Guntur district, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, is in the delta on the southeast coast of India where the Krishna River empties into the Bay of Bengal. Although Guntur is relatively prosperous by Andhra standards, Andhra's per capita income is somewhat below India's national average. It is a densely populated rural district, with about two-thirds of its cultivated area used for food crops. As is not surprising for a delta, paddy rice is the most significant food crop of the area. Cotton is now the leading nonfood commercial crop, followed by oil-seed crops and tobacco. Two aspects of land ownership in the district are noteworthy: First, Guntur, like much of Andhra, has a high percentage (more than 60 percent) of landless laborers among its rural working population. According to census data, Andhra is the only state in India in which the number of landless laborers exceeds the number of landowning cultivators. Second, there are few large landowners in the district. More than 75 percent of the land is owned in plots of 1–10 hectares (2.5–24.7 acres).

Kammas and Reddis are the two most important landowning agricultural castes in the area. Exactly how many Kammas and Reddis are in Guntur is not known. On the basis of the 1931 census and estimates provided by local observers, the following figures can be suggested: Kammas are about 18–20 percent of the local population. As the largest landowning group, they come closest to being the district's dominant caste.