Abstract
The Rayalaseema region, situated in Andhra Pradesh, India, has historically been marked by factional violence, and various political leaders have strategically utilised it to advance their political objectives. Factionalism is a phenomenon that is particularly pronounced in the districts of Kadapa, Kurnool, and Anantapur. In these locales, political leaders have actively engaged with and modified factional dynamics to secure political leverage, resulting in a vehement interrelationship between politics and factionalism within the region. Based on the fieldwork conducted in Sambaturu village from March to May 2018, the snowball sampling technique and secondary data, the present study investigates the dynamics of factionalism and its intersection with politics in a village within the Kadapa district of Rayalaseema. With the objective of exploring and analysing the sociological dimensions of factionalism and political interactions within this specific context, the study finds that factionalism is intricately associated with caste, class, and gender, and it metamorphoses into a new form of feudal setup with the nexus with State.
References
Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee Pub-lication. Cuddapah Zillalo Palegarla Rajyam (Hyderabad, 1996).
Bailey, F. G. (1960). Tribe, caste, and nation: A study of political activity and political change in Highland Orissa. Manchester University Press.
Balagopal, K. (2004). Beyond media images. Economic and Political Weekly, 39(24), 2425–2429. https://doi.org/10.2307/4415138
Baviskar, B. S. (1980). The politics of develop-ment: Sugar co-operatives in rural Maharashtra. Oxford University Press, USA.
Brown, L. B. (1973). Ideology. Harmondsworth: Penguin Education.
Dhillon, H. S. (1955). Leadership and Groups in South Indian village. Planning commission (PEO Publication No. 9).
Epstein, T. S. (1962). Economic development and social change in South India. Manchester Uni-versity Press.
Hiramani, A. B. (1979). Dynamics of factions Maharashtra village. Eastern Anthropologist, 32(3), 177-183.
Lewis, O. (1958). Village life in northern India: Studies in a Delhi village. University of Illinois Press.
Nagla, B. K. (1984). Factionalism, politics & so-cial structure. Rawat Publication.
Ralph, N. (1965). Factions: A Comparative Anal-ysis. In Political Systems and the Distribution of Power. Tavistock.
Reddy, A. R. (2003). The state of Rayalaseema. Mittal Publications.
Siegel, B. J., & Beals, A. R. (1960). Pervasive factionalism. American Anthropologist, 62(3), 394–417. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1960.62.3.02a00020
Singh, Y. (1959). Group status of factions in ru-ral community. Journal of Social Sciences, 5(1).
Yadava, J. S. (1968). Factionalism in a Haryana village. American Anthropologist, 70(5), 898–910. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1968.70.5.02a00060

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2025 South India Journal of Social Sciences