The name had been turned around from being yet another reminder of an ‘atrocity’ into a rallying cry that urged Dalits to challenge a history of thwarted justice. On 6th August, 1991, a 400-strong, organized group of upper caste Reddy and Telaga men had orchestrated a murderous assault on the Dalits of Tsunduru, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. So brutal was the attack that one Dalit who was called into identify the bodies actually suffered from a heart attack and died later. What followed the massacre was yet another meticulously orchestrated and eerily familiar attempt to coax, bribe and intimidate the Dalits into giving up their fight. But for sixteen long years, even when the trial seemed to be going nowhere and some of the ‘absconding’ accused moved around freely in the village, Tsunduru’s Dalits refused to settle for anything less than justice. And won a partial victory last week when a Special Court delivered its judgment sentencing 21 of the accused to life imprisonment.

Atrocitynews while acknowledging that it’s a ‘historic court verdict’ observes:

Eight Dalits were hacked to death in broad daylight on August 6, 1991, with over 400 people chasing them. Special court assembled;the judge felt that it was not the rarest of the rare cases, which attracted death penalty. The massacre of Dalits by a Hindu mob is certainly not the rarest of rare cases, it is the norm in Hindustan.

Korivi Vinay Kumar of the Dalit Bahujan Front, which was one of the many activist groups involved in keeping the Tsunduru movement for justice alive, recalls some of the key events in the struggle:

Indefinite hunger strike was going on demanding justice and action against the police who were also involved in massacre. When the police started moving the dalits on hunger strike, there was a stiff resistance. During this altercation Anil Kumar was shot dead by the police assuming that he was Korivi Vinay Kumar (President-DBF at present). Latter a case was registered against Subba Rao, Korivi Vinay Kumar and others.

The rescue camp started at Mangalmandir in Guntur and reached Ambedkar Bhavan in New Delhi. Delhi was moved with the slogan “ Not Welfare but Self Dignity”. At last on 3rd October’04 the Prime Minister heard the survivors. Dalits achievement was Special Court to conduct Trial in the same place where the massacre took place apart from rehabilitation to the survivors.

V.B.Rawat, who had visited Tsunduru in 2005 had observed that ‘process of law’ had been ’slow and tardy’ and commented on the problems the Dalits seeking justice faced:

It is not just physical threat of intimidation but also allurement: Sam-Dama-Danda-bheda. Since there has been little follow up of the case, it is natural for these forces to use the state machinery and slow process of judiciary for their own purposes.[..] Dalits of Tsundur formed a committee and fought against the upper caste attempt to thwart justice. They did not go for any hearing to far away places as they wanted a special court be formed. Finally the government allowed formation of special court in Tsundur and the judge belonged to Dalit community. Fearing reprisal the Reddy’s tried to delay with other tactics. They succeeded in transferring the judge. Another judge came and hearing began and people started identifying witnesses. Since the Congress government has come to power, the Reddy’s are again feeling comfortable.

What’s the significance of the Tsunduru Dalits’ (Gaddar, the balladeer, had called them ‘Dalita pululu’ or Dalit Tigers) heroic struggle for justice? As the Atrocitynews post says:

The movement articulated a new sense of self-respect, reclaimed the constitutional rights of Dalits and consolidated an important anchor in the interlinked fields of welfare/ rights/ policies/ studies related to Dalits in A.P. Tsunduru strengthened the demand for a Dalit president which ultimately led to the appointment of Dr.K.R.Narayanan, as the 8th President of the Republic of India. Dalit Mahasabha, the harbinger of Dalit movement, which was formed in the wake of Karamchedu, took up the Tsunduru incident in an exemplary manner. Under their consummate leadership, the massacred Dalits were cremated right in the middle of village Tsunduru and the place was named Raktakshetram (The Land of Blood), a live reminder of the atrocity.