The onetime princely state of Hyderabad in Central India has an old custom called yetti. This is a system by which police and revenue officers combine with the deshmukhs (rich landlords) to force tenant farmers to work without wages. No one took much notice of yetti until 1945, when the Communists organized a peasant uprising, murdered several deshmukhs and started to redistribute their lands.
In 1948 Prime Minister Nehru ordered Indian army detachments and 10,000 policemen into Telingana province, heartland of the rebellion, to restore order. Despite these measures, Communist guerrillas over the past four years have murdered 3,000 deshmukhs...
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