Telangana 37: Let’s Andhraize Telangana

When Europeans occupied continents of South America, Asia, Africa as their colonies, they thought they were carrying the ‘white man’s burden’. They thought they had a divine mandate as a White Christian to civilize the barbarians and the natives. The white man justified the colonialism as just and fair means to educate and civilize the natives of these colonies. 

In 1956, when Andhras sought to merge with Telangana to form Andhra Pradesh, they were carrying the same legacy of Europeans that ruled them. They were now carrying ‘Andhra man’s burden’. They sought to Andhraize Telanganas to purify Telangana Telugu from the onslaught and influence of Urdu. They wanted to set an example and teach Telanganas what pure and chaste Telugu is all about. They introduced their version of Telugu to us in our text books and called our Telugu Vikruti, an abomination, an anomaly, that needs to be rectified and corrected.

Here is how some Andhras have written about Telangana Telugu on this blog.

Since my Telugu is not bastardized with Urdu words. It has much more pure Dravidian pronunciation of certain syllables and hence makes the language sound sweet and mellifluous. At least teach your kids good Telugu and not the gutter Telangana slang.

…you have to accept that Telangana Telugu is a corrupted version of Telugu, corrupted not by you or your ancestors, but by the great Nizam.

As long as Telangana Telugu is corrupted with Urdu words, Telangana Telugu will remain as a symbol of Telugu people oppression under Nizam.

If you want to fight, fight with the history and remove the Urdu words from Telangana Telugu to make it pure and free from Nizam oppression' reminder.

Andhra Telugu is pure Telugu whether u accept or not. Even though they were with Madras they were not affected by Tamilians.

Assalu ee telangana culture ante yemiti?? Nizam gaadi paalanalo, Urdhu chetha telugu ni rape chesthe vacchindhe telangana baaasha, anthena?? [Actually what is Telangana Culture? Under Nizam’s rule, when Telugu was raped by Urdu what we got is Telangana language, is it not?]

Andhra janaalaki intha kaalam, telangana baasha gurinchi antha theliyadhu, intha kaalam adhi kudaa teluge anukunnaam [Till today, Andhra people didn’t know about Telangana language. Andhras thought it was also Telugu]

Why do you want to be with us?

You don’t respect us, you don’t respect our language. You have an extremely low opinion of Telangana people and their language. And yet, you fight for a ‘united state’ forcing and coercing us into submission so that we remain with you against our will. Why do you want to be with us with you when you have absolutely no understanding of Telangana or its people, when you think that our culture and language is a bastardized, raped, and corrupted version of Telugu while you maintain that you have a pure culture?

Andhraize

Your words to describe your efforts to civilize us reek of Aryan supremacy theories propounded in Europe during early 1900s and under Nazism. When you colonized Telangana did you really think that you could Andhraize Telangana? Make us civilized and less impure?

You did all you could for nearly 53 years to make us feel ashamed of our language, and yet we defied all your attempts. We refused to purify our language according to your tastes. We refused to concede our language is a shame. 

Instead, we took pride in our history and culture, whether it included oppression or not, whether we were raped or not, whether it is corrupted or not. At the end of the day, this is what we speak- this is the language we feel comfortable with. This is the language we express ourselves in. This is the language that brought us revolutionary songs to inspire us the take on the rule of Nizam then and the rule of Andhras now. This is the language of our plight, our sorrows, our experiences, our suppression, and also our pride. 

Why do you even like Hyderabad?

Sometimes I don’t even understand why you like Hyderabad. It has its own cosmopolitan culture into which you don’t fit into at all. You are fairly homogenous group and have absolutely no cosmopolitan character. All cosmopolitan cities inherit influences from various regions, various religions, and various languages, whereas you try to keep your language and culture pure protecting it from all outside influences. How does that make it cosmopolitan?

In Hyderabad, we speak differently. We use the words like ‘Jaldi raa’ easily mixing Urdu and Telugu whenever we feel like. We take pride in such mixing. We are not ashamed of it. You find yourself strangers in this city and in this region when you try stick to your purist theories.

 

You have never attempted to understand us, our culture and our history. Yes, we have a checkered past with Nizam and the legacy of Muslim rule, but those are our problems and we have our own solutions. You have absolutely no idea how to address them and when you try to give solutions, you actually make a joke of yourself. You have many misconceptions about us and our history. We don’t want to overthrow the legacy of Nizam or the influence of Urdu on our language. We are quite happy with our language the way it is. 

We play Holi and fly kites, we have our distinct ways of celebrating our festivals which are quite secular in nature. We have peerilu where both Hindus and Muslims participate in a joint celebration. The reason why Hyderabad has become famous and developed is mostly because of its openness in embracing all cultures and languages. It has embraced you as well without putting up a fight. However, your attempts to make it purely Telugu city are now rejected. Your attempts to monopolize it for only Telugu people are now rejected.

Your attempts to Andhraize Hyderabad or Telangana are rebuffed. Your sermons fall on deaf ears. It’s high time you understand that.

 

Nazi Theories

Your attempts to keep your culture and language pure are synonymous with Nazi ideologies. Telangana people are quite comfortable with mixing. Telangana people are a mixed culture, we have influences from many regions, those of Kannada and Maratha, and many of them have cross-border relations with those regions. We have Gujaratis, Tamils, Punjabis, Marathas, Kannadas, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians amidst us. Each of them has influenced us which we have accepted quite openly. 

Two different versions of our state

Once again Andhras and Telangana differ on what Andhra Pradesh means to us. For Andhras, it is all about keeping Telugu pure and chaste, keep it Hindu, away from other languages and religions, and keep it a protected region away from other influences. For Telanganas, it is all about mixing, evolving, and embracing new cultures and new influences without having to worry about impurities. We are proud of our biryani and our sakinaalu without having to think whether it is authentic Telugu or Hindu. We will continue to embrace others as long as they don’t impose themselves onto us. 

It’s clear that we have completely two different views of our state. We don’t want to be pure like you. We believe that languages evolve, that cultures evolve, that they embrace influences without having to resist them. We do not think there is a pure version and impure version for a language. We are not making attempts to enforce our language onto anyone. Instead we are sick and tired of being imposed by Andhras who have colonized us trying to impose their version of purity onto us.

 

This is high time we rejected this experiment called Andhra Pradesh. We are two different people and have different view on what this Andhra Pradesh meant to us. You can be the torch bearers of pure Telugu. We are open to the influences. This is high time Telangana is its own so that its identity, however impure or corrupt, is given its voice and expression.