The "Telangana people`s struggle," stretching from 1946 to 1951, was the armed rebellion of men as well as women against the oppressive policies of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Hyderabad was India`s largest princely state with a population density, estimated above seventeen million. Curiously, almost forty percent of the whole population was then under the control of those landlords who mercilessly established their own feudal estates. The feudal network called for manual labor, including both men and women, in the context of the feudal business.

The miserable women bonded laborers suffered the worst of exploitation, amidst the vicious circle of the landowners. Disrespectable and degrading assignments were forcefully hurled upon these wretched women, which not only made them financially insecured but at the same time demoralized them to a great extent. The very urge of revolting against the Nizams therefore became very much a burning issue not only with the males but also amongst the women. Naturally, with such excess of immorality, inherent in its social fabric, Hyderabad, during the Nizam`s regime, ranked lowest , being one of the most declining princely states of India.

Social reforms and enthusiasm for female education, metamorphosising the lives of women in the other parts of India, were then absent in Hyderabad. As a result things were getting out of the hands. It was then the peasants who started to unite as an answer to the continuous oppression by the Nizams. The seed of the great Telegana Rebellion was sown somewhere in that era and of course much before of the year 1946 when it actually broke out. Women also joined hands with their male counterpart and in an organized way raised their voices against the colossal oppression of the Nizams.

It was when the time of India`s Independence, arrived at the verge of fulfillment, the Nizam started to speak with the British to know what the future held for him. The Communist Party found itself fading into oblivion, and to revive its sway, beckoned the All-India Trade Union Congress, the All-Hyderabad Student`s Union, and the women`s organizations to merge with it and the Andhra Mahasabha , for raising a resentment against the Nizam and was a first organized step against the Nizams.

Telengana movement finally took place and when the movement climbed its climax, it spread to 3,000 villages and to more than three million people.

Women performed a vital role in this phenomenal uprising. The issues of concern lifted by them were : wages, beating of wives by husbands , childcare, hygiene and cleanliness , the right to breast-feed infants during working hours , food, and even toilets . These advances aimed at improving women`s lot, more than questioning the state of affairs. Therefore the movement easily won the "loyalty and support [of women] without leading to an increased awareness of the nature or source of that subordination." Women joined hands with men in their concerted claim for land-ownership, wage-hikes, abolition of bonded and forced labor, and elimination of huge interest rates, above the level of affordability.

The rebels were subject to extreme torture by the repressive anti-rebellion agents. "We Were Making History": Life Stories of Women in the Telangana People`s Struggle, a compilation of life stories of women who volunteered in the Telangana campaign, depict their tales of horror.

Historians affirm that the Telangana movement was victorious, not only from the viewpoint that it won the peasants their much coveted and due rights and respect, but also for the fact that woman for the very first time raised their voice. It was for the woman in Telengana Movement there was an official termination of forced labor, unbearable adi bapa, and sexual exploitation.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the Telengana Movement, took women, many steps nearer to the desired destination of absolute freedom and self-sufficiency.