Memorial | 17 Jul 1985
The Karamchedu massacre
This account tells of men chased and killed with spears and axes, and records that women were raped. The section on the morning itself describes the killing; you can skip it and read on from what came after.
On the morning of 17 July 1985, armed men of the Kamma caste attacked the Madiga colony of Karamchedu, in coastal Andhra Pradesh, killing at least five Madiga men, the number the Supreme Court's judgment names, and six by most other counts; the press and K. Balagopal reported that the attackers also raped women; the survivors never went back, and their protest became the Dalit Mahasabha.
Key takeaways
- Kamma men killed six Madiga men at Karamchedu on 17 July 1985, by the counts of the press and of the civil-liberties writer K. Balagopal; the Supreme Court's judgment names five.1,2,4 The attackers also raped women, The News Minute and Balagopal reported.2,4
- The survivors refused to go back to the village and built a colony at Chirala, a nearby town. From their protest came the Dalit Mahasabha, founded there on 1 September 1985.4
- A trial court convicted five men of murder in 1994; the High Court acquitted everyone in 1998. In December 2008 the Supreme Court restored one murder conviction and the rioting convictions of 31 men, the judgment records. By then eleven of the accused had died.1,2
Karamchedu lies a few kilometres from the town of Chirala, in what was then Prakasam district and is now Bapatla district, in coastal Andhra Pradesh.2,3,8 Its land was held by Kammas, a landowning caste counted among the upper castes; the Madigas, one of the two main Dalit communities of Andhra Pradesh, lived in their own colony, Madigapalli, and worked as farm labourers.7,8 Most of them were Christians.5,7
The village was home to the family of the chief minister's son-in-law, Daggubati Venkateswara Rao, who stood for the Assembly for N.T. Rama Rao's Telugu Desam Party, Balagopal and the Dalit writer Kathi Padma Rao recorded.4,8 In the Assembly elections, by the prosecution's case, the Kammas backed the Telugu Desam Party and the Madigas the Congress.1 The Supreme Court records the prosecution's case that the Kammas resented the Madigas for no longer extending them the courtesy that had been extended "since time immemorial".1
A drinking-water tank
On the afternoon of 16 July 1985, by the prosecution's case as the Supreme Court sets it out, a Kamma man took his buffaloes to drink at the Madigas' own drinking-water tank. When a Madiga man protested, the Kamma man beat him, and he beat a Madiga woman who protested too. Later he and others beat her again.1 They felt humiliated, the prosecution said, "and they wanted to teach a lesson to the Madigas with the help of their caste-men."1
Kathi Padma Rao, who would found the Dalit Mahasabha, wrote in 2011 that the quarrel at the tank followed months of anger at the Madigas for voting against the Telugu Desam Party, and for standing up to Kamma youths who harassed Dalit women.8 The Madigas told Balagopal they believed the attack had been plotted the night before, in a liquor shop in the village; the police refused to investigate that claim.4
The morning of 17 July
This section describes the killing, and records that women were raped.
At about seven the next morning, by the prosecution's case, the accused came to Madigapalli armed with spears, axes, crowbars and stout sticks.1 Balagopal put the number of attackers at no fewer than 200.4 Witnesses told the trial court that the attackers chased Madiga men out of the colony and into the fields. One witness told the trial court of armed men chasing two of the dead "shouting that they should be done to death"; another, of men stabbing one of them with spears while he hid in a manure heap.1
The attackers killed six Madiga men, by the counts of The News Minute, Outlook, Balagopal and The Wire.2,3,4,6 The Supreme Court's judgment names five, and says that five died of their injuries.1 The attackers raped at least three women, The News Minute reported, and Balagopal wrote of three girls.2,4 Neither is a court finding. The attackers burnt and looted houses and drove hundreds out, Outlook reported.3
Kathi Padma Rao wrote that eight were killed, and that the police buried two of the bodies in secret without showing them to the families. No other source we have read records this, and it is not a court finding.8
The Supreme Court's judgment names the five dead as Duddu China Vandanam, Tella Moshe, Tella Muthaiah, Tella Yevasu and Duddu Ramesh, and Kathi Padma Rao's list, which differs in other names, also includes Duddu Abraham.1,8
After the killings
The survivors refused to go back to Karamchedu. They built a colony for themselves at Chirala, Balagopal wrote, and Kathi Padma Rao and the lawyer Bojja Tarakam settled there to organise them.4 About 800 people were later housed there by the government, the historian K.L. Richardson recorded.7
The police case named 92 people, Balagopal wrote in 1987 (the Supreme Court later gave 94 charged by the police); most of them gave themselves up after months, and 20 were still at large two years on.4 The case went to the Crime Branch of the state police, and was moved to the sessions court at Guntur. The Dalit Mahasabha filed its own complaint, naming 140 accused, since the police had left many out.4 The News Minute reported that a woman who had witnessed the massacre was killed a month after it. We have found no court record of it.2
The Dalit Mahasabha was founded at Chirala on 1 September 1985, with about three lakh, or 300,000, Dalits and supporters at its first meeting, by Balagopal's count. By 1987 it had units in six districts.4 When its members met at Vijayawada in October 1986, the police broke up the meeting with lathis, the long bamboo batons Indian police carry, and Kathi Padma Rao was detained under the National Security Act.4
Twenty-three years in court
In October 1991, six years on, the trial had not begun, Balagopal wrote.5 The police case and the Dalit Mahasabha's complaint were tried together; the prosecution called 104 witnesses.1 In 1994 the sessions court, the district court that tries serious crimes, convicted five men of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment, and convicted fifty of rioting with deadly weapons. Forty-six of them were sentenced to three years; four were fined Rs 10,000 each (about US$320 at 1994 rates).1,2
The High Court allowed the appeals of all those convicted and acquitted them, in 1998, The News Minute reported.1,2 The State of Andhra Pradesh appealed, and so did a survivor who had testified for the prosecution.1
On 19 December 2008 the Supreme Court restored one murder conviction, for the killing of Tella Moshe, finding that the High Court's acquittal of that man "suffers from the vice of perversity". It restored the rioting convictions of 31 men: 29 from one appeal and two from another.1 For the others it upheld the acquittals, finding that some had been named by only one witness, or by none. Eleven of the accused had died while the appeals were pending.1 "By then, many of the accused had already died," The News Minute wrote.2
In their words
What Dalit activists who took part in the movement told The News Minute in 2020, 35 years on.
