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Seetharamaiah's early exposure lacked formal higher education but drew from self-study of party materials and direct engagement with CPI cadres, fostering a practical orientation toward peasantmobilization. In August 1974, the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of COC, CPI(ML) was organised, with Seetharamaiah as one of its three members.
On April 26, 1977 Seetharamaiah was arrested in Nagpur, when police caught him with weapons in a vehicle.
These units, typically consisting of 5 to 30 cadres divided into local or central guerrilla squads and larger platoons, specialized in hit-and-run ambushes, landmine attacks, and selective strikes to avoid direct confrontations with superior state forces.[1] Targets primarily included police personnel and landlords perceived as feudal oppressors, with operations concentrated in rugged rural terrains such as the Andhra Pradesh hills, North Telangana districts, and the adjoining Dandakaranya forest belt straddling multiple states.[1]The strategy prioritized rural encircling of urban centers through protracted people's war, establishing initial bases in remote tribal (adivasi) hamlets to create guerrilla zones that could evolve into so-called liberated areas.
This ouster stemmed from dissensions over strategic and doctrinal matters, reflecting the rigid centralized control that prioritized orthodoxy over pragmatic adaptation. In Warangal he befriended K. G. Satyamurthy. He went on to become the Krishna District Secretary of the Communist Party of India. He soon advanced to secretary of the Krishna district CPI unit, a position that solidified his foundational role in regional communist activities.[12]
Pre-Naxalite Activism
Role in Telangana Armed Struggle
Kondapalli Seetharamaiah served as a mid-level organizer in the Communist Party of India (CPI) units in Andhra Pradesh during the Telangana Armed Struggle from 1946 to 1951, functioning primarily as secretary of the Krishna district committee.This internal strife culminated in organizational fragmentation, diverting resources from operations to infighting and highlighting the authoritarian model's vulnerability to power consolidation disputes.[10]Beyond purges, the PWG grappled with systemic failures, including unsustainable cadre retention and logistical strains that precipitated morale erosion.
New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1999, ISBN , p. Kondapalli Seetharamaiah also lived in Jannaram village, of Mancherial district for almost 20 and more years, he moved here along with one of the close associates Mulupuri Gopal Rao. His mother was murdered when they were living in Jannaram. While beheadings were not uniquely documented for PWG, massacres in tribal hamlets involved shootings and beatings, as in attacks on villages in East Godavari where leaders were executed and residents assaulted to enforce compliance.
In Warangal he befriended K.G. Sathyamurthy. 1915 – 12 April 2002) was an Indian communist activist and militant leader best known as the founder of the People's War Group (PWG), a Maoist insurgent organization that pursued armed agrarian revolution through guerrilla warfare against perceived class enemies and state forces.[1][2]
Originally a schoolteacher who joined the Communist Party of India during the independence struggle, Seetharamaiah participated in the Telangana peasant uprising of 1946–1951, where communists organized rural armed resistance against feudal landlords and the Nizam's rule.[3][4]
Following the 1967 Naxalbari revolt and subsequent fractures in the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), he co-established the PWG—formally the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War—on 22 April 1980, aiming to ignite a protracted people's war from rural base areas in Andhra Pradesh.[1][2]
Under his leadership, the PWG expanded operations through assassinations of landlords, attacks on police outposts, and extortion, gaining notoriety for enforcing kangaroo courts and contributing to thousands of deaths in left-wing extremism, though internal purges and state crackdowns later diminished his influence.[1][5]
Arrested in 1982 and again surrendering to authorities in 1993 amid declining health and organizational fractures, Seetharamaiah spent his final years in relative obscurity, dying unsung in Vijayawada.[5][1]
Early Life and Background
Birth and Family
Kondapalli Seetharamaiah was born circa 1914 in Jonnavada village, Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh, into a middle-class family of farmers belonging to the Reddy caste, a dominant landowning community in the region.[6][7] His family's status as small-scale landowners reflected the stratified agrarian economy of pre-independence Andhra, where Reddys often held tenancy rights over ryots amid the zamindari system's exploitative land revenue demands and frequent disputes over cultivation shares.[8] This environment exposed him from childhood to rural socioeconomic tensions, including peasant indebtedness and landlord-tenant frictions, though his household's relative stability—rooted in ownership of arable land in the fertile Krishna delta—contrasted with the destitution of landless laborers.[9]Little is documented about his immediate family beyond his father's role as a farmer sustaining modest prosperity through agriculture, without evidence of extreme poverty that some narratives retroactively attribute to radicalization drivers.[10] Seetharamaiah's early years in this setting thus occurred amid the broader colonial-era agrarian crises, such as high rents and moneylender usury, which affected even propertied families through market fluctuations and revenue extraction, fostering awareness of systemic inequities without implying personal deprivation as the sole causal factor.[11]Initial Exposure to Communism
Kondapalli Seetharamaiah joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) in his youth during India's independence struggle against British colonial rule, transitioning from his role as a schoolteacher to active involvement in communist organizing.[4] Born in 1914 in Polavaram village, Krishna district, he encountered the party's ideology through local rural networks where organizers promoted class struggle and opposition to landlord exploitation amid widespread peasant grievances.[8]The CPI's emphasis on anti-imperialist and anti-feudal agitation resonated in Andhra's agrarian context during the 1940s, as wartime economic disruptions—including inflation, supply shortages, and post-World War II rural distress—intensified demands for land redistribution and tenant rights.The guerrilla model's demands for perpetual mobilization in rural strongholds, coupled with inflexible top-down directives, ignored varying local socio-economic realities, fostering disillusionment among ranks. Seetharamaiah became a member of the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of CPI(ML). Hindustan Times. On April 22, 1980 he founded the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War.
On January 2, 1982 he was arrested in Hyderabad at Begumpet Railway Station, when waiting to board a train to Bombay.
Early life
Kondapalli Seetharamaiah was born into a rich Reddy family in Lingavaram village, Nandivada mandal of Gudivada revenue division, Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh, and was brought up in the nearby Jonnapadu village. When the Communist Party of India was divided in 1964, Seetharamaiah withdrew from political life.
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Political career
Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, at a young age, joined the communist movements. Seetharamaiah became a member of the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of CPI(ML).[1] When the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was torn by internal strife, Seetharamaiah joined the Central Organising Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) in 1972.[2] In August 1974, the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of COC, CPI(ML) was organised, with Seetharamaiah as one of its three members.[3]
On 26 April 1977, Seetharamaiah was arrested in Nagpur, when police caught him with weapons in a vehicle.
Funding sustained these efforts through systematic extortion (levies) imposed on landowners, contractors, and rural businesses, enabling the procurement of arms and logistics without reliance on external support.[1]Seetharamaiah, as PWG's general secretary, directed the formation of training camps in forested hideouts to indoctrinate and skill cadres in ambush tactics, weapons handling, and survival in hilly terrain, aligning with the group's emphasis on building a disciplined rural insurgency.