ABSTRACT
In 1969, the Home Ministry of the Government of India issued a report evaluating The Causes and Nature of Current Agrarian Tensions. Government feared that "certain political parties" would seek to exploit that disequilibrium for revolutionary purposes. The progressive stance post-independence governments had taken towards uplift of the rural poor was judged in this report to be more apparent than real. The Naxalite rebellions in Naxalbari and Srikakulam, agitations that posed the deepest threat to governmental authority, forced government to acknowledge that a situation of crisis existed in pockets throughout the country and that it was essential for government to take measures to re-establish its legitimacy. With the intensification of agitational activity in Srikakulam in 1968, the government introduced several measures designed to wean the girijans away from agitators and encourage their loyalty to the government. The Andhra Pradesh government, in a Note on Protective Legislation-Srikakulam District, acknowledged the severe difficulties it was encountering in returning land to the tribals.
