Karamchedu massacre

Karamchedu massacre refers to an incident that occurred in Karamchedu, Bapatla district of Andhra Pradesh on 17 July 1985, where brutality by Kamma landlords against Madigas (Dalits) resulted in the killing of six Madigas and grievous injuries to many others. Three Madiga women were raped. Hundreds of Madigas in the village were displaced from their home & killed after their houses were burnt and looted.

Kammas, who held economic power and political influence, were the dominant caste in the village, while the Dalit villagers, who mostly worked as agricultural labourers under the Kamma landlords for meager wages, were oppressed socially and economically. The provocation for the violence came from a trivial incident in which a Madiga boy objected to a Kamma boy soiling the water tank where Dalits drew their drinking water. Scholars have reported that the massacre happened because the Kammas wanted to "teach a lesson" to the Madigas since Kammas felt that their caste-supremacy was challenged by Dalits who were perceived as "untouchables" and "nobodies".^[1][2]

The final verdict was delivered 23 years after the violence took place, in which the Supreme Court of India sentenced a man to life imprisonment and 30 others to three years of imprisonment. The massacre is said to have highlighted the discriminatory and violent tendencies of caste hierarchies that are prevalent in the modern Indian society. It also generated widespread outrage from Dalit activists of the state and led to the formation of Andhra Pradesh Dalit Mahasabha which drew inspiration from Ambedkar's ideals and stood for Dalit rights, and fought against untouchability and exclusion.^[3]