Coup d'état of Yanaon
Though widely separated along both of India's coasts, the towns were collectively known as Pondicherry (French: Pondichéry; Indian English: Puducherry), after the largest of the settlements.
In 1948 the Indian and French governments agreed that the future political status of Puducherry would be determined by referendum of its residents; that October, in elections widely seen as unfair, pro-French councillors won nearly every Municipal Assembly seat in Pondicherry territory.
The French police cracked down on pro-merger activists, while gangs of goondas harassed, threatened, and beat supporters of the rival side.
On the night of 11 April 1954, at a conference at Kandamangalam,[citation needed] he asked Dadala Raphael Ramanayya for a plan for its liberation, which ultimately resulted in the coup d'état.
The movement for unification with India gathered momentum under V. Subbiah, and gained a powerful ally when Edouard Goubert switched his loyalty to the pro-merger camp.
Accordingly, the leaders of the French India Socialist Party hoisted the Indian National Flag atop the Nettapakkam police station on the last day of March in 1954.
On 13 April 1954, Dadala arrived in Yanam and proceeded to neighbouring Kakinada (a town in the adjacent Indian state of Andhra Pradesh) the next day.
Dadala also purchased a large number of Indian flags and started a house-to-house campaign, requesting students and their leaders to organise a meeting in the town hall grounds.
Inside Yanam, anti-merger leaders such as Samatam Krouschnaya and Kamichetty Sri Parasurama Varaprasada Rao Naidu also organised meetings and counter-processions against the merger.
At the beginning of June, the secretary-general of the French administration of Pondicherry met Dadala and informed him that the government was transferring the two European officials who were residing in Yanam.
In the early morning of Sunday, 13 June 1954, Dadala marched at the head of a few thousand non-violent and peaceful volunteers from Kakinada towards the bungalow of the chief administrator of Yanam, in order to capture it and hoist the Indian flag.
Just three days before the coup, the last colonial chief administrator of Yanam, George Sala, was recalled by André Ménard, the then Governor General of Pondicherry.
Towards the end of June 1954, Kewal Singh paid a visit to Yanam and requested Dadala's return to Pondicherry to continue his activities there.
Edouard Goubert, S. Perumal, Dadala and Sri Pakirisamy Pillai presented addresses to Pandit Nehru in a public meeting in the maidan of Gorimedu.
Dadala was appointed as high-ranking officer in the department of the state of Andhra Pradesh until he retired on 29 June 1963, three days before the de jure and final merger of Yanam into the newly formed Indian Union territory of Pondicherry.
