The role of Kamma migrants in the development of Andhra culture in Hyderabad- Dalel Benbabaali

In context of the debate over safety and security for migrants in Hyderabad, here is an interesting article on the development Andhra culture of migrants -

(published in Geetha Reddy (ed.), Emerging urban transformations. Multilayered cities and urban systems, International Geographical Union, Urban geography Commission, Hyderabad)

Abstract

Hyderabad is a multilayered city which has long served as a melting point for different cultures. However, the massive arrival of rich migrants from coastal Andhra after the formation of Andhra Pradesh has added a new cultural and economic layer which tends to impose itself on others, rather than merge harmoniously with them.

Among these migrants, professionals and businessmen belonging to the Kamma caste form a dominant group. Because of their wealth and influence, they have been able to spread Andhra culture in many parts of Hyderabad. This paper is based on a case study of Kukatpally area and aims to analyse the impact of Andhra/Kamma migration on the local culture and populations.

Introduction

The state of Andhra Pradesh, which was formed in 1956 on a linguistic basis, comprises the three regions of coastal Andhra, Telangana and Rayalaseema. Though these regions share a common language, which is Telugu, they present different geographical, historical, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Coastal Andhra is naturally endowed with rich plains of fertile agricultural lands, especially in the Krishna-Godaveri delta, where irrigation was introduced early by the British rulers. Rayalaseema was also part of the British-governed Madras Presidency, but its location in the arid Deccan plateau has hindered its development. The other interior region, Telangana, suffers both from these harsh physical conditions and from socio-economic backwardness due to lack of exposure to modernity during the Nizam’s rule. Since Telangana was part of the Muslim princely state of Hyderabad, it was less advanced than the British-ruled areas in terms of education and development.

After Independence, the Hyderabad state was integrated to the Indian Union. The States Reorganization Commission noted the lack of homogeneity between Telangana and Andhra and recommended the formation of a separate Telangana state. But the Indian government rejected this recommendation and favoured the merging of all Telugu-speaking districts into the new state of Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad became the capital of this new Telugu state, and Andhra people started migrating to the city for education, business and employment. Owing to their economic strength, higher literacy rate and political experience gained under British rule, their arrival was felt as a threat by the natives of Telangana, also called Mulkis. As shown by Weiner (1978), “sons of the soil” tend to fear migrants when they are in a better economic position, which enables them to impose their culture on locals rather than undergo a process of assimilation.

While Weiner’s theoretical framework is based on ethnicity, this paper will focus on regional and caste culture. Andhras do not form a different ethnic group as compared to people from Telangana, but they have a different culture, in the broad sense of the term, which includes specific dialects, living styles, economic and political behaviours. This culture is embedded in a specific territory, but it can be imported into a new place in case of migration. In Hyderabad, the arrival of rich people from coastal Andhra added a new layer of culture and economy to an already multilayered city with long historical experiences and varied populations. The question is whether this new layer is merging harmoniously with the previous ones, since Hyderabad has a tradition of serving as a melting point for different cultures, or whether the recent settlers, because they are dominant, tend to maintain a separate identity and dismiss the local culture.

The main hypothesis of this paper is that, among migrants, only dominant groups are able to impose their culture on locals. The argument is based on a case study of Kamma settlers in Kukatpally, a fast-developing peripheral area of Hyderabad, located near HITEC City. Kammas are the dominant caste of coastal Andhra, where they form a numerically important group and own most of the prosperous delta lands. The first section of the paper traces back the different factors behind their migration to Hyderabad. The second section analyses the way they project their presence in the cultural traits, architectural designs and politico-economic profiles of the city. The last section studies the way this new culture is perceived by the locals, whether they benefit from the growth generated by in-migration, or feel that they are losing their own identity.

1. Migration of Kammas to Hyderabad: historical and geographical roots

Migration of Kammas to Hyderabad is a relatively recent phenomenon compared to the long history of the city, which was the capital of a princely state before becoming the capital of Andhra Pradesh. Though the Nizam was a Muslim prince, the ruling elite was mixed in composition, comprising Arabs, North Indian Hindus and Muslims, and a few indigenous Hindus. Thus, the culture they maintained was an “eclectic mixture that was uniquely Hyderabadi” (Elliott, 1974). However, in the early decades of the 20th century, the founders of the Andhra Mahasabha, most of whom were educated professionals living in Hyderabad, were drawn together by a concern for the neglect of Telugu language and literature under the Muslim regime. The language of higher education was Urdu, which was associated with urban culture in Hyderabad. Even the Hindus studying in Osmania University became more literate in that culture than in Telugu. Because Muslim culture was predominant, the imitation of Muslim habits was considered to be a sign of being cultured (Rao, 2003).

