By: Suneel Rajavaram
After completing a 20-day assignment in Afghanistan, I was getting ready to catch my flight to Dubai from Kabul. While waiting for my flight in Kabul airport, I was glancing through the net and saw a news item in Namasthe Telangaana that newly formed Modi government has passed an ordinance to merge 400 adivasi villages of Bhadrachalam Division in Andhra Pradesh state. I felt very sad!
28th May, 2014 is a black day for the thousands of adivasi inhabitants of 400 villages in seven mandalas of Bhadrachalam division of Khammam district of newly formed state of Telangana. This day Prime Minister Modi used (or misused) his position and huge mandate, which he won a couple of weeks ago, to pass an ordinance in great rush to merge hundreds of villages in Andhra Pradesh state. The lines penned in the ordinance are not only altering the shapes and boundaries of two states, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh but also will change the lives and lifestyle of thousands adivasi people forever.
Eventually these villages will be submerged in the reservoir of Polavaram project, a mega dam proposed as a national project when Telangana state was announced by Congress party to appease the majority population (in the combined state of Andhra Pradesh) of Seemandhra. Andhra is already a prosperous agricultural region thanks to the irrigation water from the perennial rivers, Krishna and Godavri.
Modi government has rushed through the ordinance in its very first cabinet meeting on the third day after his swearing in as the Prime Minister of India because in les than a week, on June 2nd, new state of Telangana will come in to effect and the new government lead by KCR of TRS party will oppose it tooth and nail.
Modi’s “partner in the crime” is Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Minister designate of Andhra Pradesh state. Incidentally, May 28th is the birthday of NT Rama Rao, the founder of Telugu Desham Party and three-time Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. In 1995, Chandrababu Naidu staged a coup against NTR and usurped the position of Chief Minister. However, Naidu keeps on using NTR’s name to take advantage of his popularity. Coinciding with NTR’s birthday every year TDP organizes “Mahnaadu” (A great Day!). Certainly not for the adivasi of Bhadrachalam division!!
While both BJP and TDP are basking in the glory of winning elections, ironically they scheme and bulldoze their way through to pass an ordinance, a most undemocratic way of passing bills in Indian government system. Modi and Babu’s partying bells are ringing a death knell for the lifeline of Adivasi people. The elite politician, bureaucrat, contractor nexus is at again! A mega project, mega bucks and mega benefits but for whom? For the innocent adivasis of Bhadrachalam division -displacement, despair, submerged lands and doomed aspirations is the future.
Many people are celebrating the continued flourishing and endurance of democracy in India but who will pay attention to the plight of Adivasis who are at the bottom most rung of Indian society- socially, economically, educationally and most importantly politically and whose interests will be forcefully and farcically submerged in the waters of Godavari in the pretext of a national project, Polavaram Dam, one more mega project in the modern India. Is it the beauty of Indian democracy as many people are gloating about or the dark side of Indian democracy where the local peoples’ wishes are completely ignored? Anyway, it is the time for my flight to land in Dubai and I was wondering who fill fight on behalf of the helpless adivasi people of Bhadrachalam division?