Thursday, August 19, 2010

Telangana 56: Article on Rediff

A commenter (Kiran) forwarded an article published on Rediff, titled ‘We don't know who represents the Telangana movement’ by Jyotirmaya Sharma and asked few questions.   Here is my response:


"The problem is that between those who are asking for a separate state and those who oppose it, there is no debate, there is no serious conversation. Every difference of opinion on both sides is sought to be resolved either by violence or by an extra dose of rhetoric."


Right now, yes, if you watch only the TV, then definitely there is no healthy debate.  That’s sad.   However, if you go attend some of the meetings held by various forums on Telangana, you will see an argument for Telangana which is sound, rational and pragmatic.   True, a genuine debate is missing.  The reason the debate is missing is because Telangana supporters and its detractors do not see eye-to-eye on this issue.  While Telanganas believe the root cause for the entire problem is ‘discrimination’, no Andhra person ever accepts it and rubbishes it saying it is a fantastic imagination of few politicians.   It’s like India and Pakistan talking about Kashmir.  There can never be a healthy debate if we don’t agree on basic premise of the argument.

The healthy debate will start only when Andhras concede that discrimination could or might have happened, and then go about asking if and so why it happened.  That would the first point of entering a healthy debate.  Instead of accepting the glaring truths that Telangana is indeed backward, they come up with Satyam like statistics to prove otherwise.   Right now, I don’t see a chance for healthy debate because the detractors are not being honest about topics on discrimination.  Unfortunately, Indians are not mature enough to concede they are capable discriminating others.
"There is neither unity of purpose nor is there clarity about why they want the new state.”

In any popular movement, masses do not always know the exact reasons why they want a new state or a new country.  Even at the height of the Indian Independence movement majority Indians could not articulate the purpose of why they wanted to get rid of the British.   In all such popular movements only few leaders have the clarity and they become the pillars, the voices, the ideologues.  We do have such leaders in Telangana.  But every protestor is not expected to talk like these leaders.  

Even when India became free in 1947, there was no clarity on what would happen to India after the Independence – on what would have happen to Muslims, to Sikhs, on how India is going to resolve so many differences like regions, religions and languages.  And yet, we got Independence and later we resolved many of the issues, some successfully, some unsuccessfully.

“KCR's son was saying, for days together, on national television that Hyderabad has always been the capital of Telangana. Nobody had the gumption to get up and say don't distort history. Hyderabad was the capital of the Nizam state. Warangal was the capital of what you called Telangana.”

If someone said Delhi was always the capital of India, anyone can punch holes in that argument saying Delhi was capital of a major portion of Indian subcontinent which included Pakistan and Bangladesh but was never the capital of India because India never existed in the present form.  Also, many regions of India were ruled by princes and kings (for example, Telangana which was under Nizam and never under Delhi), and yet, Delhi became part of India and did not go with Pakistan.   And the idea of India as long as it existed, during Mughals, Lodis, or Khaljis, had Delhi as its capital.  It was called Hindustan, and it was so different from the present India and yet, we believe that Delhi was capital of India for many centuries.

Telangana was the biggest region in Nizam State and had Hyderabad as it capital (for the entire region including Telangana) the way Moscow was the capital city of USSR but remained capital city of Russia though it lost many parts to new countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Ukraine, etc.  Should we find the argument that ‘Moscow was always the capital city of Russia’ flawed?  Not really.  Though Moscow was the capital city of a much bigger region which included Russia, the fact that Moscow was deep inside Russia is a good argument to say that Moscow was Russia’s capital.   

Telangana can claim Hyderabad for itself the way India claimed New Delhi for itself, and the way Russia claims Moscow for itself.  Most of it is to do with geography than history.  The problem is only with technicality, but if you understand the message, there’s no big flaw in the assertion that Hyderabad was capital city of Telangana.  

