them. Talking about social hegemony i was completely obsorbed into telangana society and my talk/slang/ everything is telangana not other way around. Most fun I had was celebrating bonal not sankranthi. I am explaining my back ground as thats the typical of the most kammas I know unlike the perception based junk thesis by this lady. All we want is work hard and save money and make better future for our kids and have some fun in life. The stereo typing of this thesis is really worst of its kind. I cannot believe a doctoral was awarded for this junk. This is only worth the toilet paper it is written on. Its actually suspicious if this was sponsored by pakistan to create social unrest in otherwise freindly middle class which ever caste they may be.

    • Read breaking India by Rajiv Malholtra, you will get to know what these sinister bastards are upto.

      • @Kranthi: You are one more hater in India… India is full of haters and people need some one to hate. Mostly like you. You read that Rajiv’s book properly. I don’t think that you read it. India broke in to parts because of kammas in his book…Is this what you got… I don’t think u read the book..u sick fellow…. If India break apart what causes it is haters like you. It’s a struggle of church to turn India into Christian country and muslims in to muslim country and where remaining few Hindus fight for their identity and people take sides. We know how you north Indians killed Tamilians in Srilanka. Considering Lankans as Aryans and Tamilians as Dravidians. You are the ones who didn’t recognize South Indian states till Rama Rao and MGR came in to picture.
        Stop hating and learn a lessen from past. It’s kammas who brought political awareness and film industry to Andhra Pradesh including international recognition for IT… Everyone grabbing fruits and commenting Gardener… Pathetic people…

  5. When I was growing up I stayed away from caste talk. I went to a Christian school and believed in equality and helping the less fortunate. I was exposed to caste for the first time in college where I was ragged heavily for having a name that signified my caste. Today I read this and listened to Ms Dalel Benbabaali’s lecture solely to learn about the history of my forefathers. I am 40 + plus now and thought that learning my history will help me raise my children. It helped me understand what I have heard in pieces from my parents but I ended up feeling a little disappointed about the implied negative nature of Kammas.
    Both my parents belong to farming families. Both the families had some land, not too much but enough to make a living. Both walked 3+ miles everyday to go to school from their villages. My father was expected to work on the farm after school. As a matter of fact even years later he used his vacation from the factory to work in the fields for a month every year during harvesting time. Farming is hard work and every hand counts. Women worked hard at home starting with milking the buffaloes at 5 AM and they did not have a chance to take a break till dinner was done. They grew their own vegetables and bartered goods such as milk and ghee for some services. Most tried to save and there is a saying that if they made 20 rupees they saved 10 and were proud of their savings.

    But they also knew when to take a chance when opportunities arrived. They noted as early as in the early 1960′s that selling land to pay for higher education will be well rewarded. Most of the post democracy public and private jobs were held by Brahmins those days. They were extremely talented and had the gifts of knowledge, language and speech passed on by generations. My grandparents were not educated but could read and write in Telugu and were good at arithmetic. I am still amazed at how fast my grandfather could make calculations in his head. They had to be sharp at this because they ran a business. Farming was a business. Even if you managed 2 acres you still need to know about the cost of seed, investment, return, loss in bad years, daily management of the farm help and how to sell the crop. Both my parents came from large families with more than 7 children. But their parents sold land to send their sons to school. Not all kammas are/were wealthy. I know many who were domestic help or cooks. When they needed money usually women did not hesitate to enter into the workforce with the few skills they had. If they could not send their children to college they worked hard so they could send their grandchildren to college.

    So yes in the last 50 years there has been a disproportionate number of Kammas going to Engineering and Medicine. This was not because they had a chief minister who helped them 50 years ago, (As a matter of fact NTR closed some of the donation schools in the 1980s) but because they believed that education is a means to financial success and even if they didn’t speak English or go to college their children will. It was not a collective effort but every individual farmers idea to freedom from hard work and many followed by example. Slowly entrance exams came and with it the need for special coaching and my parents generation did not hesitate. They may live in a one room house, may wear Hawaii slippers, may only have two sets of clothes but they send their children to tuitions. Yes may be we are from the Shudra community but we obtained our education by fighting competition in open quota.

