ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of the moderate phase of the movement and the limits of government's positive response. Beginning in the late 1950s, a school teacher named Vempatapu Satyanarayana organized the girijans of Parvathipuram taluk of Srikakulam district into a non-violent movement to seek redress of a variety of economic and political grievances. Once the Girijan Sangham was organized, with a beginning membership of 1,000, Vempatapu Satyanarayana began a decade of agitations around specific economic issues. In 1960, Satyanarayana began a militant campaign to reclaim girijan lands that had been lost to moneylenders; the Sanghams informed the girijans that the landlords were in violation of the law when they seized girijan land, even if the girijan had failed to pay off his debt. The Girijan Sangham was more successful in organizing against corruption in the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Tribes Cooperative Finance and Development Corporation, and in obtaining fair market price for their forest produce.
