I thought my upbringing [my father's stating of historical facts instead of airing his personal negative emotions] made me grew up unbiased towards issues like religion, caste, vaastu, gender.
But, now i realized my insight is not that perfect because i’m beginning to notice, due impending state bifurcation, that my bias towards linguistic difference: “I’m pro-telugu down to extent of right dialect”.
May be because i’m unconsciously more susceptible to speaking/writing in other’s patterns & averse to the charmless vilifying attitude of the non-locals [paradoxically they are the local telanganites now]
I’m fond of orations in telugu, though lost access after school & uphold it above all other languages except for english which somehow is much easier for me to use both for thinking & speaking.
Now, I’ve to curb my regional bias & my fear of their dialect, so that i can stay untouched like i would in my native place patronizing all sides equally & countering possible clashes with regional hatred or assumptions form others.
I’ve to quickly quell any slant i’ve for this region & its dialect before they form discrete qualities in my character, for the sole purpose that truth balanced on sensitivity & rationality is what has to be upheld. So, I gathered facts from various news articles about the cultural & political history of this region:
- The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Way out in Andhra Pradesh
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The first thing the central government needs to do is to firm up its political resolve not to capitulate on a vital issue under the threat of orchestrated militancy and violence.
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Everyone knows that long-festering problems do not allow for easy solutions. The Telangana issue as we know it has been around for half a century, and there is also a pre-history of a revolutionary struggle against landlordism in the region. The Congress party has always had an ambiguous stand on this issue.
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while the diagnosis of the backwardness and neglect of the Telangana region is sound and must be empathised with, a just and progressive solution can be found within an undivided Andhra Pradesh on the basis of regional autonomy and big, concentrated development efforts.
- www.outlookindia.com | Quo Vadis, Hyderabad?
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unique lingua franca, Dakhni, one of the most identifiable markers of Hyderabad, is a delicious blend of Hindi, Urdu and Telugu, with a lacing of old Marathi. The plural character of the city dates back to its founder, Quli Qutb Shah, who was also a Telugu scholar. Geographically too, it is inclusive: the twin cities
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city was never ruled directly by the British (there was a Resident stationed there), it owes its plural character not so much to the British but to the Nizams, who encouraged Parsis, Kayasthas and Maharashtrians to join the civil service. What is important is that the inclusive nature of the city blended all these communities into a harmonious whole, distinguished by the adoption, in their own manner, of what is known as the ‘Hyderabadi tehzeeb’—the traditional composite of civility, hospitality, courtesy and grace in social interaction, the hallmark of which is respect and consideration. The outsider in Hyderabad (though I believe that the city does not treat anyone as such) does not jar. A posting in Hyderabad invariably ends with it being the city of choice post-retirement, or at least the acquisition of some property. Those who stay on mould their tastes and even language to the habitat.
- www.outlookindia.com | For Causerati To Pull A Fast One?
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fasted for self-purification after falling short of his own ideals
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fasted to atone for the lapses of others, and yes, to influence, through “moral pressure”
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rules for the last kind of fast were clear—that he should have exhausted all reasonable avenues for persuading the other side, and, importantly, “that the fast,” as Rajmohan puts it, “should not produce more bitterness than existed previously”. No knee-jerk hunger-striker, he calibrated his fasts carefully, often setting out in advance the number of days he would fast, often making it clear that he did not expect to or want to die (only in rare situations were his fasts indefinite), even announcing such details as what he would do to make fasting easier on his body (“I propose to add juices of citrus fruits to make water drinkable”). “The idea,” explains Rajmohan, “was to stir consciences, not create convulsions”. He never, stresses Rajmohan, undertook a fast if he thought it could lead to an escalation of violence: “A fast as step one of a strategy where step two was violence was simply not acceptable to him.”
- An avoidable mess over Telangana: Rediff.com India News
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an army general said with a sad laugh, “the Chinese can relax, we are already doing what they had only expressed a desire to do in an article.”
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There is sufficient scope in the Indian Constitution for forming new states, in fact the process has been made fairly easy and uncomplicated in what constitutional experts see as an indication that the founding fathers had visualised exactly such circumstances as the young country matured.
