Syeraa Narasimha Reddy (Hindi)

Majjari Narasimha Reddy was a Polygar, one among over sixty Polygars in the districts ceded to the British by the Nizam. The Polygars were like Zamindars who owned some villages and were the contact point of the Nizam for the tax collection of those villages. When the British, the new overlords, implemented the Ryotwari system, wherein the land tiller was directly approached to pay his taxes, the Polygars faced a loss of purpose (and income) and had to eke it out on the pension the British gave them.

Even though the Ryotwari system did away with the middlemen, the peasants were in....