    One other fact that I have gathered through conversations with my parents and relatives is how property was passed on to women also. Long before women had any legally equal property rights, (by the way was it not Telugu Desam that started this) women were given property at time of marriage. Even though they called this dowry this was usually not a cash exchange. I am not a fan of dowry or money dealings in any sort during an alliance but I would like to note this fact because it explains the success of these families. The women always had a say in the financial dealings because they owned land. Actually I have heard many a time that women from our community are dominating. I would disagree and say that they had equal rights to men unlike most women in India.

    I have stayed away from politics in Andhra and hear occasionally about a few happenings and am sorry about the current ways. In Ms Benbabaali’s lecture I sensed an undertone of hatred for the Kamma community based on politics. I am not sure if this is warranted since I am not well versed with the politics. I however should note that wealth poured into Andhra after the IT boom in the US. The dollars that were sent back to India to buy land and real estate for their parents clearly helped economic growth significantly, just like in Kerala where money from Middle east raised property values. I am not a fan of this since the poor cannot afford to buy property now but this initially happened because many well meaning sons and daughters wanted to give back to their parents and country.

    99% of my extended family of my generation are now professional including the women. We work hard like our forefathers from dawn to dusk and believe in saving money to buy land or invest somewhere. Most of us have migrated out but I still have family in India. Those who chose to stay in India continue to work hard at home and outside home. My sister’s words Mera Bharat Mahaan still brings tears to my eyes. Many a time I had thought about going back but I didn’t know if I could survive there. I cannot treat my education and work as a pure business and make money. My grandfather’s dream at educating his children and their dream in turn in educating us is financial freedom to live a happy life. I have achieved this and I would rather not pour my life into a business. I commend those who do this and who have gone back to start hospitals and IT companies in India. Many Kammas would rather be entrepreneurs like their forefathers than make money for somebody else. Most go in with idealistic goals but many end up bowing to corruption and end up coming back or getting corrupt themselves.

    I cannot agree with the conclusion that Kammas are working together to prevent others from growing, as I know too well the way Kammas function. If there is an organization of Kammas it will break into two because they argue and fight and everybody wants to win. I hope we can be more like Patels and use our entrepreneur skills to help each other grow. There is a saying that a Kamma person may not cry if he fails but he sure will if his neighbor succeeds. They are fiercely competitive businesses men. I would however agree if one said that they use political connections for their own benefit. Corruption is still rampant. If you are Sonia’s cousin you can get things done at the center and the same way if you are the CM’s cousin you can get something done in Hyderabad also. I am not saying this is right but Kammas being business men by nature know how to bribe and take bribery. I heard once that some body shoppers would give gifts or under the table money to government employees to place their own employees as consultants.

    I was sad to see AP divided but more distressed about the number of days the schools were closed in Andhra. What can I say? I am just like my parents and school is very important to us :) . I was surprised that Kammas in Hyderabad are hated because of their success. India is not a socialist country and in a democratic country just like in the USA the rich seem to get richer because they have the capital. I know both the states have the ability to succeed and continue to grow. Somehow historically Andhra Pradesh as a state did not get the funds it needed or deserved from the center and corruption made it worse. We hope that both our states will get the funds they need to continue to grow in many ways especially in areas of farming and technology.

    Kammas will continue to take chances and work hard to grow as their forefathers have done. They will still invest in real estate and education. Hopefully they will teach their children good values of living with integrity, respecting elders and treating others with compassion. Unfortunately people are blinded by easy money and forget our core value as a person. Success is not creating easy money and socially irresponsible individuals. What our forefathers did in agriculture is more a success story that some of our recent accomplishments. Hopefully in 100 years from now we will be known for our additional contributions in areas of medicine and technology. Can we use this lecture as a wake up call to make this happen?

    • Ms Kamla, beautiful response! Though I’m neither a Kamma nor from coastal andhra, your writing has impressed me and increased my respect for people like you – honest, hard-working and with a lot of personal integrity. It’s sad that collectively we somehow complicate our lives, while individually we are spiritual and straight. At the core, we are all similar – aspire to grow honestly and aspire to provide good education to our kids because we have seen our parents doing the same for us.
      Good luck and Regards.

