RAS question
The Telangana Peasant Movement (1946-51) was against:
Correct answer: (A) The feudal exploitation of the Nizam's regime and landlords (deshmukhs).
The Telangana Peasant Movement of 1946-51 was a Communist-led revolt against the Nizam of Hyderabad's feudal order and the exploitation of peasants by landlords such as deshmukhs and jagirdars.
Explanation
The movement was rooted in Hyderabad State under the Nizam, where jagirdars, deshmukhs and doras exercised coercive power over villages. The SCERT Telangana textbook describes the 1946-51 Telangana Armed Struggle as led by Communists working through the Andhra Maha Sabha and village-level Sanghams. Its demands targeted illegal feudal exactions, excessive land rent, eviction of tenants and the abolition of vetti, or unpaid forced labour. That is why option A is the substantive answer: the struggle was anti-Nizam and anti-feudal, not a campaign against an external colonial power in Goa, Mysore or British India. About 3,000 villages were liberated and over ten lakh acres were redistributed before suppression after Operation Polo.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) Portuguese rule in Goa was a separate colonial issue, while this movement arose in Telangana within Hyderabad State against the Nizam's feudal order and landlords.
- (C) Mysore was not the setting of the 1946-51 struggle; the movement was in the Telangana districts of Hyderabad State.
- (D) British colonial rule is too broad and misses the target, because the movement was directed at the Nizam's regime and feudal landlordism, and British rule in India ended in 1947.
Concept
This tests peasant and tribal movements in modern Indian history, especially anti-feudal struggles inside princely states. It recurs in RAS because Telangana links agrarian exploitation, Communist mobilisation, princely-state politics and post-Independence integration.