Jyotirmaya Sharma doesn’t know history either.  There was no mention of ‘Telangana’ during Kakatiyas because there was no distinct identity called Telangana during Kakatiyas.  It’s like saying people of Taxila founded Pakistan. When Taxila was around, there was no Pakistan though Taxila is deep inside Pakistan now.   So, the author should brush up his knowledge of history.   The author sounds intelligent but I am beginning to think that he failed his history exam.

"I have been living in Andhra Pradesh since 12 years. I have not found one (such man). There is no difference between the language of an Andhraite and the language of a man from Telanagana except a few words. Both speak Telugu. Telangana locals have few Arabic/Muslim oriented words and few words taken from Marathi because they are close to Maharashtra".

Now I think I can dare to call this author a fool.   He doesn’t understand politics, culture, or history.  Nowadays anyone can become a professor at University of Hyderabad, even a dumb fool.  That’s sad for future of Telangana.

One could go to Rwanda and come out thinking that everyone looks the same, that there is no difference between Tutsi or Hutu.  A lazy outsider will not find any difference between the two people, and yet, more than one million Tutsi were killed by Hutu resulting in one of the biggest genocides of modern times.  The root cause is discrimination of one people by another.


Discrimination can happen on even minor difference as long as those differences are considered significant by the people who practice them.   For a Hindu who doesn’t pay attention to the details of Christianity, there may not be big difference between Catholics and Protestants and yet there could be a continuous war between them on those seemingly small differences.  In Andhra Pradesh, Andhras consistently, continuously and overtly discriminate people of Telangana based on their culture, language, and identity.   Failure to understand the underlying prejudices is no good excuse to believe such prejudices do not exist.   A social scientist should be trained understand such prejudices, root causes for discrimination, and yet this author sounds obtuse and unqualified.

"In the end what irritates me when people begin to talk about `outsiders' and `settlers'. The Indian Constitution allows me, with few exceptions, to live anywhere I want. I do not need the permission of a political party to live in any part of India.   This language of the `outsider' and the `insider' is the language of the fascists."

I do agree that this is rather unfortunate.  But that’s a problem with every major movement.  Some unnecessary characterizations do creep in.  Not that I am justifying it.  However, a world ‘settler’ need not always be taken pejoratively.   Any immigrant can be considered ‘settler’.  For example, I am a settler in Bangalore.   If I start discriminating the locals here, they may call me ‘settler or an outsider’ as a reaction to what happened to them.

When some people accuse that outsiders came in to Hyderabad and locals are not given preference, we should understand: That Hyderabad was/currently is the capital of "Andhra Pradesh" state, and that's why everyone in the state who has to get something done/has got jobs in state govt/has realized there are business opportunities had gone there.

The case for Telangana cannot be rubbished with such silly and simplistic excuses.   If it was so simple, there wouldn’t have been Gentlemen’s Agreement to protect Telanganas, Supreme Court would not have upheld Mulki Rules, and there wouldn’t have been GO 610.   The author is not only a fool, he is ignorant.  That’s a deadly cocktail – ignorance and foolishness.

19 comments:

  1. You call him 'fool and ignorant' just because you don't like the very valid points he raised. That shows how open you are to any kind of real debate on the issue. That's exactly what he was talking about. FYI.. I was born, raised and educated in Khammam/Hyderabad with some connections to Krishna district. I cannot find a single person among my classmates, friends, relatives (all born and raised in khammam/hyd/telangana districts) who wants a separate telangana state. Now why do these opportunist telangana politicians say it's the demand of 4cr people in telangana when it's only demand of some people from 2 or 3 districts? I fail to understand why some educated people like you can't see the truth and blindly argue that a separate state will magically transorm these districts when ruled by the same politicians.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Even at the height of the Indian Independence movement majority Indians could not articulate the purpose of why they wanted to get rid of the British." ....Really!

    "Nowadays anyone can become a professor at University of Hyderabad, even a dumb fool." Try getting one yourself one...er..may be you are not a fool..