But after the formation of Andhra Pradesh, the educated people from coastal Andhra who migrated to the new state capital used to jeer at the ‘Urduised’ Telugu spoken in Telangana. Moreover, “Andhras aroused much resentment in Telangana by saying that its inhabitants needed to be liberated from their feudal past and their assimilation to the style of living of their past Muslim rulers (…). In return the Telangana urban middle classes considered the Andhras as narrowly provincial and vulgarly neo-rich with no appreciation of the Hyderabadi art of living” (Gray, 1971). Andhras were educationally more advanced because of British influence and their domination in the new state civil service was feared because of the adoption of Madras Presidency rules. The state government constructed housing for the relocated government officials, and provided loans to make it possible for the Andhras to acquire ownership. Andhra colonies, as they were called, sprung up in the city. Political power started shifting to leaders from coastal Andhra. After selling their lands in the Krishna delta for a high price, some bought cheap lands on the outskirts of Hyderabad and started vineyards. The wine industry was also developed by Andhra businessmen, and businesses started by Andhras tended to hire staff from the Andhra region. Andhras were generally perceived as more efficient as agriculturists and businessmen (Weiner, 1978).

To understand these differences, one has to go back to the distinct development of coastal Andhra under British rule and identify its main beneficiaries. The most developed area in Andhra is the Krishna-Godaveri delta which benefitted immensely from the construction of two big dams in the mid-19th century and the introduction of canal irrigation in these already fertile deltaic lands. The farmers belonging to the middle-ranking agrarian castes, many of whom were Kammas, were thus able to shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture and to generate surplus (Rao, 1985). The accumulation of agrarian surplus led to a process of economic diversification, which first took place within the delta, and then required territorial expansion through migration. The prosperous farmers started investing in small businesses and agro-industries, like rice mills and sugarcane factories. They were also able to send their children to study in the growing towns of coastal Andhra, which, under British rule, became centres of education, commerce, culture and social reform. Caste associations played an important role in helping their members access English education and use it as a tool for social mobility. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Kamma Mahajana Sabha has offered scholarships and built hostels in various towns for the students belonging to the community.

On the other hand, the Hyderabad state was characterized by feudal relations in agriculture and a very restricted access to modern education, limited to a tiny elite. Even the dominant Reddy caste of Telangana was lagging behind the progressive Kamma farmers of coastal Andhra in terms of exposure to modernity. 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 (Krishna Rao, Subrahmanyan, 2002). Following the Green Revolution in the Krishna delta, Kamma farmers emerged as a new capitalist class of Kulaks (Upadhya, 1988). They became more and more urban-oriented, in search of new opportunities in business and employment. Being the state capital, Hyderabad was a major destination for the children of these rich farmers to access higher education.
It is only in the 1980s that the number of Kamma settlers in Hyderabad increased significantly. Some informants explained that they felt encouraged to migrate to the capital after the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) 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 (Prasad, 2004). From 1995 to 2004, under the regime of Chandrababu Naidu, NTR’s son-in-law, the policy of economic reforms and the liberalization process further attracted enterprising businessmen from this particular community to Hyderabad, in order to invest in real estate, corporate health and education, or to take up jobs in the new economy. In addition to the traditional upper castes like Brahmins, Kammas are also overrepresented among the software engineers working in HITEC City (Rijken, 2007).

Chandrababu Naidu turned Hyderabad into a showcase for his policy (Kennedy, Zérah, 2008). The TDP government, in which Kammas occupied key positions (as opposed to Congress governments dominated by Reddies), clearly focused on infrastructure development and global growth sectors like IT. Inaugurated in 1998, HITEC City was developed in the western periphery of Hyderabad, near the residential areas of Jubilee Hills and Kukatpally, where most of the Kamma settlers live. This led to a tremendous appreciation of their properties and real estate businessmen made a lot of profit by investing in these areas, as explained by the president of Kukatpally builders’ association, himself a Kamma, like 80 % of its members. In Kukatpally municipality, which is now part of Greater Hyderabad, half of the population are Kammas (approximately 2 lakhs), according to the caste association. Because it has the highest concentration of Kamma settlers in the city, Kukatpally was selected to conduct this study.