    • Well said Kamla garu. Your narrative reminded me lot of my childhood. My grandfather, oldest of 7 brothers and a sister, having lost his dad when he was very young to a disease, settled his whole family, cultivating about 7 acres of land near Gudivada in Krishna District. He made sure all his family is well settled in agricultural families, including at least one of the brothers is well educated (chose the youngest brother, this brother’s son later became DGP and also Tamil Nadu Governor) and married his sister to a contractor. Of course, the whole family worked together to settle themselves, however, the oldest had the most responsibility socially. Once all have settled, my grandfather divided his land equally among the brothers (sister was already settled), he sold his share and bought land in Khammam district. Only Kamma family in and around the village. At that time, my grandfather had 9 children (those days, they used to have many dieses and child mortality was about 50%) ranging in age between 2 and 20 years, 6 girls and 3 boys. Older girls were already married by then.
      Unfortunately, my grandfather died of jaundice, right after migrating to Khammam district. My grandmother took charge of the family and did not want to depend on the rest of the family (based on her self-respect). She started cultivating our land (barren with no water at that time) in Khammam district and started educating her children/get them married/settle. Unfortunately, only 4 (two boys and two girls) survived past their teenage for various reasons, including committing suicide, as they were in utter poverty and were very ambitious to become something worthwhile and did not know how.
      My grandmother was very idealistic and knew so much about the world (studied until 5th grade), all villagers used to be encouraged by her wisdom. She told me for the first time, while we were staying at night near our harvest in the pitch darkness to protect it from thieves, moving stars are either meteorites or airplanes. My little brain (8 years old) was very intrigued to imagine a flying house with people in it, thinking of airplanes. I saw 1st time an airplane when I was 15 years old. She used to have ABC tablets to care for any ailment in the village including her own, used to have some leaf juice (a passerby saint showed her the plant based on her hospitality) as care for snake bites, and always had buffaloes/cows to milk. Every morning her first chore was to make butter and buttermilk (served to all farm workers and the family) and wash dishes with ashes. She moved to our land by building a thatched house on the farm when we were young and my dad had to move out of town for work, as it is easy for her to manage the land. Our land was equal distance from about 4 villages at a four way crossroads. I remember, she would always prey to many cobras around the house/land to not to harm workers or the family. As we had thatched house, we used to have many cobras and other snakes chase the rats that used to live in the bamboos. There were many nights when a snake falls on very small jute cart/bed especially when it is raining outside, we had to wake our grandma to take care of the situation by whispering to/waking her.
      She used to offer a glass of buttermilk for free to everybody that used to stop at our house to quest their thirst with water, especially during summers. People used to call her place/our land as the Challa Samudram (cool ocean or place with unending supply of butter milk; as our land used to be only green area in the surrounding area during summer – My dad, maternal grandfather and my grandmother converted the land into mango orchard with many fruit trees; and due to her generosity to offer butter milk for free, which is challa). When people used to steal the fruit or harvest (we had gypsies as settlers about a kilometer from our land and we had constant threat of theft), my grandmother used to say, “people could steal whatever they want, however, what we deserve, always stays with the family”. She was a very idealistic person. My parents named me originally as Raghu Seshu Chowdary (Raghu came from my father’s dad – Raghavayya and Seshu came from my mom’s dad – Seshayya), my grandmother said, they did not accomplish enough in their life and they are dead anyway (note her selflessness and idealism!), she told me to be more ambitious, she named me as Ravindra Prasad, more close to the 1st president, Rajendra Prasad. She wanted my name to be different than his, as she wanted me to become a president one day that is why she wanted me to have a different name. She in fact, took my consent for such change and she said, she will change only, if I agree. She always respected all classes of people and did her best to be helpful while betting her own position in the society against all adversities.
