Papadu (fl. 1695–1710): social banditry in Mughal Telangana

Abstract

Captured and executed by Mughal authorities in 1710 as a highwayman and bandit, Papadu would become celebrated in local memory as a hero who boldly defied imperial authority, indeed, most any authority. When the Bahmani sultanate broke up into five regional kingdoms in the early sixteenth century, the kingdom whose borders most closely coincided with those of a pre-Bahmani state was the easternmost, the Qutb Shahi sultanate of Golkonda. By 1589, the Qutb Shahi house felt sufficiently secure in its position that Ibrahim's successor, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, planned and laid out a new, unwalled city, Hyderabad, which was built across the Musi River just several miles from Golkonda fort. The story of Papadu's exploits raises a number of questions about the meteoric career of this Telangana toddy-tapper and the society in which he lived. In his comparative studies of peasant rebellions, historian Eric Hobsbawm formulated the notion of the 'social bandit'.