Each day thousands of migrant workers mainly of lower caste and adivasi community come to work in the cities who do not have either any fixed workplace or any fixed wage

2. Development of Andhra culture in Kukatpally: role of Kamma settlers

The data presented here were collected in May and June 2007 through a survey consisting in qualitative interviews with key informants and a questionnaire addressed to 100 Kamma households settled in Kukatpally. To make the sample representative in terms of socio-economic status, I selected three residential areas of different standing. Vivekanand colony is a posh area with luxurious individual houses, where only people with very high income live. The second surveyed area is a gated community for high income people, located in Nizampet Road. Kukatpally Housing Board Colony (KPHB) is the third surveyed area, where most of the interviewed people belonged to the middle income group. KPHB colony was constructed in the 1980s and depends on the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board, created by the government in 1960 to provide housing accommodation at an affordable price.

Out of the 100 interviewed Kamma households, 99 heads are not natives of Hyderabad and are first generation settlers in the city. 65 arrived after the TDP came to power in 1983 and explain that they felt encouraged to migrate to the capital because of the new regime. Some even acknowledge that they were expecting advantages from it because of the caste factor. 80 are from the Krishna delta (40 from Guntur district and 40 from Krishna district), 12 from other Andhra districts (Prakasam, East and West Godavari, Vishakapatnam), 4 from Khammam (Telangana) and 3 from Anantapur (Rayalaseema). In the last two cases, they are second generation migrants, since their parents first left Andhra to buy new lands in the interior regions of the state.

When asked about the reasons for migration, 50 answered that they came because of the new employment opportunities in Hyderabad, 30 for business purposes, 10 for completing their higher education and 10 for their children’s education. The average age of migration among the households’ heads is 27. When asked about the choice of Kukatpally to settle in, 35 said that it was a cheap and fast-developing suburb, and that buying a residence there was a good investment because of the rapid appreciation. 30 replied that they already had relatives or caste fellows settled in Kukatpally, and that they wanted to live in a place known for its “Andhra culture”, where the influence of Telangana culture is less important and where the Muslim population is not too numerous. Some informants talked more specifically about their preference for areas having a strong “Kamma culture”. 20 said that they chose Kukatpally because it is near HITEC City and offers a lot of business and employment opportunities. 15 described Kukatpally as an educational hub with a lot of private schools and engineering colleges for their children. One interesting point to note is that most of these private educational institutions are owned by Kammas.

This community became aware of the importance of education as a tool for social mobility quite early in its history. Among the last generation, many are doctors and engineers. In the surveyed sample, 88 % of the family members between 20 and 40 years have a university degree. Women are also highly educated. Most of them studied in private English-medium schools. Since parents are ready to invest a lot of money in their children’s education, Kammas’ human capital is mainly related to their financial capital. More than half of the interviewed households had an annual income of above 5 lakhs. 54 % had properties worth 1 crore or more. In terms of social capital, Kamma settlers benefitted from various caste-based networks, whether familial, educational, associational, professional or political. Interviews with active members of various Kamma institutions located in Kukatpally (marriage bureau, caste association, hostels and colleges, builders’ association, political leaders) highlight the role of caste as social capital not only in the process of migration (through information and mutual help) but also in the integration process (fast and easy access to property, to educational institutions for children, and to job opportunities).

Out of the twelve Kamma caste associations of Hyderabad, Kukatpally Kamma Sangham, with 50,000 members, is the biggest and the most active, although Amirpet Kamma Sangham is the oldest and the most visible in the urban landscape because of its location in a huge building next to a busy commercial road in the city centre. Every year in autumn the caste associations of each area organize a huge get-together which takes the form of a picnic. Kukatpally Kamma Sangham was able to gather 70,000 participants in 2006, as against a maximum of 20,000 for other Kamma Sanghams. In coastal Andhra, these picnics, called in Telugu Kartika Masam Vana Bhojanam (“forest meal in the autumn season”), take place in forest areas or in mango gardens, and they used to include all communities living in the same neighbourhood. Kamma settlers in Hyderabad are responsible for transforming this tradition into a single caste picnic. Following this trend, other castes are also organizing their own picnics, but they do it with less publicity and hype than Kammas.