But it is for the governments of the day to examine the demands and to determine through necessary commissions and committees of experts whether the separate state demanded will go a long way in redressing grievances of the affected people, alleviating poverty and in the long run bringing the country closer together.
The Congress cave in has actually legitimised political blackmail, sending out the signal that this could work if taken to extreme limits. Chandrashekhar Rao could have been wooed out of the hunger strike by a special visit from a top Congress functionary. But in what is characteristic Congress style, the party decided to ignore him leaving itself with no option in the final reckoning.
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Those in authority must realise that the carving out of states has to fulfil the demands of integration, and actually help in the development of the neglected regions. Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh and Uttarakhand
are relatively new states, carved out of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh
and Uttar Pradesh to empower linguistic and ethnic groups through development. Nothing of the kind has happened and the poverty in Jharkhand for instance continues unabated. Instead the political class is reaping the benefits of power, with the Khoda scam where the former chief minister amassed thousands of crores is a case in point. Maoism has grown in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, with the development funds now being diverted to tackle the insurgency.
- Why is everyone scared of small states?: Rediff.com India News
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Nagpur session, in December 1920, the Congress rewrote its charter under Mahatma Gandhi’s
guidance. One of the changes was that the Pradesh Congress Committees would henceforth be constituted on a linguistic basis. This made no difference to the administration of the country because the British refused to redraw the map to the Congress’ whims
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Sardar Patel, unlike the Mahatma, was no fan of linguistic provinces. When he completed his great work of unifying India
he pointedly left intact the multi-lingual states of Madras, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh
, and Assam. Another notable addition to that list was Hyderabad, which covered several districts now in Maharashtra
and Karnataka
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On October 19, 1952, Sriramulu began a second fast. He died on December 16 while New Delhi
dithered.
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There was talk of both states sharing the city, with Madras becoming a Union territory. This ignored the fact that Andhra would never actually touch Madras. (Once again, doesn’t that sound familiar?)
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, then chief minister of Madras state, scotched the proposal. When asked, Rajaji said he was warding off future trouble. When some spoke of Telugu cultural links to Madras he pointed out the ancient northern limit of Tamil culture lay in Tirupati. Kurnool became the capital of the new state.
(Again, Maharashtra refused to cede Bombay city as its capital or share it with Gujarat when the state of Bombay was divided in 1960. Sadly, common sense was found wanting when Chandigarh was allotted as the common capital of Punjab and Haryana — a major issue during the time of terrorist troubles and a minor irritant both before and since.)
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1953, Nehru’s ministry thought it could better Sardar Patel’s work. Saiyid Fazal Ali, K M Panikker, and H N Kunzru were brought together as the States Reorganisation Commission.
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1969 riots were breaking out to create a separate Telangana. The Congress solution was to replace Brahmananda Reddy with a Telangana man, P V Narasimha Rao, in 1971. This in turn incited Coastal Andhra and Rayalseema. Indira Gandhi
was forced to impose President’s Rule on the state — and you know the situation is bad when a Congress prime minister does that to a Congress-ruled state.
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(And the Telugu Desam did the same in 2009. Neither the Congress nor the Telugu Desam has the moral authority to oppose the creation of Telangana.)
Or instead should i, while separating the political chaff from the grain of development issues, ask a high motive but pertinent question like is separate state an effective solution?
why can’t they ask for startup funding/training than inefficient unmotivating govt jobs. Isn’t entrepreneurship more an advantageous pursuit for the country’s economy; don’t those arts & economics students know that?
why should this issue need any particular political party/leader representation?
Paradoxically, do we need convincers/inspirers for airing an entrepreneurial dimension or else that worthy pursuit will get sidestepped for govt jobs?
PS: JAN7:
may be travelling is a much better way than gathering second-hand facts to debug myself? but where are the guts, inclination, money, time for that?
PS: JAN 16:
here are my highlights from an article on operation green hunt[maoists], a link i found at bookforum.com, nearly reflected/answered my doubts about why telangana student did not choose entrepreneurship for govt jobs & separate state:
the article meanders on lines of:
colonization—>Indian independence—>globalization—>telangana-maoists-adivasis/pheasants unrest —>operation green hunt—>colonization of rural poor—>what’s the escape?
