Telangana 79: Like Enemy Like Fight

Mahatma Gandhi is a scion of nonviolent movements.  He is known worldwide for having brought an end to the world’s most powerful empire through peaceful agitations.  Instead of creating armed rebellions like most other colonial countries, Gandhi insisted on tactics like non-cooperation, bandhs, hartals, hungerstrikes, and peace marches, all in an effort to bring a change in the heart of the enemy, to make the enemy respect him, and eventually gain freedom from that enemy.    It goes without saying that Gandhi and his non-cooperation methods are credited with bringing freedom to India from the British. [It is a matter of debate if India would have got independence if there was no Second World War.]

For a while, imagine it was not British who had ruled over India but it was Nazi Germans.  Would Gandhi become a hero, and would his methods have succeeded? 

Only a fool who doesn’t understand history would believe that Nazis would have respected Gandhi’s nonviolent agitations, that Nazis would have stood up when Gandhi entered the court, or that they would have freed Gandhi so that he does not die on a hunger strike.  If Nazi Germans were ruling India, most probably we would never have heard of Gandhi, because he would have died as a nameless victim in one of the many concentration camps.  Gandhi’s methods would not have worked against Nazi Germans. 

The only way to defeat Nazi Germany was through massive invasion, involving millions of soldiers, thousands of planes and tanks and hundreds of ships, showering millions of bombs and firing billions of bullets.  No matter how great Gandhi was he would not have brought Nazi Germany to its knees with his noncooperation and nonviolent agitations.  Asking Jews to embrace non-cooperation, bandhs, and hunger strikes to fight Nazi Germans will sound foolish to any historian.

Indians prevailed over British because it was the gentleman in British that Gandhi targeted.   Gandhi knew that a British man was a decent man, had some principles that he would stand by, that he would not forever treat his subject inhumanly without feeling guilty.  It was that profound belief in the sincerity and chivalry of British man that Gandhi targeted and eventually won over.

Gandhi became Gandhi because it was British he was fighting.  If it was Japanese or Germans ruling Indians, there wouldn’t have been Gandhi and we wouldn’t be discussing today the merits of nonviolent movements.   

The kind of fight you take up depends on the kind of enemy you have.  Against British it was noncooperation.  Against Nazi Germans it was bullets and bombs.    

Like Enemy like Fight

We have to choose the fight depending on who our enemy is.  For a very long time, Telanganas did not understand this clearly.  Instead of choosing the fight based on the enemy, they were more concerned about their image in their own eyes.   All this time, Telangana people were more focused on enrolling more and more Telanganas into its fold by concentrating on their self-image.  So, they set about doing peaceful agitations, which were really beautiful if one were to witness them.  They held vanta varpu, where thousands of families came onto streets to picnic, cook, eat and be merry.  They held hands to form longest human chains.  They played kabaddi and kho-kho on the streets.  They held blood camps, bicycle rallies, took up padayatra to tour entire Telangana on foot.  They held the most entertaining dhoom-dhams and lit candles on New Year eve.  They composed new songs and produced hundreds of artists.  They even made a movie to depict the movement. 

In this obsession of how we portray ourselves in our own eyes and of those of the observers, we forgot one fundamental aspect of any fight.   It has to be decided by the enemy we have.  If your enemy is a rogue and scoundrel what good is your peaceful and nonviolent agitation? What purpose does it serve?

The Seemandhras, the Government of AP and the Indian Government, instead of appreciating and respecting Telangana people for their nonviolent and peaceful method of protests, laughed at them, ignored them and dismissed them.

Our arch enemies Seemandhras saw these peaceful and nonviolent agitations as a sign of weakness, not a sign of greatness.  One Seemandhra director, whose movie Adhurs was obstructed for few days from screening but eventually allowed, said that if Telanganas are not even capable of obstructing his movie, how could they attain Telangana?  Our methods were mocked at, and ridiculed at.  Telanganas were seen as weak and unorganized people who cannot even muster strength and courage to fight the enemy the proper way.

Telanganas realized too late, after almost a year that we need to pick up the fight that suited our enemy.  Entire Telangana is slowly learning that their enemy doesn’t respect them for their nonviolent and peaceful agitations.  It has become clear now that it has to step up and take it to the next level.  It is high time we started using the weapons that work against our enemies instead of choosing those weapons which we seem to like.

The events of this year have been much better than those of last year.  The pressure that Telangana people mounted against their elected leaders is yielding positive results.  Our MPs in Lok Sabha, irrespective of their political party, have raised slogans, disrupted the proceedings and ensured that India reckoned and recognized Telangana movement.  Our MLAs in State Assembly from TRS, TDP and Congress have disrupted the proceedings and created a ruckus stalling the proceedings many a times.  Not all these events were beautiful for observers, but they produced the desired result.  Beauty, they say, is in the eyes of the beholder.  For a common Telangana man, these events that transpired in the last one month are most beautiful.  India concedes Telangana issue is important.

Telangana Movement is now seen as a credible and potent force in India.  Even the politicians realize this now.  This movement will end up creating heroes and making some political  leaders zeroes.  Seemandhra leaders have started to squirm in their comfortable seats and started to pay attention to the events unfolding in the center and the state.  Recently, the rachchabanda program initiated by Government of AP proved to be a complete disaster in Telangana.  Women threw chappals, eggs and tomatoes at Chief Minister to make him retreat with tail between his legs.  Noncooperation agitations resulted in more than 2000 Crores loss in revenues for the government in the first two days.   3.5 Crore Telangana people shout in unison that this farcical experiment called Andhra Pradesh does not represent their interests anymore.

Now that we know how to fight, Telanganas have to step up further to get the desired result – separate Telangana with Hyderabad as its capital.  People of Telanganas have participated in hundreds of agitations in the last one year.  Now they are all waiting for the climax, the grand showdown, the finale.  Let’s step up our fight the right way.  Let’s not spare any politician at home.  It is their turn to agitate now.  They should be made restless.  They should be forced to unite irrespective of their party affiliation when it comes to the cause of Telangana.  

Let’s keep up the tempo.  Let’s take this to a crescendo.  Let’s march to Hyderabad and stay put till we attain Telangana.