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Articles: Literature | Chillara Devullu - Dr. Rajeshwar Mittapalli
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These were mostly upper caste Hindus but that made no difference when it came to terrorising and exploiting the innocent villagers. These feudal lords—the deshmukhs, maktadars, zamindars and their subordinates (the patwaris, mali patels and police patels)—are the very same lesser deities that the novel refers to. They wielded enormous power and perpetrated most blatant atrocities on the rural masses. Under their rule the villagers had no will-power left to resist them. It takes an outsider like Saranga Pani in Chillara Devullu to verbalise their protest, though ineffectually.
Rama Reddy, the Deshmukh in Chillara Devullu, is the unquestioned lord of the village. He lives in a mini-castle with his wife Indiramma, daughter Manjari and a host of assistants, servants, slaves and guards. In exercising power over the villagers he is assisted by the Karanam, Venkat Rao, and Patel Nizamuddin who have their own clearly defined roles. The Karanam is the record keeper of the village and Nizamuddin is in charge of law and order. These three representatives of the government make no bones of misusing their power for personal gain.
The entire village appears to live only to serve and be of use to especially Reddy and the Karanam. The villagers are required to till the land of Reddy free of cost and when high government officials visit the village they are forced to provide everything free of cost for them. If anybody shows so much as a trace of dissent he is ruthlessly beaten up. Reddy is specially fond of beating people. He seems to go literally mad when he starts beating someone.
After severely beating up a menial servant for breaking a beautiful glass vessel, for example, he immediately forgets all about it as if he has beaten an animal and not a human being. It is the same fondness for beating people which lands him finally in a moral and spiritual crisis. He beats Peeriga to death for stealing tamarind nuts from the government orchard (and not his). He tries every means to hush up the murder but only to finally land himself in a spiritual crisis which drives him to his death. This is only one elaborately described incident of his cruelty to fellow men. It is hinted at various places and openly confessed by Reddy himself at the end of the novel that he has had many men murdered in the past.
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