      My dad and uncle (his younger brother, youngest of the siblings) participated in Rajakar movement to emancipate Andhra Pradesh from the Nizam ruling. During my growing up, especially during the couple droughts we had, there was no food, except for some maze, sorghum or some grass seeds. There were many days we had one meal, mostly made with maze or sorghum – had for breakfast, lunch and dinner in different forms for almost a year (until next paddy season). My dad is a very loving and caring person that always fought against corruption and wanted equality for everybody. We are two sisters and two brothers, he always treated us equal and made sure we all respected all the workers in the farm as equals, in fact, growing up, my best friends were our farm workers. We always worked in the farm and did everything together in the farm, including my sisters and mother/grandmother. However, we were always trying to improve our condition to get out of poverty and poor condition.
      Having released from jail at the age of 21 for participating in Razakar movement, my dad (he had elementary education prior to participating in Razakar movement in Urdu medium) married and while having us children, educated himself. After passing PUC, while working as a teacher, completed his degrees – BA, LLB, and couple diplomas in cooperative management (DPA – Diploma in Public Administration, HDC – Higher Diploma in Cooperative Management). He always believed in improving himself, his surroundings and planned to venture a career in poor and helpless people’s betterment. He took various positions, including secretary of an employee association at the state level. He was always poor, financially. I remember, we had to have one lantern and four of us children wake up to start reading at 4 or 5 AM and start doing chores when it is dawn. First to sweep, then to spray water and have one of the sisters decorate the front with white powder while the boys work with buffalo dung/waste cleaning. He always dreamt to make the close-by village as a model village. Whatever he used to earn, he used to invest in the land improvement (first to irrigate). Mostly, he used to lose everything. Growing up, I remember, he used to be very strict about not cheating or stealing. He always respected all the workers in the field and made sure we all did respect everybody equally. We used to always eat lunch with our workers and play with them. Even when we move to the town later for education, when the workers visit the town for medical or any other reason, if they visit us, my dad used to offer them food on the table (they were not comfortable eating at the table though). Even in their older age, when they had domestic help, if they are young enough, both my parents made sure they are educated while working, like their children did.
      Now, my brother and sisters, we all are settled in the USA, as there were better opportunities for us to get out of the poverty here in the USA. We all had merit scholarships or financial help from my dad or we used to take up earning jobs, whatever he could to support ourselves during our education both in India and here in the USA. I remember, when we were very young, we used to take vegetables and fruits to sell in close by towns on bicycle. Oldest is my sister, she has a PhD degree from Osmania University (due to lack of money, even though she got admitted to Kakatiya medical college, we couldn’t afford the payment, she did not join the college) and works as a professor with the University of Texas specializing in blood clotting research (both she and her husband, a professor too, have authority internationally in that field). Next, my brother is a Cancer surgeon in Pennsylvania. He completed MBBS from Osmania University/MD-PhD from Rutgers University with most of his research done at the National Institute of Cancer. Third, my sister older than me has a PhD degree from Osmania University and currently works as a Toxicologist for a very large engineering firm in Florida. Last, me, I have two MS degrees from Osmania University and a MS degree from University of Oklahoma. I own a contracting firm for the last almost 21 years in California, mostly working as Defense Contractor, completing many mission critical projects. I came to the USA with my savings and scholarships of $5,000 (all my siblings came on their own) that I earned from my first job working for the ONGC (selected based on competitive exam and interview). Currently my assets are over 10 million dollars with significant net worth. As you know Kamla garu, even though, there are many more opportunities in the USA, competition is really tough here as it is well organized and there is very limited scope for coming up without your ability to lead. All of us siblings are in a very leading role in every field that we are in. In fact, all of our off spring are also at or graduated from renowned colleges (Harvard/Oxford/Yale/Duke/UPenn/Berkley/UT-Austin/Williams College/Carnegie Melon/UM) with some scholarships such as Rhode scholarship and doing really well at their carriers too, whoever already settled. And they are making impact in the American society too. I am about to launch my own agenda of early retirement at the age of 55 in 3 more years and do social programs here in the USA and in India. So far I attempted two times to start doing something significant as a social thing