Telangana XXVI: Untoward Incidents and Unity

Attacks against other people

Many commenters asked me to explain why certain Andhra people were attacked, insulted, and targeted in Telangana region. Some have said that Telangana has now become hostile to ‘settlers’. They have written to me describing some incidents of attacks on Andhra people. They asked me, what kind of Telangana we are going to have. Is this going to continue? If so, shouldn’t settlers now live in fear? Will they have leave Telangana eventually?

They want me to explain why these incidents happen. But at the same time, they use these attacks to besmirch and sully Telangana Movement. They want us to concede that this agitation is agitation of goons, and gundas, the movement of uncouth and unruly. They want to use these attacks to discredit the entire Telangana Movement. I am not going to do that.

In every people’s movement there have been such sporadic incidents of violence. But eventually when things settled down, those traces were removed. Take a look at contemporary history. When Gujarat was formed, it was a not a smooth transition. There were similar incidents. The same happened in 1953 when Andhra State was formed. Tamils threatened Telugu people and went about blacking out every Telugu writings in the city. Eventually when each people get their state, those feelings of anger and hatred subside and normalcy will prevail.

One such incident

Here I relate one incident that happened in Andhra-Rayalaseema region during Samaikya Andhra agitation. A Telangana professor in one of the universities of Rayalaseema was targeted for being Telangana. His effigy was burnt by the students. He had to flee the region for ten days during those agitations.

Though he now lives in fear, he is mature enough to understand that these incidents are sporadic. He has lived in that region for 20 years now. He does not believe that this animosity will continue. He believes it is an untoward incident that is an outcome of the current political imbroglio. He had every option to believe very differently. He had an option to write like others on my blog and completely discredit the Samaikya Andhra movement. He chose not to.

I have an option to use such incidents that I get to hear to discredit the entire Samaikya Andhra agitation. I chose not to do it because I know that I cannot characterize an entire movement based on such sporadic incidents.

I know that once these periods of turmoil are over, people would get back to their lives accepting people of other regions amidst them without feeling malice or hatred. Extrapolating these sporadic incidents to think of a dreadful tomorrow is of course your choice. If I were you, I wouldn’t do it.

I still recommend that we divide the state as soon as possible not to allow more hatred and anger to be sown. The longer it takes to separate, more the turmoil, more the hatred. There is no reason why we should stall the eventuality.

United we stand Divided we fall

Please don’t tell us again and again that we should stay united, because it is quite boring to hear these clichés. If you are so interested in staying united, you can stay united as Andhra-Rayalaseema or just united Andhra. And if you want, you can go back to being with Tamil Nadu and form Madras State once again and called it United Madras or whatever. I dismiss all such naïve arguments where ‘united’ is used to make a case. Those people just don’t know what they are talking about. First discredit Potti Sriramulu for breaking up India and then preach us unity.

Or how about this? Today, we would like to stand united on one single banner and leader, called Samaikya Telangana. You can have your Samaikya Andhra, we will have our Samaikya Telangana. ;-)

Unity is not defined the same way. It is not a universal definition. If that was case, we should have one district, one state and one nation on this planet. Why limit unity to your convenience?

Why Telangana loses out

We lose out because of our own people. There are many detractors within us who consistently tell us that we are good for nothing, that there is no hope for that. That it is better for us to be with Andhras who are better rulers than our own Telangana rulers.

During the time of Independence, there were many detractors from India who were not sure if we would have a better life after British left. Many babus, many princes, many landlords preferred to be under British because they thought they would lost their power if Indians ruled themselves. The selfish, the myopic, the ignorant amongst us continue to believe that Telangana people are no good, that we can’t rule ourselves, that we will lose out eventually. Such vested parties and interests within us should be fought as much as fighting the masters who rule us.