Dadala Raphael Ramanayya (30 June 1908 – 5 May 1991) was an Indian nationalist leader who was instrumental in the merger of the French territory of Yanam into the Republic of India.

Ramanayya was orphaned at the age of four and was taken under the care of his paternal grandmother Veeramma, alongside whom he had to work for food in the fields of landlords of the neighbouring villages.

After Indian Independence from British rule, and in deference to the feelings of "Mahatma" Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, France proposed a referendum in India to decide the fate of the French settlements.

In 1948 the French India Socialist Party, a pro-French organization, was widely suspected of rigging the elections,[citation needed] and won all the seats in all but one of the Municipal Assemblies.

of Tamilnad, and Dr. N. Rajkumar, Secretary for Foreign affairs of the Indian National Congress, saw the farce in these elections and sent a damaging report to Prime Minister Nehru.

In 1950 Sri R.K. Tandon replaced him, and Naiker, a Chevalier by title and an influential political figure of Pondicherry, persuaded Ramanayya to join and lead the existing nationalist movement.

On 14 September 1950 Ramanayya, along with Naicker, prepared a memorandum for Dr. Keskar, Deputy External Affairs minister of India, who had paid a visit to Pondicherry.

Their primary goal was to cancel the referendum, as in their view the French settlements were dominated by pro-French parties who had gained control of the voting process by threats and the subjugation of citizens.

The UNO, in turn, deputed a board of observers consisting of Holgar Anderson of the Netherlands, Baron Rodolfo Castro of Spain, Montieor Perreard of Switzerland, Mr Chan of the Philippines, and Mr Krabbe of Denmark to visit the French settlements and give a full report to the International Court of Justice.

On 19 April, in a traveler's bungalow on the frontier, Ramanayya was summoned for a meeting with them, which he attended with proofs and reports of pro-French crimes against Indian nationalists.

It detailed the pro-French atmosphere prevalent at that time in the French settlements, and concluded that in those circumstances a fair and impartial referendum was not possible.

Nehru called upon the Tamil Nadu Congress leaders to extend all material help to the refugees of Pondicherry who were under Ramanayya's care.

Sri Raghunandan Saran, Managing Partner of the Ashok Leyland Automobile Factory of Ennore, Madras, extended great help to the refugees and provided for their maintenance.

Returning to Kakinada he purchased a large number of Indian National Congress flags and started a house-to-house campaign, requesting students and their leaders to organise a meeting in the town hall grounds.

He and his new nationalistic recruits hired lorries bedecked with Congress flags and loads of people to tour in the streets of Yanam, inviting them to the meetings.

Inside Yanam, the pro-French leaders organised daily meetings and processions against the merger and normally ended them with effigies being burnt.

In the beginning of June, the secretary general of the French administration from Pondicherry met Ramanayya and informed him that the government were transferring the two European officials who were residing in Yanam.

In the early morning on Sunday, 13 June 1954, Ramanayya marched at the head of a few thousand volunteers from Kakinada towards the bungalow of the administrator of Yanam, in order to capture it and hoist the Indian Flag.

Rumours were spread to the effect that the French government was despatching a cruiser to Yanam to capture merger leaders and to re-establish their authority.

One day when Ramanayya was returning with a hundred volunteers from the Bahour commune towards Cuddalore he was ambushed and fired at by a dozen French troops.

Ramanayya, Goubert, S. Perumal, and Sri Pakirisamy Pillai presented addresses to Nehru in a public meeting in the maidan of Gorimedu.

After the French left India, Ramanayya wanted to leave politics, which he always despised, and was anxious to settle in his home state of Andhra Pradesh and to provide his children with education in his native regional language of Telugu.

For his sacrifices to the nation and from intervention of the central cabinet, he was resettled as a high-ranking officer in the then excise department of the state of Andhra Pradesh from where he has finally retired on 29 June 1963. he led a peaceful farming life until his death on 5 May 1991.

He was interred alongside his wife Subadramma and other family members and near the grave of Father Gangloff in the Catholic cemetery of Jagannaickpur, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh.

In 1993, he was honored by the Pondicherry Government, who gave him a befitting salute by installing a lifesize bronze statue in the Yanam town square near the regional administrator building and the Catholic Church.

His family, consisting of six sons and two daughters, settled themselves in Kakinada, London and Chicago and did not show any interest in politics or administrative affairs and went out of public eye.