In 2007 Kukatpally Kamma Sangham inaugurated an old age home, which is a new concept in India where the old parents are usually taken care of by their children in the joint family system. Because of increasing migration to the United States, many Kamma “NRIs” (Non-Resident Indians) are worried about their old parents who are staying back in India, and therefore they contributed through donations to the construction of Kukatpally’s old age home. Kammas are said to have introduced a more individualistic culture in the city, which is close to Western culture. The model of the nuclear family is prevalent among them (85 out of the 100 interviewed households). Kammas adopted the family planning very early, both to avoid division of property and to give the best education possible to their single child. Many Kamma women work and the divorce rate is higher in this community. Even when they do not work, Kamma women are financially independent because they keep their dowries in their names. These dowries generally consist in agricultural lands in their native villages or urban plots/apartments in Hyderabad, sometimes worth many crores. Kammas are famous for giving the highest dowries in the state, and they have indirectly contributed to a general increase of the dowry rate among other communities.

The social and political participation of Kammas settled in Kukatpally is very high. Apart from their own caste activities, they are active in the Residents’ Welfare Associations, in professional associations (Kukatpally Builders’ Association for example), and many are members of international clubs like Lion or Rotary. 25 heads of the interviewed households were active members of a party, and all had a political preference: 80 supported the TDP, 8 the Lok Satta, 5 the Congress, 4 the BJP and 3 the CPM. But this was in 2007 and this situation has changed after the Lok Satta leader, Jayaprakash Narayan, a Kamma from coastal Andhra, decided to contest the 2009 Assembly elections from Kukatpally constituency. He won the seat and is now an MLA. Although this ex-IAS officer founded his new party in order to “clean” Indian politics, not only from corruption but also from casteism, there is little doubt that he chose Kukatpally constituency to capture the Kamma vote. Many informants confirmed it but refused to talk in caste terms. They referred to “Andhra vote”, as a euphemism for Kamma vote.

Even though there are different caste subcultures in Andhra, Kammas claim to represent Andhra culture best because they think they have the purest Telugu dialect, the most refined Andhra cuisine, etc. Such a claim can be easily contradicted by discussing with Andhra Dalits, who have their own distinct culture, and might feel closer to Telangana Dalits than to Andhra upper castes. In his book,Why I am not a Hindu (1996), Kancha Ilaiah shows that the “majority of the oppressed” (dalitbahujan) share a common culture, which has little to do with upper caste culture, since they have their own popular folk songs, their own village goddesses, their own food habits. But contrary to dominant castes, when Dalits migrate and carry their caste culture to a different place, they are usually not in a position to influence the local culture. Settlers belonging to dominant groups, like Kammas, not only import their culture, but are able to impose it on others. Among locals, the weakest populations are often further marginalized by the arrival of rich and powerful migrants and new investors who try to carve spaces for themselves. In HITEC City for example, 400 Dalit families were expelled by an IT company to develop an area of 24 hectares (Kennedy, Ramachandraiah, 2006). These conflicts over resources lead us to the last section, which deals with the reception of Andhras’ culture and economy in Hyderabad.

Inclusion of Hyderabad and demand of separate Telangana created turmoil in National spectra and came up as an example of self-determination movement

3. Reception of Andhra culture in Hyderabad by the local populations

There are two different perceptions regarding the migration of Andhras to Hyderabad. Some people view it as positive for the development of the economy, since they are considered to be very enterprising. But they can also be seen as aggressive businessmen, as in the case of Kammas, who are often better armed to compete with the locals because of their networks and their initial capital. When they start new activities, the distributive effects are limited because they prefer to employ their own caste people, or at least people from Andhra, as was admitted by some informants. The penetration of Andhra capital into the city, especially during the TDP regime, was expected to have spread effects, both spatially and socially. But if one looks at the development of HITEC City, the major achievement of Naidu’s government, it stands as an “island of excellence”, quite isolated from the rest of Hyderabad. Even Cyberabad, developed around the IT park into a “model enclave” provided with uninterrupted power supply, broadband and high-quality roads, marks a “striking contrast with the surrounding environment, which is generally dry and rocky and poorly equipped in basic infrastructure” (Kennedy, 2007).

From a social point of view as well, there seems to be little trickle-down effects: “A few people have gotten very good employment while many others settled for low-paying unskilled work. The major beneficiaries were members of an expanding middle class with access to good educational facilities, some of whom might have been lured back to Andhra Pradesh from America’s Silicon Valley” (Frankel, 2005). According to Weiner, this dual labour market is “ethnically stratified”: “in the classical conception, migrants belonging to one ethnic group move from the periphery to work in subordinate positions to the ethnic group predominating in the core”. But in the case of Hyderabad the movement was from the more to the less prosperous region of the state, which led to a situation of “periphery taking control over the centre” (Weiner, 1978). This expression can be understood at two different scales. At the state level, it depicts the domination of the Andhra region on the central region of Telangana. At the city level, it describes the shift of political and economic power from the old city centre to the fast-developing suburbs. The Muslim historical centre is decaying (Naidu, 1990), whereas HITEC City can be rightly described as the centre of the new economy, although it is geographically located at the periphery. In the same way, Andhras settled in Hyderabad suburbs because the city-centre was already densely populated, but they have acquired dominant positions in politics and in the new economy, and are thus able to “dictate terms” to the locals. This is sometimes described by Telangana people as a logic of “internal colonization”, fuelling the demand for a separate state.

