By: J R Janumpalli
Telangana has been a feudal state for centuries before independence. We all know how we got our liberation from that feudal rule on 17th September 1948 while rest of India got its independence on 15th August in 1947. Since then even in independent India Telangana’s tryst with its destiny has been encumbered with discrimination, exploitation, oppression and angst. The very liberation by Indian army from Nizam’s rule has started the discrimination. The Congress party and the Indian union with their phobia of communism had brutally assaulted Telangana people in the liberation from Nizam.
During the military and civilian government from 1948 to 1952, the iniquity against Telangana people in the name of containing communism has been initiated. Outsiders were imported in to the region with the excuse of replacing Urdu official language and weeding out communism. This has sown the seeds for looking down the people of Telangana by the imported outsiders and the outlandish government. Though its own government was formed and functioned as Hyderabad state from 1952 to 1956, the administration was dominated by these outsiders, continuing the bias against local Telangana people. Then comes the biggest of all misfortunes, the merger with Andhra state in 1956. It has initiated a neo-colonization and organized exploitation of Telangana and have reduced Telangana people to second class citizens in their own native land by migrant Andhras.
It all started with the constricted outlook of Indian union government at Telangana and its patronizing attitude, treating Telangana as a political orphan. There was agitation against the attitude of civilian central government and against outsiders as early as in 1952, which was brutally put down. The attitude has continued with Congress party, manipulated by all types of lobbying and unscrupulous practices of Andhras, before and after merger with Andhra state in 1956. Andhras have used their closeness to Congress party because of their British India politics. Telangana people who were holed up in Hyderabad state under Nizam had no influence with Congress in Delhi.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, knowing fully well the unfairness of it and against his own judgment has succumbed to the clever machinations of Andhras and coerced Telangana political leadership to accede to the merger against their will, despite the specific recommendation against it by SRC. Then we are all familiar with Indira Gandhi and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy government’s brutal suppression of Telangana agitation in 1969, despite an overwhelming rebellion and winning 11 out of 15 MP seats by Telangana Praja Samithi.
Since 2004, Sonia Gandhi has started another reprehensible political discrimination, against Telangana. It was Congress party led by Sonia Gandhi which has stoked the fire for the present episode of Telangana imbroglio. She is keeping Telangana State always dangling tantalizingly before Telangana people and is never delivering it. But, under political compulsion of losing its existence in both the regions by the series of its devious political acts during the last 3 years, it has tried to come up with a solution by the end of January but has baulked again by the vicious behind the scene maneuvers of Andhras. Again going back to its original mode of considering Telangana as its political orphan and it appears to be cutting deals with its recalcitrant Andhra congress and its Frankenstein’s monster YSRCP, leaving T-Congress in the lurch.
Meanwhile the Andhra Congress money-mafia has now appears to have managed to throw the ball in to the court of Rahul Gandhi and is busy manipulating him. The shambling political neophyte, Mr. Gandhi now appears to experiment with his positive politics (?) of calculating political numbers with the double-crossing Andhra congress and YSRCP.As is their wont the congress party is likely to stretch the issue till the very end and create another confusion in the minds of Telangana voters like they did in 2004 and 2009 to rake up some political numbers in 2014.
It is not only Congress Party, even BJP in the past has ditched Telangana at the behest of Chandra Babu Naidu, while it has granted statehood to the latest 3 new states. Even people at large from other states also are not appreciating this 5 ½ decade long arduous struggle in its correct perspective. The national media is turning a blind eye to it bequeathing its democratic duty towards an underdog. Despite Telangana being a unique case of existing as an independent state from 1948 to 1952, the demerger of it is erroneously equated with the demand of other state divisions like Gorkhaland, Bodoland, and Vidarbha. Added to this Andhras are trying with their dubious lobbying to create a ludicrous impression that the demerger causes them some problems in irrigation water, employment and in Hyderabad city. Some impresarios of Andhras are trying to lend some credence to these outrageous demands, which if examined closely will reveal no veracity. In actual fact it is like ‘ulta chor kotwal’ story.
Why this is happening to Telangana? Is this land cursed or jinxed? Why everybody is treating it like a political orphan? Why Pandit Nehru, knowing fully well what is going to happen to Telangana in the hands of Andhras, conceded merger coercing unwilling Telangana leaders? Why Indira Gandhi who was politically rehabilitated by Telangana people, did develop so much antagonism against Telangana? Why Sonia Gandhi who has promised and won power in the state with the help of Telangana is now trying to abort its state declaration? After all,it is an open secret that Telangana was dominated by Andhras with their 175 v/s 119 majority and a systematic organized exploitation took place in Telangana.Yet, why this condescending outlook towards telangana? Is it because of its unfortunate history or the simple political ingenuousness of its people or both?
How to come out of this tribulation of a political orphanage? For how much long we should be playing this self-defeating and self-persecuting politics in a democracy? Even most totalitarian dictatorships like Lybia and Egypt have yielded to the wishes of their people. But in the largest of the world democracy, Sonia Gandhi and her son are playing a sinister political game of deception with a false promise, with an utter disregard to the angst and aspirations of the people and basic democratic principles. All the avenues of democratic protest are exhausted. With no avail. It is important to force Congress Party to form Telangana state before the ensuing general elections. If we allow the Congress party to take us in to the elections without Telangana state, then Telangana again will be pushed in to the political orphanage, which we are experiencing since its liberation from Nizam. It is imperative that we should do something drastic to break this jinx to achieve our State.