- Maoists wish to take political power through the barrel of their guns, and the India state wishes to grab Adivasi lands and natural resources and hand them over to corporations, foreign and domestic. Thus, the ‘sandwich theory’ sees middle India as the saviour of the nation as envisioned in the Indian Constitution.
- Democracy is based on the belief that all people possess the capacities to determine their destinies. If this is true, then the ‘sandwich theory’ is fundamentally undemocratic.
- attitude implicit in the ‘sandwich theory’ masks the latent authoritarianism that lurks beneath the facade of compassion for the poor. Of course, the Adivasis and the rural poor do not articulate their political choices in the language of scholars from Harvard and Oxford, IIT and JNU, or theories of democratic development, civil society, post-communism or post Marxism, but that is not to say they are passive victims without self-determination.
- mysterious ways of development rewarded the few and impoverished the many. As disenchantment with development grew, the ‘poor’ was replaced by a more nuanced, exotic sounding term: the subaltern.
- From subaltern to victim is a quick and easy step. As long as the Adivasis and rural poor remain victims, middle India is not required to speak in its own name, about its own interests and aspirations; it is enough to interpret for “them”.
- two adversaries have remained steadfast and undeterred in their opposition to each other. During the colonial era and in the post-Independence era, ‘tribal rebellions’ and ‘peasant uprisings’ were the volcanoes that erupted from time to time and rocked the edifice of state power.
- state, colonial or post-Independence, has shown remarkable consistency in its responses to the demands of the Adivasi and the rural poor. They have responded with guns and bayonets, mobilised the full might of the state, imprisoned, tortured, raped, and plundered the Adivasis and rural poor, and sentenced many to death. Remember Kista Gowd and Bhoomiah within living memories of many of us? The state has been equally consistent in its demands for more land, more resources, and more cheap labour. This extraordinary consistency of the two combatants has thrown everyone in between, middle India, into turmoil from time to time. Some have sided unequivocally with the Adivasis and the rural poor. They have been branded variously as extremists, insurgents and terrorists and met the same fate as the Adivasis. Others have sided unequivocally with the state, colonial or otherwise, and proactively participated in mobilising the state machinery against extremists, insurgents, terrorists, whatever. Yet others have felt hemmed in and ‘sandwiched’ between the two adversaries. Thus, it is middle India that is ‘sandwiched’ and feels beleaguered by the combatants.
- what happened in Kalinganagar, or Singur, or Nandigram or Lalgarh, or now in Narayanpatna, follow in the same traditions, but middle India dithers to call them tribal rebellions or peasant uprisings. The current debates echo similar debates during the freedom struggle: M.N Roy’s spat with Lenin on the ‘agrarian question’, Aurobindo’s conversion from violence to non-violence, debates over Bhagat Singh and Chauri Chaura, to name a few. The ‘sandwich theorists’ are surprisingly ahistorical in their approach to the current stand off. Many go along with the state’s representation that the Maoist movement began as recent as 2004
- The Boer Wars, the Scramble for Africa, and other colonial conflagrations culminated in the World Wars between imperialist nations with Britain at the helm. The freedom struggle was directed against British imperialism, at a time when Britain was militarily strong but a declining economic power. A wide cross section of classes, communities, nationalities, castes in Indian society between the Adivasis and the State, joined the freedom struggle, each with their own demands and their own aspirations. Industrial expansion occurred during that interim period of the World Wars. An emergent industrial class that profited from the World Wars also aspired for political power, and joined the freedom struggle. The debates about violence and non-violence, extremism and liberal democracy, social justice and rule of law, and other such questions were part of a wider process of forging a social contract between the multifarious classes, communities, castes, tribes, nationalities, religions, linguistic groups. The social contract was later embodied in the Constitution when India became a republic.
- It promised to all ‘justice: social, economic and political’; it promised the Adivasis protection of their water, forests and lands, land reforms to the rural poor, offered special status to different nationalities, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Kashmir, jobs and collective bargaining rights to urban workers, linguistic reorganisation of states, rule of law and constitutional democracy, and most importantly adopted as its motto: ‘satyam eva jayate’ (truth alone prevails). That vision of a nation is at the heart of the dilemma that confronts middle India today.Independence of India was inaugurated with partition at two ends of the nation and the Telangana uprising in its belly.
