Madiga

Madigas have also played an important role in Indian independence movement and some were involved with the Telangana movement.[8] In the Old Mysore region, the Madigas were considered the lowest in the caste hierarchy due to their association with leather. Most Madigas were agricultural labourers, with only 8% of the community registering their occupation as leather workers in the 1911 census. Under the Gandhian movement, upper castes formed several movements to uplift the Madigas according to their values. In 1920, the Adi Jambhava Sangha was formed, with a Brahmin as president and the first educated Madiga as secretary. The upper castes deemed Madiga practices like child marriage, buffalo sacrifice, consumption of carrion, payment of bride price, and drinking liquor at engagement ceremonies as "barbaric" and telling the community to stop performing them. Instead, the group advocated for the adoption of more Brahminical practices such as dhare and serving satvik food at festivals. In essence, the movement was an upper caste attempt at upliftment by making the Madigas conform to upper caste norms. Bands of young Dalit men were sent to villages to enact the "reforms" desired by the sangha, almost overnight. Some procedures for this change included giving Madigas baths and then taking them to recite Rama bhajans, which was an alien practice to them. Kerosene would be poured on prepared carrion to make it inedible. Local leaders were taken in by the movement, thinking it would allow them to Sanskritize, while upper castes saw untouchability as a blot that must be reformed, in the Gandhian paradigm. This social reform movement continued into the 1930s and '40s, with Brahmin leaders making points to eat in Dalit houses. However, Madiga leaders quickly saw that no amount of Sanskritization would change the discrimination and untouchability upper castes would impose on them, and abandoned the movement and returned to their own customs. This latter point was of particular chargrin to the upper caste social reformers. During the 1950s, the Madigas tried to change their status through education and change in occupation, since the very basis of caste had been rejected by Ambedkar.

As early as 1928, the Madigas in the Madras Presidency were forming caste associations to fight for their rights. One leader claimed of the existence of a Matanga dynasty in Mysore, citing as evidence the placement of Kishkinda near places where inscriptions of the Matangas were found. The Madigas in the Godavari region believed they were the original rulers of the region where they lived, who were conquered and forced to accept the social status which they held. This is why many Madigas embraced the Adi movement: naming themselves as Adi Andhra or Adi Karnataka.

The Madigas also attempted a change in occupation. Some Madigas received inam (tax-free) land for various chakri (services) they provided, such as talawari (watchman), neerganti (water-carrier) and local guide. The Madigas could also take advantage of new darkhast rules introduced by the British, where people who cultivated wasteland for 5 years could claim the land as their own. Madigas could also take advantage of new industrial works set up by several diwans in Mysore.

However, the greatest changes came in education. The first Madiga graduates came from Panchama Boarding Schools, established for Dalits in particular. However, in the 1921 census, the Madiga literacy rate in the Old Mysore region was only around 1%.

As the 1970s continued, the old Zamindars in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were replaced by a class of ascendant peasant caste landowners and landlords from sat-Sudra communities such as the Kapus, Kammas and Reddys. However, although agriculture and relations between communities had become more commidified, this new class of landlords steadfastly crushed any assertion from the still-landless Dalit labourers, whom modernization had largely left behind. However, throughout the '70s, large-scale violence against communities like the Malas and Madigas was limited. Starting in the 1980s with the rise of the NT Rama Rao-led Telugu Desam Party, became more assertive and prideful, and became more willing to any Dalit assertion. However, the Dalits refused to acknowledge their economic subservience by accepting political subservience by voting for the TDP. Such incidents occurred throughout the '80s into the '90s.[9]

After the Karamchedu massacre, the Malas, Madigas and other Scheduled Castes in Andhra Pradesh formed the Dalit Mahasabha (DMS). The Dalits of Karamchedu received support from their brethren following a wide variety of political persuasions. The Mahasabha consisted of people with a wide variety of social positions: educated middle-class to rural labourers, traditional Ambedkarites, Marxists and rationalists. Yet most of all, they shared an indignation towards the casteism shown by the upper castes. Taking inspiration from Ambedkar, Phule, and Marx, the Mahasabha fought for annihilation of caste and untouchability, nationalisation of economic resources, and a complete cultural revolution.[9]

The Madigas in Telangana had a much different trajectory. Although the Communist movement had successfully helped in the gradual annihilation of semi-feudal customs like vetti, the state never developed any autonomous Dalit movement. However Marxist ideology still helped in framing a caste dimension to their economic situation in rural areas. In areas where Marxism was less, patronage politics continued and Dalits continued to support the Reddy-dominated Congress party. Increasingly in the 1990s, the Madiga youth, especially in Left strongholds of North Telangana, began to develop an Ambedkarite consciousness. One example of this was Dalita Rachayitala Kalakarulu Medavula Aikya Vedika (DARAKAME), an anti-caste organization born out of disillusionment with the Communist movement's non-engagement with the caste question. In response, Left parties began to belatedly organise their own Dalit cells.[9]

The Madigas and Malas, who lived in different hamlets (palem), remained separate even after conversion to Protestant Christianity in Coastal Andhra. The Madigas in Coastal Andhra, starting in the 1850s, had mainly converted to Baptism while the Malas were Lutherans. Landlords furthered this division, perhaps intentionally, by giving preferential treatment in certain domains to either Malas or Madigas. The continued division between these two sub-castes and the collapse of the Dalit movement allowed for the promotion of specific caste causes. One criticism some made of the Dalit Mahasabha was that its leaders came mostly from coastal Andhra, which was Mala-dominated. In 1994, Manda Krishna Madiga and Dandu Veeraiah Madiga formed the Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti to demand the categorisation of the SC reservation quota to ensure equitable distribution of state allocations for all the constituent castes.[10] This movement, more popularly known as the Madiga Dandora movement, held dharnas, mass rallies, rail rokos, and other activities to publicize their claims that a few among the SCs had secured all the benefits for themselves. Their agitations led to a commission headed by justice Ramachandra Raju to examine the issue. In 1997, the commission published its report which found that reservation benefits had mainly gone to the Mala and Adi Andhra communities, and neither the Madiga or Relli had proportional representation in the quota. The commission recommended a four-fold classification of SCs for reservation benefit: 1% for group D (Rellis and related), 7% for group C (Madigas and related), 6% for group B (Malas and related) and 1% for Adi Andhra.[11]