Rise in discontent towards the British colonial rule in the backdrop of the non-cooperation movement (1920–1922) led to the Rampa rebellion (1922–1924) in which Alluri Sitarama Raju played the major role as its leader.

[2] Born into a Telugu family as Alluri Rama Raju, he prefixed the name "Sita" to his in memory of a girl whom he loved during his youth and whose untimely demise at a young age left him heartbroken.

In response to these raids and to quell the rebellion, the British colonial authorities undertook a nearly two year long manhunt for Alluri Sitarama Raju that resulted in expenditures reaching over ₹4 million rupees.

[4][8] Details of his place of birth also vary, an official report suggests he was born in Bhimavaram,[4] while other sources cite it to be the village of Mogallu in West Godavari District.

[3] Rama Raju completed his primary education and joined High school in Kakinada where he became a friend of Madduri Annapurnaiah (1899–1954), who later grew up to be another prominent Indian revolutionary.

[13][10] Indicative of his future as a leader, Rama Raju in his high school days was often found riding his uncle horses to distant hilly places and familiarise himself with various problems that were being faced by the different tribal people who were then living under the British colonial rule.

[17] Noting the grievances of the tribals and finding solutions to their problems, he then started to organise and educate them about their rights and prepared them for a fight against the oppression and tyranny of the forest and revenue officials, missionaries, and the police.

As the oppressive practices of the British continued to become unbearable and rebellion became the last option for people to live free, Rama Raju became their natural leader.

[20] The changes meant that they will face starvation, and their main means of avoiding it was to engage in the demeaning, arduous, foreign and exploitative coolie system being used by the government and its contractors for such things as road construction.

[10] Around the same time of the Act, the British Raj authorities had also emasculated the traditional hereditary role of the muttadars, who until then had been the de facto rulers in the hills as tax collectors for the plains-living rajas.

[10] Rama Raju harnessed this discontent of the tribal people to support his anti-colonial zeal while also accommodating the grievances of those muttadars who were sympathetic to his cause rather than those who were selfish in the pursuit of a revived status for themselves.

Though the movement died out in early 1922, it had by then reached the plains area as he was involved in propagation of some of its methods among the hill people to raise their political awareness and desire for change.

These actions caused him to be put under the surveillance of police from around February of that year; despite this move, the fact that he was using his propaganda as a camouflage to foment armed uprising seems to have not been noticed by either the movement, or the political leadership of the British.

[1] Sporting traditional weaponry like bow-and-arrow and spears, employing tactics like using whistles and beating drums to exchange messages amongst themselves, the revolutionaries managed to achieve spectacular success initially in their fight against the British.

Realising that traditional weaponry would not be of much use against the British, who were all well equipped with modern firearms, Raju thought the best way forward is to take them away from the enemy and started launching attacks on their police stations.

While based in the hills, contemporary official reports suggested that the core group of rebels dwindled to between 80 and 100, but this figure rose dramatically whenever they moved to take action against the British because of the involvement of people from the villages.

[10][24] More deaths occurred on 23 September when Alluri ambushed a police party from a high position as they went through the Dammanapalli Ghat killing two officers, and thus cementing his reputation among the disaffected people.

At this point after the British realised that Rama Raju's style of guerilla warfare would have to be matched with a similar response, and drafted in members from the Malabar Special Police who were trained for such purposes.

[28] In April 1924, to quell the ‘Manyam’ uprising, the British Government then deputed T. G. Rutherford, who resorted to employing extreme methods of violence and torture on people to know the whereabouts of Raju and his close followers.

[21] After putting up a massive effort for nearly two years, the British eventually captured Rama Raju in the forests of Chintapalle, he was then tied to a tree and faced summary execution by shooting on 7 May 1924 in the village of Koyyuru.

"Though I have no sympathy with and cannot admire armed rebellion, I cannot withhold my homage from a youth so brave, so sacrificing, so simple and so noble in character as young Shri Rama Raju .

Would that the youth of the country cultivated Shri Rama Raju’s daring, courage, devotion and resourcefulness and dedicated them for the attainment of swaraj through strictly non-violent means.

To me it is daily growing clearer that if the teeming millions whom we the articulate middle classes have hitherto suppressed for our selfish purpose are to be raised and roused, there is no other way save through non-violence and truth.