- Middle India was confident that with a new Constitution in place, the causes of tribal rebellions and peasant uprisings would be consigned to history. The imprint of the Communist Party of India, the largest opposition party in India’s Constituent Assembly that drafted India’s Constitution, was writ large in the social contract.
- When the Naxalbari and Srikakulam uprisings erupted two decades later, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong with that vision; that the social contract on which modern India was founded was wilfully broken. When the police and army cracked down on Naxalbari and Srikakulam tribals and peasants, as they always did, the state justified its actions in the same vein as today. The fight was not against tribals and peasants, but against armed Maoist insurgents, it was about violence and non-violence, the state argued. But middle India refused to be ‘sandwiched’. Thousands of students and youth joined the Naxalbari and Srikakulam tribals and peasants. They were abducted, imprisoned, tortured, killed and Indian English added a new meaning to the verb ‘encountered‘ after the faked ‘encounter’ killings. Even those opposed to the Maoists’ ideologies and methods refused to be ‘sandwiched’. People of the stature of Jayaprakash Narayan, V. M Tarkunde, Sathyaranjan Sathe, Samar Sen, to name just a few, insisted that the Maoists were idealists, impatient, ideologically misguided – they were anything but criminals and terrorists. Above all the ‘rule of law’ applied to Maoist as much as anyone else, they insisted. No one accused them of being terrorist sympathisers for that reason, not even the state. Post Naxalbari, middle India was dismayed, frustrated, angry, and disappointed with the state for breaking the social contract. They still held on to the vision of the nation that was forged during the freedom struggle, even when the vision was slipping away. ‘This is not the India our parents and grandparents fought for’ the post Independence generation seemed to say.
- petitions called upon the state to implement minimum wage laws, health and safety laws, laws against bonded and child labour, resettlement and rehabilitation of displaced people. The Courts became involved in administration and law enforcement but rarely punished any state official for failing in their statutory and constitutional duties. As the boundaries between the executive and the judiciary became murky PILs send a clear message that state officials could get away with violations of constitutional and statutory duties.
- Lok Adalats dispensed with procedural rules of evidence, civil and criminal procedures in cases involving the poor, ostensibly to cut down backlog of cases and expedite justice to the poor. In effect, it entrenched a system different procedures would be followed for the rich and for the poor. The rich would get a proper judicial hearing following rules of evidence and civil and criminal procedures; and procedural laws would be dispensed with for the poor
- post-Naxalbari, post-Emergency period saw a ballooning of NGOs, voluntary organisations, and ‘civil society’ organisations accompanied by criminalisation of politics. Nearly forty percent of Indian MPs and MLAs are supposed to have criminal records involving serious crimes
- The political spaces of the Adivasis and rural poor usurped by criminalisation, was contested by the NGOs and voluntary organisations. Middle India came up with an amazing proposition: all politics was anti-poor, corrupt and criminalised, therefore, we can be a democracy without politics. Of course, as the Adivasis and rural poor, being subalterns, could not speak, it fell on the NGOs or voluntary groups to interpret for them.
- loosening grip of imperialist reins offers Indian industrialists and financiers an opportunity to expand their operations. The lure of ten percent growth based on many more nuclear plants, mining corporations, industries, special economic zones, and speculative investments promises them a whole new world, if only they would dare to conquer it. The new world of their dreams requires conquering the Adivasis and the rural poor. Where will they go? What of the social contract?
- Globalisation’ erodes the idea of a nation, however. Indeed it is premised on the idea that nations no longer matter, and if they matter at all, they do so only on the condition that they are homogenised and adapted to the global marketplace. There is no longer an industrial, propertied, elite in India, therefore, that is interested in joining ranks with middle India to renegotiate power with imperialists. Instead all negotiations on power have shifted to the international arena; they will happen henceforth in the UN, the WTO, the G8 summits, and the World Economic Forums. The pesky Adivasis persist with their jal, jangal and jameen. Having accepted the ‘inevitability’ of ‘globalisation’ middle India is left without the conceptual tools to envision a nation, to flesh out self-determination.