in India. I lost about $100,000 and a year of my valuable time. One thing you need to notice among ourselves is, we are united as a family, however, we all grew up independent of each other competing. We always motivated each other and supported each other as a family, mostly a wordy support. Asking financial help from each other in Kamma community is seen as a weakness, at least from my personal experiences. Also, if you sell any assets and live, especially land, it is a weakness too. Other than that, we never caused any harm to anybody. Instead, I could provide numerous anecdotes of helping others in various aspects. Ramoji rao garu is a self-made billionaire, like many successful people are. He happened to be a Kamma. He did not come up, because he is a Kamma or his family had large assets. He ventured in many fields; most of them are profitable, like many successful people did.
      In 1998, when our dad died, villagers where my grandparents originally migrated to, requested that we get involved with their children’s education (it is very hard to work in India to improve the village until they ask for, as there are many egos that clash, especially when you are a Kamma and other casts, such as Baniya/Komati or Velma or Golla are dominant castes in the village). All four of us siblings had our askharabysam and 1st class education there. Fortunately, at that time, Chandrababu Naidu garu had the Janma bhoomi program. We siblings donated money and elevated the elementary school to high school. We contribute regularly to the school. Between all of us, we visit several times in a year. We helped in the construction of toilets, a large building and bought many useful things to the school, including science lab, uniforms, utensils, land for playground, etc. We have a program to educate any poor child/any child that needs financial help to educate themselves. So far, we have only two kids complete college/engineering degrees fully sponsored by us. We wish more kids take advantage of our support. However, we are happy that, most of the village girls get educated at least until 10th, before they get married and have their own families. At least they all could read and write now and they could make their families better.
      By the way, my mother-in-laws family is from Coimbatore. One of my elderly friends from Coimbatore that used to live in Southern California told me that, according to one of the theories, most of Kammas migrated pretty much overnight to Coimbatore to protect their community respect to save a girl that was planned to be married by a Nizam princes, as he liked her appearance.
      Moral of the above story is, most of the cousins and families that I know in Kamma community have similar stories or may be even better stories. I see most of the Kammas’ as self-made. I agree there are some selfish and unwanted people in Kamma community too (like any community). However, most of them are hard-working, and want to gain what is rightfully theirs while respecting other with fair practices. Most of them are adventurers and willing to take risk. Most of them are ambitious and they thrive on competition. In a fair competition, you need to lead and find methods to lead. Most of the Kammas’ don’t help each other, as they are in competition and they want the competition to prevail fairly. There should be nothing wrong in doing so, any community or any family could use similar principles fairly. I think it is the most idealistic situation anybody could have. Family value is utterly lacking in the USA that is why, for convenience, they divorce and there is no commitment to family, including children and parents. Unfortunately, this trend is creeping very fast in India, including Andhra Pradesh. It is happening in the younger generation Kammas too. Other communities or intermixed communities (one of my sister married out of caste) in India and Andhra Pradesh could compete to do the same. Like you said, Patels and Sardars do a wonderful job. Only difference there I guess is they mostly practice recent religions such as Jainism and Sikhism where there is no ego clash or cast barrier. It is always good to learn from successful communities, no matter where or what. I have lot of respect for the author for doing her research, however, her opinion lost the punch point and has the negative direction (she has her thought process more oriented towards glass half empty rather than, at least it is half full. She was probably misguided). Kamma community, even though a very small percentage of population, they work hard, they compete and make a change/adopt a change, worldwide, like Jews. I remember, once Chandrababu Naidu garu stating that we need to go beyond Jews as people from Andhra Pradesh (he was not addressing Kammas that time). It is obvious to have jealousy and rage if somebody is more successful than you are (in fact, these feelings fuel the growth and competition), however, if it is converted in to positive energy, outcome would be great and world is going to be a better place to live. Let us learn the best from any community, including Kamma community.