The rise of Telangana identity politics is not new, but it has taken a different form in the last years. The first agitation for a separate statehood dates back to the 1960s, when natives from Telangana resented the fact that Andhra settlers were buying the best agricultural lands in Telangana, Andhra capital was dominating the industry and real estate in Hyderabad, and governmental power was used to control the resources of Telangana for the benefit of the Andhra region (especially irrigation water from the Krishna and Godavari rivers). The re-emergence of Telangana identity politics in the 1990s is a reaction to the TDP regime which started a process of “Andhraisation, or dominance of economy, politics and society by the Andhra region” (Srinivasulu, 2008). According to Srinivasulu, the conflict between the two regions expresses itself in cultural terms: Telangana’s “sense of community” as opposed to the “unbridled individualism” of coastal Andhra, “harmony with nature” versus “commercialization and profit seeking” (ibid.).

However, Andhra culture is not necessarily imposed on others. An outsiders’ culture can be progressively adopted by the locals through a process of imitation. This can be observed in Kukatpally, where Kammas, considered to be very innovative, have started new trends which have been quickly followed by other communities. They were the first to start building and living in gated communities with all modern amenities (swimming pool, tennis court, etc.) and private security at the entry. The gated community of Nizampet Road, where a part of the survey was conducted, is mostly occupied by Kammas, more or less related to the builder, who belongs to their caste. But now other gated communities have developed in Kukatpally for the new professional middle class, irrespective of caste. This imitation process can be observed not only in the architectural style of their residence, but in their consumption patterns, dressing styles, food habits etc. Non-Kamma informants explained that their weddings have become more conspicuous because of Kamma influence. Kammas are also known to launch new fashions. One garment businessman in Kukatpally explained that he always buys clothes which suit Kamma taste, especially saris, because Kamma ladies are the ones who spend the most, and whatever they wear will be imitated after some time by other women. Following Kamma example, the harvest festival of Sankranti, which is very important in coastal Andhra, is now celebrated in a big way by all communities in Kukatpally.
Andhra cuisine has also spread because of the “tiffin” business, a Kamma innovation which consists in selling home-made food to young IT professionals living near HITEC City. Kammas were pioneers in more important fields as well, like corporate health and education. Private engineering colleges have mushroomed in Kukatpally, and the “capitation fees” phenomenon is now widespread among all communities (Kaul, 1993).

It is clearly the culture of the dominant groups which can be influential enough to be imitated. The concept of hegemony appears relevant to characterize Kammas’ cultural dominance. It was used by Gramsci to describe a kind of supremacy and social preeminence which is not only material, but expresses itself through control over media, culture and politics. Kamma power in the media is best represented by Ramoji Rao, who owns both Eenadu, the largest circulated Telugu newspaper, and ETV, primarily a Telugu channel which now exists in many other Indian languages. He is also famous for the film city named after him, which is the biggest in Asia. Kammas dominate the Telugu film industry, which is not only a profitable business, but a powerful tool to project one’s vision of the world. Many Telugu movies make fun of the Telangana dialects “which are generally spoken by marginal characters, comedians, under-class, criminals, politicians and villains (…). This is a clear demonstration of the contemptuous dismissal of the people and culture of Telangana” (Srinivasulu, 2008).

Conclusion:

Andhra and Telangana cultures seem to be conflicting in Hyderabad not because they are different, but because one culture tries to dominate the other. Diversity has been a constant feature of Hyderabad, and it used to express itself in terms of multi-cultural confluence. Conflicts arise not because of diversity, but because of inequality and the fear of losing one’s identity. It was the case in the old city when Muslims felt threatened by the massive arrival of Hindus after Hyderabad became the capital of Andhra Pradesh (Naidu, 1990). Now cultural conflicts in the city do not express themselves only on religious lines, but more and more on regional and caste lines. The reason for this may be the increased social and spatial differentiation which took place in Hyderabad after the massive migration of more advanced people from Andhra and the development of the new economy.