    "A social scientist should be trained understand such prejudices, root causes for discrimination, and yet this author sounds obtuse and unqualified"...looks like with all your qualifications and blog posts you would qualify to be one...where??? university of hyderabad where else...

    "The author is not only a fool, he is ignorant. That’s a deadly cocktail – ignorance and foolishness". Yourself??

    God bless SKC after they have gone through your slides

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  3. Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dude going by your logic of New Delhi, Moscow etc...why cant't the Andhra guys claim Hyd to be their capital if andhra pradesh breaks.

    Looks like the Andhra teacher distorted the history again..I was told for some time Calcutta was the Capital and in 1911 blah blah....

    "they come up with Satyam like statistics to prove otherwise".....I tought some federal body called National statistcal....would come up with the numbers....Sujai! thanks yaar...I did not realize that the andhrawala's made up with those numbers...BTW the numbers you use many a time were given by.....I know ....not Andhrawalas right....

    I don't know why these andhrawals will stop being hypocritcal. I wish everyone emulates you

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  5. @khammam-engr,
    baagaa cheppavu babai. memu kindaa, meedaa rokali banda size *___* pedunte meelaa enjoy cheyyatam chata kaani vedhavalu veellu! veellato neeku enduku le kaanee, nuvvu family to maa bejawada raa, baagaa pedataamu enjoy chedduru gaani...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well said Sujai,

    I read this news article this morning and I too thought that he is ignorant and now I am surprise to see your article this soon.

    Any way we all know that the habit of Andhra@ to praise who ever support United Andhra regardless of what kind of person he is, just like this fool.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am a neutral observer, I belong to neither Telangana nor Andhra. I am a regular follower of this blog though, and read with great interest the arguments for and against Telangana put forward by both parties.

    I wonder however, why some 'Andhra supporters' act so dense. Look at the second comment by 'Anonymous' above. He has not refuted any of the arguments provided by Sujai, but has childishly pasted text from the main post and ridiculed Sujai.

    I consistently observe that Andhra supporters are unable to counter Sujai's arguments and resort to name calling and similar puerile acts.

    Overall, since there has been no proper debunking of Sujai's points over the course of several posts, I will tend to go with what Sujai says.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Vinay,
    Welcome to the club of wishful thinkers....

    ReplyDelete
  9. If someone is smart and hardworking-encourage them
    If someone is stupid and Lazy-educate them
    But, if someone is stupid and hardworking-show them the door
    I think the author of this blog post belongs to the catogery 3 because:
    1)Doesn't believe the stats that were presented by a neutral govt body
    2)Doesn't believe the experts and calls them names
    3) Wants us to believe HIS facts without any numbers or data (look at the 3 slides)and very subjective.
    "Taanu pattukunna kundelu ku 3 kaalu" ante ela saaru

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sujai, your arguments are based on 'facts' presented by telangana professors Jayashankar and Kodaandram Reddy, and you call every other professor dumb and fool, good luck my friend.

    Let's say, separate Telanagana is formed, who would rule this new state? Wouldn't it be the 'Doralu' and 'Reddys'? And we have history to look at how their rule would be.

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  11. My friend
    You tend to take history on to your wrong side again and again. For your info,Muslims wanted a separate state and want to be away from India not the other way round same with USSR and CIS states.In order words India or USSR didn't 'expel' Pakistan or CIS states. In case of Telangana, the combined wisdom of intellectual including yourself want to get rid of 'other'
    part and send away the 'settlers'.You see the difference,it is akin to a brother asking his sibling to go away rather than the sibling wanting to separate.I didn't want to get in to a convoluted discussion about how is elder or how is younger.
    Moreever in case of Pakistan or any new state wanting to secede the least concern is claiming the parent country's capital.They are content with the new nation what more they want ?
    You comment upon a Professor in Central University how is appointed by the President of India and whatever gimmickry and histrionics your Kodandaram and Chakrapani and Jayasankar enact is a work of genius? Oh what a treat ? The Telangana socalled academicians are villains who indoctrinate the innocent Telangana students to serve their own ends.

