Union Minister unveils postal cover of Sardar Sarvai Papanna Goud

Hyderabad, Oct 26: Union Minister Kishan Reddy unveiled the postal cover of Sardhar Sarvai Papanna in Chikkadapalli, Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Addressing the gathering, Kishan Reddy said thafighters like Papanna are forgotten in history. There is a need to make the young generation aware of the contribution of Sardar Sarvai Papanna Goud's fight against the then dictatorial and autocratic forces.

Reddy alleged that previous governments had ignored the contribution of Sardar Sarvai Papanna Goud towards fight against autocratic forces during the Mughal era.

Sardar Sarvai Papanna Goud, popularly known as Papanna was the 17th century king of Quilashapur located in Telangana and bandit of early-18th century India who rose from humble beginnings to become a folklore hero.

Papanna was born in the 17th century to a Telugu family of a caste whose occupation was that of toddy tapping. He refused to work in the traditional occupation of his caste and this was one of his early acts of defiance.

On 31 March 1708 he initiated an attack on the heavily fortified former capital city of Warangal with a force of between 2,500 and 3,500 men. This action was planned to coincide with the eve of the Muslim celebrations of Ashura, when the city walls would be poorly manned, if at all.

The successful raid on Warangal, with all the riches that resulted from it, propelled Papanna to new heights.

The beginning of the fall of Papanna can be dated to June 1709. Prisoners at Shahpur - including his brother-in-law, the faujdar - managed to overturn their captors and take possession of the fort while Papanna was besieging another fort elsewhere.

Simultaneously, Dilawar Khan was advancing on him and, unaware of the situation at Shahpur, Papanna thought it prudent to defend his position by lifting his siege and retreating to his base.

When he reached Shahpur he found that the tables were turned on him: he was fired upon by his former captives, using his own cannon, and with the imminent arrival of Khan he was forced to take refuge in the very compound that he had constructed to imprison them. Finding his position there to be untenable, and facing the desertion of some of his own forces, he decamped to the fort at Tatikonda, leaving Khan to take control of the wealth within Shahpur in accordance with instructions of his superior, the governor of Hyderabad.

Yusuf Khan, the Hyderabad governor, sent a force of several thousand to besiege Tatikonda and this became a prolonged affair, lasting until March 1710.

Despite the considerable forces set against him at Tatikonda, it was bribery that caused significant losses for Papanna: his men, by now weary, hungry and demoralised, were tempted to defect by offers of double pay made in May. The final straw was when Papanna ran out of gunpowder and was forced to flee in disguise.

Although wounded, he was able to reach the village of Hasanabad before being betrayed by a toddy tapper and captured by the brother-in-law who had previously been his prisoner. He was executed a few days later.

He was beheaded and that thereafter his body was cut into pieces and his head sent to Delhi.