- Indian NGOs and voluntary organisations were awash with funds. More importantly, they were armed with new ideological and conceptual resources developed by international organisations: ideas of ‘empowerment’, ‘democratic development’, ‘good governance’, ‘civil society participation’ and such. In fairness many applied the funds to save the social contract. But the social contract was never about ‘democratic development’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘good governance’. The social contract was about self-determination, equality, redistributive justice, power-sharing and equity, about satyam eva jayate, not transparency.More NGOs and voluntary organisations, more funding for the non-governmental sector, more ‘empowerment’ and ‘good governance’ programmes did not equate to more representation of the Adivasis and rural poor. If anything it was the opposite. The more funding became available for NGOs and voluntary groups, the more the Maoist influence increased
- NGOs and voluntary groups took up all the issues that the Adivasis and the rural poor raised: the model of development, traditional water systems, land management, forest conservation, corruption, criminalisation of politics. They balked at one central question: the question of political power. This was the only question that the Maoists took up. Middle India wants the Adivasis and the rural poor to trust their word when they say middle India is with the Adivasis and rural poor. How should the Adivasis and rural poor do this when they are reduced to voiceless subalterns, when they are no longer political subjects with agency?
- Well resourced organisations set out the assumptions underpinning the debate, the terms of the discourse which middle India must follow, not least because they are bombarded with research, publications, high profile media coverage, all based on the assumptions presented by think-tank organisations. The Independent Citizens’ Initiative report on Sadwa Judum by influential citizens, some of them close to the powers that be, echoes a similar ‘sandwich theory’ position. Their position is nowhere comparable to that of Jayaprakash Narayan or V.M Tarkunde. For the latter, their positions against non-violence stemmed from a vision of the nation based on the social contract of the freedom struggle; it included the Maoists as much as the Adivasis. Today, the positions against non-violence are based on a conception of India as an emergent global power that needs to put a human face on ‘globalisation’.
- The Adivasis and rural poor insist it is a matter of jal, jangal and jameen as they always have. The Maoists, their ideological, political and military shortcomings not withstanding, and there are many of those (see exchanges between Sumanta Banerjee and CPI Maoist EPWs 02/09/09, 19/09/09, 14/11/09), stand unequivocally on the side of the Adivaisis and rural poor, whatever their motives. Middle India insists it is possible to put a human face on ‘globalisation’. To the contrary, the new wave of struggles in Kalinganagar, Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh challenges them to renegotiate the social contract, a challenge that requires a renewed freedom struggle, forging new alliances, and new conceptions of development and decolonisation. ‘We too fought for freedom’, a Santhal says in a recent film on Lalgarh. Indeed they did. How do we answer that question? By saying the Maoists are bad boys? By saying the Santhals are subalterns that need middle India as their interpreters?
- The social contract forged during the freedom struggle was premised on a false assumption. It was based on the assumption that it was possible to build a modern liberal democratic, capitalist nation without colonisation. There has never been, and can never be, capitalism without colonies, though its forms can change, and has changed since that fateful day when Columbus set sail looking for the ‘riches of the Indies’. ‘Globalisation’ is forcing middle India to colonise her own people. This is nothing new. It happened under British Rule too. Since the days of Siraj-ud-daula, the various Nawabs and Rajas, a section of the Indian elite has steadfastly stood by imperialists, helped them run Empires, and made a buck for themselves. J.S Mill observed that India was the great experimental laboratory for the Empire. When the fortunes of Empires fluctuate, it forces middle India to take a stand. It is happening today. The nation-state structure and constitutionalism makes it difficult for middle India to rationalise colonisation of her own people. What should middle India do? Launch a new freedom struggle? Forge a new social contract? These are difficult questions by any measure. How much easier to flog the Maoists using imperialist labels like ‘war on terror’ to mask their own inability to re-envision the nation? How much easier to ride the ‘globalisation’ wave on the moral high tides of non-violence? Middle India is wistful. If only the volcanic fault-line on which modern India is founded will go away; if only the Adivasis will put on hold their insistence on jal, jangal, jameen.
Hyderabadis sympathetic to the Telangana cause are dismissive of politicians spearheading agitations for unity saying they are driven by the urge to protect their real estate interests. Rayalaseema and Andhra politicians, many allege, own large land banks whose prices will plummet should Hyderabad lose its branding