  6. I6LS7y52ivnh

    Yes, It’s really a true story.. and kamma’s fought for their dominance in social existence .. hat’s of all kammas.. and i congratulate the writer for her sincere efforts on her research.. all the best

    • @ duddukuri : There is nothing to be proud of kammas.. they are self centered ..selfish hypocrites. They are the opposite of cosmopolitans. Their presence ruins the climate and culture of a place. They inject selfish politics, unnecessary favoritism and false pride into the system. They never mingle with the larger society, rather they create caste centered pockets/groups in the system and ruin the whole game.

      Note: The above applies to majority of Kammas. I’ve also seen few kammas who don’t do all or few of the above.

  7. Krishnan Ramaswami

    I am not an Andhra, but have had close relations with Andhra Pradesh. My fther served in Coastal Andhra distircts in the Old Madras Presidency, retiring as a Supeintending Engineer form Rjamundry, AP in 1942. My own association was with Secunderabad from 1950 to 1991 with a brief break between 1950 and 1973.
    I am a great lover of Saint Thyagarajs’s and Annammacharya’s compoisitions and I have numerous friends among Telugu people – I do not really know whether they were Reddys or Kammas or Kapus or any other.
    I have admired the thesis of Dalel Benbabaali, and several of the heartfelt responses here.
    My belief is that people willl always try to struggle to the utmost to make life easier for their children and later descendants. There is nothing worng with the idea; it is the way they do it that makes a difference, like for instance the numerous kings of yore who claimed the throne after creating a terrible bloodbath of their own kin.
    In the final analysis, of what real worth is the accumulation of thousands of crores of rupees by some individuals, who also send their wealth across the oceans for safe keeping in tax havens? And what is the point in a Janardhan Reddy gifting a diamond studded gold crown or any other item to this temple or that Matha? When the time comes, he will either collapse at his dining table and be gone in a fraction of a moment or suffer a lingering death moving from hospital bed to hospital bed to hospice draining his family members of all energy till they actually pray for him to die and free them from THEIR suffering !
    Today, the numerous leaders have fought tooth and nail to have the fair land of Andhra Dismembered
    not because of any love for the piece of land they call their “Mathru Bhoomi” but because it will give scope for one more Chief Minster, several more Ministers and so forth for arrogating to themselves the power to impoverish the land while accumulating more thousands of crores into their family wealth !
    We had recently visited the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm etc, and at that time, the lines from the Rubaiyat resonated in my mind :”They say the lion and the lizard keep court where Jamshyd drank deep….”
    Nobody truly remembers the great kings and emperors that ruled different parts of India even a few hundred years ago, then what is the point in accumulating so much wealth that one cannot spend in one’s own life time, and why leave such a patrimony for the sons and daughters that can only make them wastrels and unfit to even be called human beings in course of time?
    R. Krishnan

  8. I totally agree with mr r krishnan’s matured conclusion.

  9. Some background:

    what JP said: was all praise for their “entrepreneurship” and “hard work”, without even mentioning once how they suppressed other communities.

    what someone else said: Kammas will be like Jews and rule the world (I know this and they are hysterious, not harmful or hegemonic)

    But, Dalel Benbabaali revealed on Facebook when someone asked this question..

    q) Did you not get a chance to ask him that question straight, about his opinion about their suppression of other communities and what he as a leader doing to make things better? You still haven’t answered my question about “are there cases where he has helped his community on an exclusive basis or within his party tried to promote his own community” to qualify his caste leanings, let alone being a supremacist himself.

    a) it’s an extremely sensitive topic. Most Kamma leaders whom I interviewed thought that my PhD was about “Kammas’ success story”. To Chandrababu Naidu, I didn’t even tell that I am researching on Kammas. To get an appointment, I had to tell that I am studying “the development of Andhra Pradesh under his chief ministership”

    So, they were getting carried away and responding for some flattery, while this lady is being deceitful and malicious.

    That said, I don’t support hate crimes against anyone (so called oppression), but is hegemony or oppression the driving factor of their dominance? Better keep your thesis to yourself, as a bunch of things you reported are totally wrong!

    • Dalel Benbabaali did a decent job with this thesis. But her conclusion is simply well-known in Andhra Pradesh, especially to anyone who has social consciousness. What Dalel Benbabaali should also have spent (perhaps a second installment of the thesis) is how Kammas systematically infiltrated the progressive movements and sabotaged them. It was no secret that “comrade” in AP in the 1950′s meant Kamma-Reddy. These peasant castes were under the yoke of zamindars, and started the zamindari ryot movement, which had some socialist overtones. After the zamindari and inamdari systems were abolished through the 1956 Tenancy Act (Andhra Area), they became the overlords and started suppressing the Dalits. They also are not so well into education, but only to make money using educational qualifications. Most Kammas went to the US using purchased medical degrees from Kakinada and Guntur medical colleges as they could not compete with other forward castes for the medical seats. They created private colleges to help them get medical diplomas which are used to emigrate to the USA where even a mediocre doctor can make a large sum of money by overcharging Medicare and other government programs. There has not been a single Kamma doctor in the US who achieved any kind of excellence (research, practice or innovation), which is a significant thing, considering they have been practicing medicine there for over half a century now.