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  12. @khammam-engr :

    I cannot find a single person among my classmates .. blah, blah ..

    Once upon a time there was a tadpole in a uchcha-gunta. It thought it was the greatest creature on earth as it didn't see any bigger creatures ..

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  13. @ Anonymous ..


    "Even at the height of the Indian Independence movement majority Indians could not articulate the purpose of why they wanted to get rid of the British." ....Really!


    And your counter-point is.. what??

    You exclaim orgasmically as if you have some deeper insight. Perhaps just jacking off to these posts? You.. dirty you!

    Nothing wrong with that.. whatever floats your boat!

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  14. @ Anonymous ..

    I tought some federal body called National statistcal.

    tought.. statistcal..

    Are you a cat? Too many typos to believe you are a homo sapien!

    ReplyDelete
  15. khammam-engr

    You call him 'fool and ignorant' just because you don't like the very valid points he raised.

    I didn’t find his points valid. Being a political scientist, he should have been trained to observe and notice discrimination where it happens. He completely dismisses discrimination in Telangana. Of course he is a fool and ignorant.

    FYI.. I was born, raised and educated in Khammam/Hyderabad with some connections to Krishna district.

    Many Andhras born in Telangana are continuing to identify themselves as Andhras and have not embraced Telangana. It’s unfortunate. Though they are completely surrounded by Telangana people, they speak Andhra.

    I cannot find a single person among my classmates, friends, relatives (all born and raised in khammam/hyd/telangana districts) who wants a separate telangana state. Now why do these opportunist telangana politicians say it's the demand of 4cr people in telangana when it's only demand of some people from 2 or 3 districts?

    There were some Indians who didn’t want British to leave India. They wanted the empire to continue but that was a minority. Such groups always exist. Nowhere do you find 100% support for a movement. Having said that we do believe that if there is a referendum there could be a vote for Telangana as high as 80% or even more. It would be nice to have referendum. Telangana supporters would like to have a referendum because they are confident about the outcome.

    I fail to understand why some educated people like you can't see the truth and blindly argue that a separate state will magically transorm these districts when ruled by the same politicians.

    We don’t believe a new state will magically transform Telangana. However, it will give self-respect and dignity to this region as a start. We have a long way to go before we convert this region into a prosperous and developed region that creates a harmonious society. But we want to fight that fight having attained freedom from Andhras.

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  16. Anonymous:

    Dude going by your logic of New Delhi, Moscow etc...why cant't the Andhra guys claim Hyd to be their capital if andhra pradesh breaks.

    Please go through history. It will help. Andhras can’t claim Hyderabad the way Uzbeks cannot claim Moscow or Bangladesh cannot claim New Delhi. Hyderabad happens to deep inside Telangana the way New Delhi is deep inside India or the way Moscow is deep inside Russia.

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  17. anon123:

    Sujai, your arguments are based on 'facts' presented by telangana professors Jayashankar and Kodaandram Reddy, and you call every other professor dumb and fool, good luck my friend.

    Our facts are not derived from Prof. Jayashankar or Kodandaram Reddy. Their numbers are old. We have created a report from the contemporary history. I will include the report when I can.

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  18. Anonymous:

    In case of Telangana, the combined wisdom of intellectual including yourself want to get rid of 'other'
    part and send away the 'settlers'.You see the difference,it is akin to a brother asking his sibling to go away rather than the sibling wanting to separate.


    It doesn’t matter who asks to get separated or who initiates it. The end result does not result in claiming a city that lies deep inside another region.

    Telanganas are not interested in getting rid of ‘settlers’. We just don’t want to be ruled by ‘settlers’.

    ReplyDelete
  19. On what grounds was Delhi made a state?

    A part of those grounds definitely apply for Hyderabad being a UT and then a separate state,

    Hyderabad has nothing in common with Teleangana, Andhra or Rayalseema for matter of fact.

    This whole article is written with a loss of patience and is intolerant in many ways.

    ReplyDelete

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