Rise Roar Revolt: The real story of Alluri Sitarama Raju

The S.S. Rajamouli’s blockbuster hit RRR movie is a fictionalised account of the life of two very real revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. While the things shown in the movie are pure historical fiction, the real stories of these legendary yet less talked about revolutionaries of the freedom struggle are captivating in their own right. This is the story of the epic life of Alluri Sitarama Raju.

Alluri Sitarama Raju was a brilliant guerilla warfare tactician; Image source: Wikimedia Commons

This story begins in colonial India, when the Madras Presidency was under British rule, four decades after the Revolt of 1857. Alluri Sitarama Raju was born, in the family of Venkata Rama Raju. Venkata was a man who was proud of his Indian heritage and had a great love for freedom. When once Alluri saluted a European, as per the then prevalent customs, Venkata Rama Raju scolded him, reminding him to always uphold the Indian pride.

As a teenager, Alluri often contemplated taking sannyasa.

However, his story came to a turning point during his higher studies. During his college years, he would often go exploring in the forest. In these short expeditions, he came across tribals living in the hills and forests and began to spend time with them. As he began to understand more and more about the various tribes, he was dismayed by the continuous oppression they were facing.

Disenchanted with the modern world, he left his schooling in between and took sannyasa at the mere age of 18. However, he understood the importance of education and trained himself in the literature of Telugu, Sanskrit, Hindi and English languages. He began his pilgrimage and went to places across India, like Gangotri and Nasik.

In his travels, he once again witnessed the struggles of different tribes of India. But it was the oppression and the hardship faced by the Koya tribe that shook him.

Moved by his travels and with a spirit of freedom, Alluri decided that he would build a tribal movement, for the independence of tribes from British rule.

A noble but ambitious task. He settled in the dense jungles of the Papi hills, near Godavari district, an area densely populated by different tribes. As he began to live and interact with various tribes and understand their problem, he soon gained a reputation as a leader among them.

Alluri Sitarama Raju began organising and educating tribes about their rights, began preparing them for a rebellion against the oppressive British rule. When the 1882 Madras Act was passed, discontentment with the British rules was at an all-time high, as the act threatened the subsistence of various tribes. Alluri Sitarama Raju organised his forces and began an assault on British rule.

He knew that since his forces used traditional Indian weapons, they lacked the firepower to launch a direct assault. Thus he used his extensive knowledge of the terrain and guerrilla warfare tactics to make up for the difference in their offensive power. His forces would hide in the dense forest, then launch an ambush on British police passing through the area, plundering and killing them.

By 1922, Alluri Sitarama Raju and his forces had grown quite confident, they knew that they had to make up for the difference in their firepower and the simplest way to do that was to take the weapons away from the British forces.

Simple however doesn’t mean easy. The idea was simple but its execution was a daring task. And Alluri Sitarama Raju dared.

Leading a troop of 500 people, he consecutively plundered the police stations of Chintapalle, Krishna Devi Peta and Rajavommangi and from the loot of these plunders, Alluri’s forces were being armed with guns and ammunition. Killing two birds with one stone. And as to mock the British forces, every time he plundered a police station, he would leave a note listing down all the things he took.

In a way, he was challenging the British forces, to stop him if they can.

The British struggled with capturing Alluri. They had zero knowledge of the terrain and the dense forest, while Alluri had mastered the land throughout his life. Secondly, While the locals were hardly ever cooperative with the British forces, they willingly provided Alluri and his troops with shelter and even acted as their informants.

People cordially gave him the title of Manyam Veerdu i.e. Hero of the Jungle.

The British government eventually put a bounty of Rs 10,000 on him. Overall spent a whopping 40 lakhs to catch him. They even called a detachment of Assam Rifles to capture him. Yet, Alluri eluded them for two years, causing damage to their forces simultaneously. He raided even more police stations and continued to make a mockery of the British police.

T.G. Rutherford was eventually employed by the British government to catch Alluri. Rutherford resorted to cruel and destructive methods, like burning villages, torture etc, to find Alluri. After two years, he was finally caught and tragically executed.

But Alluri’s movement left a deep impression on the psyche of both tribal and national leaders alike. While paying tribute to him, Mahatama Gandhi said:

"Though I do not approve of his armed rebellion, I pay my homage to his bravery and sacrifice."

Even the British acknowledged him as a brilliant guerilla warfare tactician.

Today his name is seldom heard in classrooms, but his story needs to be told, just like all the other stories of the tribal movement during India's struggle for independence. Alluri Sitarama Raju symbolises a spirit of self-sacrifice and the belief to fight for something bigger than ourselves.

An old photograph of Alluri Sitarama Raju; Image source: wiki-bio