He Left Notes for the Police

He left notes for the police.

After his men raided a station and took the guns, Alluri Sitarama Raju would leave written word behind.

Telling them what he had taken. And daring them to come and stop him. It is not the behaviour of a man hiding in a forest. It is the behaviour of somebody conducting an argument in public.

Who he actually was

This is where most retellings go wrong immediately, and it is worth correcting at the start.

He was not tribal. He was born in 1897 or 1898 into a Telugu family, his father a photographer, and by the accounts a man of independent views. Alluri became a sannyasi, an ascetic, at eighteen.

What gave him standing among the hill people of the Godavari agency was not shared origin. It was that he lived among them as a renunciate, learned their country, practised herbal medicine, treated people, and stayed.

So this is a story about an outsider who earned the right to lead.