Konatham Dileep and Sujai Karampuri, who exposed the CSDS Telangana Survey fraud, demand that CSDS should immediately scrap their survey:
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We thank CSDS for publishing the ‘Clarification on Telangana related findings’ in THE HINDU on 19 August 2011. However, we would like to let you know that your response is quite disappointing and reflects a feeble attempt on your part to cover up your mistakes. We would have appreciated if you had owned up your mistakes with a with a brave face instead of hiding behind a sophisticated excuse calling it ‘possibly an error of judgment’.
When you say: “Such an impression arises partly from a misreading of the survey findings,” we would like to point out that our objection to the survey is not just the results or its interpretations but the means and methods employed in the survey which according to us are clearly biased and fraudulent. The question here is ethicality and validity of employing a person, who has publicly professed his loyalties to a cause that is in essence anti-Telangana, to conduct a survey within Telangana on an issue that dwells upon creation or non-creation of Telangana.
We are not ready to buy your specious argument that: “Our survey clearly shows that within the Telangana region nearly two-thirds of those who have an opinion support a separate state.” In fact, we find your response very flimsy and intellectually dishonest. Our contention is that it is highly improbable that 27% of the people of Telangana would have no opinion on an all-pervading issue which affects them on a daily basis, especially when the figure for the same question is only 10% in Seemandhra where there are not as many agitations, and definitely not as intensive as in Telangana. It is like saying 27% Iraqis living in Iraq are either ignorant or carry no opinion on the subject of American invasion of Iraq, while the number for that ignorance is only 10% in the nearby Iran.
While we are not contesting that the “basic finding cannot possibly be read as propaganda against separate Telangana,” we strongly believe that a bias has crept into the survey in Telangana because it was carried out by the people who have publicly expressed strong bias against Telangana. It would be wise if CSDS came out of their self-professed claim to reputation of credibility to acknowledge the same. We do understand that “there still is a small section of people within the region (more in Hyderabad and some other districts) who do not support this demand”, but your survey does not indicate this opposition in the right proportion, either because of the sampling bias or because of the vested bias of the surveyors.
On the question of employing the convenor of a movement which opposes formation of Telangana, you state that you “have no reason to believe that the political convictions of our coordinator or the composition of the survey team has compromised the quality of the data on the Telangana question. Our preliminary internal consistency checks on the data do not reveal anything unusual.”
The above response reflects either a colossal naiveté or malicious duplicity on your part. Looks like you are only eager to cover up your bungling of the issue with lame excuses. Let it be known that integrity also means owning up the mistake and making amends for it in a decisive way. While coming up with this extremely insincere excuse, you go on to describe one of the arch enemies of Telangana as a person of ‘formidable reputation for professionalism and integrity’. A military General of Israeli Army can be described to have ‘formidable reputation for professionalism and integrity’ within Israel or in North America but no Palestinian would ever believe in a survey conducted by this General concerning the issue of statehood for Palestine. Patriotism, regionalism and other affiliations of identity could dominate one’s professionalism especially when that person is publicly known to espouse the cause of that identity-based-struggle. CSDS must be out of its mind to think that the honorary convener of Samaikhyandhra JAC who has led and participated in so many agitations against formation of Telangana would somehow act without bias. And it silly to even hope that the millions who are fighting for Telangana would believe such a story.
CSDS should take a look at various agitations that P Narasimha Rao has participated in. Here are some of the links:
[News 1] Honorary president of Samaikyandhra Political JAC Narasimha Rao said bifurcation of a State would lead to social, political and economic problems. MPs of all parties should exert pressure on the UPA government against bifurcation.
[News 2] In a press release on Tuesday, honorary convener P. Narasimha Rao and convener N. Samuel lashed out at the BJP for making pro-Telangana comments and said that these statements smacked of political opportunism.
[News 3] …honorary convener, P. Narasimha Rao urged Centre to take a decision keeping in mind the larger interest of the state.
The response given by CSDS that you ‘would therefore carry out an independent verification of these survey findings and report the findings to the public within the next two months’ is not good enough to compensate for damage you have already caused to the mass movement of nearly 35 million people. You did not take necessary precautions while appointing the right people to conduct their survey. Instead of owning up the mistake, which any organization of ‘high credibility’ would do, you are coming up with intellectually dishonest excuses. If you would like to remain an organization that is ‘absolutely fair in recording opinion’, you should publicly retract the findings on Telangana immediately citing the reason that ‘a probable or potential bias, though unverified, must have gone into our survey in Telangana because it was conducted by an avowed activist of the cause that is opposing the formation of Telangana’.
Anything less, you are succumbing to the same venality and corrupt methods most other organizations in India of ill-repute stoop down to. It would be wise not to underestimate the passion and will of a people who are struggling for their statehood for nearly sixty years. We hope you understand that it is our duty to ensure that the complicity of CSDS in this matter is recognized and condemned by the international and national bodies that monitor the activities of such organizations.
Thank you,
Sujai Karampuri,
Dileep Konatham
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Read the two-part expose by MissionTelangana.com of the survey done by CSDS in partnership with prestigious media houses CNN IBN – CNBC TV 18 and The Hindu.
– Samaikyandhra JAC Convener Conducts CSDS Telangana Survey!
– The CSDS Telangana Survey Is A Fraud
And read how CSDS issues a clarification, in which they accept all the allegations by Dileep and Sujai, but want the people of this country to believe that the survey results are unbiased and true.
Clarification on Telangana related findings of the State of the Nation Survey by the CSDS