Karamchedu "ignited the spirit of self-respect and fighting" among Dalits, Kathi Padma Rao said. "The movement will continue till Dalits get political power and land."2
The Karamchedu movement "brought a sea of changes in the lives of Dalits", said AM Khan Usha S Dany, who took part in it. He credited it with bringing about the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989.2
Who remembers, and how
A memorial to those killed stands at Karamchedu.2 The Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh dates itself from the massacre: in 1987 Balagopal wrote of Dalits and others preparing to mark the second anniversary, and in 2024 the scholar Suman Damera named Karamchedu, with Tsundur, as one of the caste atrocities that "rocked" the undivided state.4,6
What is still unknown
The count of the dead differs: five in the Supreme Court's judgment, six in most accounts, eight in Kathi Padma Rao's. The judgment names only the five men the accused were charged with killing, and says one more man was injured, though it is not known whether in this attack, and no one was charged over him. The names differ too between the judgment and Padma Rao's list.1,8 We give the five names in the judgment and the one more that Padma Rao names. We could not read the list of the dead in K.L. Richardson's study.7
We have not read the trial court's or the High Court's judgments, only the Supreme Court's account of them. We have not found who killed the witness The News Minute reports, or whether anyone was tried for it.2 The year of the trial verdict rests on The News Minute; Richardson gives a date in 1994 that cannot be right as printed.2,7
Our sources
The main source is the Supreme Court's judgment of December 2008 (1), which sets out the prosecution's case and each court's verdict; we quote it directly, and name no accused. K. Balagopal's two reports in the Economic and Political Weekly (4, 5) are by a civil-liberties writer who followed the case. Kathi Padma Rao's 2011 piece (8) is by a founder of the Dalit Mahasabha, and we name him wherever we use it. K.L. Richardson's chapter (7) is a church historian's field study. The News Minute (2), Outlook (3) and The Wire (6) are press, written long after and drawing on earlier accounts. No source here is linked, because the record protects people it does not name.
On the map at the centre of Prakasam district. See it on the map.
The sources
- Primary. Supreme Court of India (via Indian Kanoon). Case record, Criminal Appeal Nos. 356-358 of 1999 (2008) 16 SCC 179 (party names not shown). 19 Dec 2008.
- Press. The News Minute. 35 years after Karamchedu massacre in Andhra, Dalit activists speak on what has changed (Charan Teja). 18 Jul 2020.
- Press. Outlook. Murder, Rape, Humiliation: A Timeline Of Atrocities Against Dalits. 14 Aug 2023 (page says 'Published At: 14 August 2023'; 'Updated on: 7 February 2024').
- Study. Economic and Political Weekly (copy hosted at balagopal.org). Karamchedu: Second Anniversary (K Balagopal). 15 Aug 1987.
- Study. Economic and Political Weekly (copy hosted at balagopal.org). Post-Chundur and Other Chundurs (K Balagopal). 19 Oct 1991.
- Press. The Wire. 12 years on, Dalit Survivors of Andhra Pradesh's Laxmipeta Massacre Await Justice (Suman Damera). 13 Jun 2024.
- Study. Religion Online (book chapter). Chapter 14: The Martyrs of Karamchedu and Tsunduru, by K.L. Richardson, in Martyrs in the History of Christianity, ed. Franklyn J. Balasundaram. Undated.
- Shadow. Round Table India. History of Karamchedu and what actually happened? (Kathi Padma Rao; written on the 26th anniversary). 21 Jul 2011.
The sources are not linked, to protect people this account does not name.
Updates and corrections
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