Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Why India should celebrate Telangana?


[This article is intended for the audience who are outside Andhra Pradesh and trying to figure out why this new state is being formed.]  

Demand for Telangana is a sixty year old demand.   It has erupted in major agitations and movements over the last six decades in various forms.   The current movement spanning the last four years happens to be the greatest and biggest people’s movement in India after the Independence Movement.  It has galvanized millions of people into participating in thousands of rallies and protests, in hundreds of major agitations which saw outpouring of people in lakhs.  It also resulted in nearly thousand suicides.

If you think Anna Hazare Movement saw outpouring of youth onto streets of India for a genuine cause, then imagine a movement which is thousand times bigger spread over four years.   If you think Indian Independence Movement touched the common man, then imagine a movement which has reached grass roots far more extensively than that, touching almost every man, every woman, and every village in the region. 

Welcome, Telangana!

The people have won.  Against all odds.  Against money.  Against hegemony.  Most importantly, against the tyranny of the majority.  Today, CWC and UPA have announced they are ready to create Telangana with Hyderabad as its capital. 

For a moment, a brief moment though, India restores faith of its people in democracy. 

This is a momentous occasion for people of Telangana.  A historic decision unlike anything it has seen in the last sixty years.  While India got its freedom in 1947, Telangana gets its freedom in 2013.