4& SOCIAL SCIENTIST rather gloomily to the rebellion as 'this madness' (see M. Venkatarangaiya (ed.). The Freedom Movement inAndhra Pradesh, vol. Ill, p. 384). A rebel proclamation addressed to the villagers of Gudem and Dharakonda muttas around March 1924 again says nothing about a nationalist crusade and makes no appeal to any nationalist sentiment {ibid., p. 390). And, for what it is worth, the ICS judge who tried 22 alleged rebels in June 1923 could find 'no direct evidence that the aims of the leaders ! He believed they intended merely to 'overawe' the local authorities (Annexure II to G.O. 572, Public, 23 July 1923). This is not to suggest that 1922-24 was merely a repeat of 1879-80, that Sitarama Raju's rebellion had no innovatory features. Although attacks on police stations (both as a form of defiance and revenge and as a means of acquiring arms) had occurred in the earlier risings, Sitarama Raju gave to hisfituri an unprecedented military precision and effectiveness which successfully embarrassed and discomforted the colonial forces for nearly two years until his death at the hands of the police in May 1924. He was also singularly successful in persuading his followers to a void (as far as possible) killing Indians and to see British officials as their real enemies. Further, as Adury rightly points out(and as I also noted on p. 139 of my essay), there were apparently no attacks on plains traders and money-lenders such as had occurred in many previous fituns. In this, too, Sitarama Raju's rising was certainly innovatory. Adury also rightly makes much of the popular support which Raju enjoyed during the rebellion and which had earlier made him a revered and respected figure among the hillmen. It was not my intention to deny that he commanded such respect, though that is the impression Adury gives by quoting me out of context (p. 11) to the effect that 'Raju did not inspire such massive demonstrations of popular support...' What I actually wrote (pp. 137-8) was that 'Rama Raju did not inspire such massive demonstrations of popular support as those aroused by Tamman Dora and Bhima Reddi at the height of the Rampa Rebellion (of 1879-80), but the government's attempts to crush the rebels were foiled by the villagers' reluctance to cooperate with the authorities.' I did not discuss this aspect of the 1922-24 rebellion more fully because I had written about the villagers' 'non-cooperation' with the colonial forces at some length in connection with the lS45-Sfituri in Gudem and the 1879-80 rebellion and, as I p6inted out (p. 134), I did not think it necessary to do so a third time; indeed, it struck me as one of the respects in which continuity between the different fituris was most marked. The hillmen's 'non-cooperation' in 1922-24 was a deeply ingrained attitude to external authority and did not necessarily owe anything to Gandhian ideology. I am glad that Adury has given due prominence to this aspect of popular involvement in Sitarama Raju's rebellion, but 1 still maintain that the 1879-80 rebellion commanded a greater degree of active support (in so far as these things can be measured). In that earlier struggle large numbers of hillmen joined thefauridars, and there were several bands, at times amounting to small armies, roaming the hills. The death of a leader as prominent and revered as Tamman Dora in August 1879 weakened the rebellion, but did not lead toits virtual collapse as happened with Sitarama Raju's death in May 1924. In his rebellion, if I am not mistaken, there was seldom more than one guerilla force active at any one time. Apart from the initial raid on Chintapalle police station on 22 August 1922, when a force variously reckoned at 50 or 300 was involved, Sitarama Raju appears to have commanded no more than about a hundred men. But of course such figures, especially when they are drawn from hostile colonial sources, are notoriously unreliable, and even a force of 50 men is a significantly large number given the guerilla nature of the struggle and the coercive strength of the colonial regime. In some respects conditions in the 1920s were