      • @Vishnu Nice creation you are nothing but a hater and rumor producer. When writing something on internet be careful about what you are talking. Can you please publish the witnessing documents? I don’t understand why people like this write something shit and it stays in great sites misleading 1000s of people world wide.
        Please produce proof for
        1> Purchasing degrees
        2> You visiting US hospitals, IT and not seeing famous Kamma doctors and engineers.
        3> Guntur college gives medical seat by MCET exam. But you say they are setup for Kammas.
        4> Suppressing Dalits? What do you mean by Suppressing? Like Hindus getting suppressed by Pakisthan? Like LTTE in Lanka?
        I know many kammas who gave up all assets and joined socialist movement. May be socialist party or naxalites. You see them every where. It’s not an organization like some reiligions trying to suppress other reiligions with conversions? There is no unity between Kammas. They didn’t work together. they moved on their own will individually. Try to use brain instead of using hater as ink…
        My grandfather constructed library at his time for all people in the village.
        You are living in Andhra doesn’t mean that you know everything. Half of Andhra loves and lives on rumors. You are one example.
        Instead hater you also work hard…take up new things be creative be aggressive..be bold..what ever caste you belong that caste will see development…

        It’s sad no one talks how many 1000s of kammas marrying inter-caste and inter religion marriages. It’s sad no one talks how they developed Telugu movie industry, IT industry and education. It’s sad that No one talks about Kammas in social movements. No one talks about how NTR, brought recognition to Andhra. If you have grand parents who visited north you ask them what kind of treatment they had in North. Ask them who brought political awareness in Andhra.. Stop being stupid..
        India is going to face biggest problems work on them by using your brains and proper education instead feeding knowledge on rumors.

      • @Vishnu it is very evident from your reference of incidents from the 50′s as if you were facing oppression during that time. Are you saying that people like Paritala Ravi systematically infiltrated and destroyed naxalite and communist movements?

        Have some brains, sir! Others are watching what you guys are trying to spread. Just because you can convince a bunch of people with your lies doesn’t mean you can keep doing it all the time. Are you saying, US was taking mediocre doctors all the time without going through a test or interview? Do you even know anything about USMLE?

        Who ever brought up this article on this website has a clear agenda. “Systematically sabotaging the social acceptance and prominence of the kamma caste”. Haters are going to hate!

        I ‘d suggest the kamma guys from now on to get united and watch for these assholes whenever..

      • As you say so, here is my advice. “Next time you or someone in your family go to a doctor, ask if he is a kamma. If so, tell him/her that they are not good enough and you’d rather look for treatment elsewhere”.

  10. kammas ki pani emi ledu. eppudu dappu kottu kotame…

  11. Just I laughed after reading the article that is lacking lot of points. Mostly Looking like the impression of some community in Telangana.
    I am a Kamma guy and lot of stuff is missing(Here are my comments):

    The article showing Kammas as organized movement like Church and Pope. But they are very decentralized group. Non co operative to each other even with in families. Like all others they have groups.
    Dominating film industry: What is domination? How one gets domination? Every Kamma actor faced lot of hurdles in Chennai at the begining and Rama Rao is the one who brought telugu industry to Hyderabad from Chennai. Which is a big mistake assuming all Telugu people are one. No one thinks how much a gardener put effort but every one look at fruits and want to enjoy their taste. Today film industry is at this level even being local just because of Kammas only and now every one want to grab the fruits.
    Chunduru matter is wrongly presented here: It’s not massacre. What happened in Srilanka, Turkey and rwanda are called massacre. The incident in Chunduru is the sparks happened for months between two groups and one of them Kammas. Finally erupted when these guys teased the women in theater.

    Article is projecting Naxalites as daliths. Wrong again. Kaamas were very active in Naxal movement and go check the first meeting of peoples war in Guntur and the names of the people who started it.

    Coming to church there is no one else in India who used caste system as much as church is. In the name of equality they converted many people from all castes including Kammas and later started fighting for reservation for christian dalits. It’s a big game by church to make India a christian country.

    Kammas are the people who are going for inter caste marriages in larger number even inter religion.

    Mostly the part that is related to Telangana is related to Land lord system in telagana where many forward castes come in. Kammas are there who are very poor. My Grandfather donated all the land and constructed a library for the village where every one was encouraged to read.

    Most of the socialists are Kammas. Organised attack in Krishna on Kammas also ignored.

    All these facts are ignored by the article. I am also surprised to see an article on a caste in Telengana site where I expected to see Telangana movement and articles bringing people together in Telangana.

  12. Mobility, adaptability, hardwork and finding the opportunities are the key factors for anybody’s success in any field. Many communities and individuals flourished across the world by these qualities. Attributing these qualities to a particular community shows immaturity of the author. Her conclusions are amateurish and mostly based on opinions of prejudiced.

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