01The sannyasi of the Manyam hills
He was born at Pandrangi in Visakhapatnam district and after a short schooling took to the life of a wandering sannyasi, practising astrology and herbal medicine. He settled among the Koya and Konda Dora people of the Rampa hills, where the Madras Forest Act stopped them from podu, their shifting cultivation, and contractors forced them to labour on roads for little or no pay. The hill people came to revere him. He told them to give up liquor and to settle their disputes in their own panchayats, and then to fight.
02Chintapalli to Koyyuru
On 22 August 1922 his men raided the police station at Chintapalli and carried off its guns, and in the next two days took the stations at Krishnadevipeta and Rajavommangi. For almost two years they fought from the forests, ambushing police parties and once killing two British officers. The Madras government sent in the Malabar Special Police and the Assam Rifles. On 7 May 1924 he was captured near Koyyuru, tied to a tree and shot. Andhra calls him Manyam Veerudu, the hero of the forest.
