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By: J R Janumpalli
The behavior of present Telangana Congress MLAs and MPs is ridiculously obsequious. While the people of their constituencies are rooting for Telangana state, these legislators are bootlicking their high command and blocking the formation of the new state. It is not uncommon for politicians to play pet dogs to their parties occasionally – in the short run, on certain policy exigencies. But the abject servility of this lot, in a democracy, on years together against agonizing struggle of their own people to get away from the yoke of exploitation, is very reprehensible. They are behaving like this since 2004. Meanwhile hundreds of people have laid down their lives, inestimable loss and untold miseries were heaped on the people of their constituency. The relentless struggle of the people to convert them on to their side on the hour of their dire need had no effect on these slaves. As if, adding insult to the injury, they were pretending assent on the outside with the people and are acquiescing on it in the sly to sabotage the struggle. They are helping the oppressors to keep people under the very yoke from which they want emancipation. We seldom see such weird behavior in a democracy.
It is a paradox. While 850 youth sacrifice their lives for freedom from Seemandhra hegemony, our reps who have to fight for our rights are cringing at the feet of the Congress high command. The MLAs and Ministers crave for the bread crumbs thrown at them via Andhra CM and are afraid of the wrath of their high command even in their dreams. The MPs play a different ball game. They enact their synthetic empathy to their constituency and away from it sing the paens for their presiding deity in Delhi. We are not expecting them to do any a ‘la pakisani style’ of coups or Nadendal Bhaskar Rao or Chandra Babu style of betrayals. We only expect them to act on behalf of their own people who have elected them. Because,their party has promised Telangana; they have got elected on Telangana slogan; their party has announced initiation of the process of state formation; went back on it owing to the connivance of Andhra Congress, TDP and ‘high command’. There were several occasions where they could have acted on behalf of their people most democratically and saved the situation for their constituency, ironically even for their own Party. In the hind sight we can now see that their party could have avoided the present predicament, if Telangana- congress leaders behaved responsibly upholding certain democratic values.
The UPA-II govt walked in to the present political mess because of their misgovernance by the coterie rule, giving a go by to Parliament and Cabinet. They have allowed Andhra Congress to hold them to ransom and dithered from holding fast to the declaration in Parliament. Their lack of political wisdom and the inability to deal with the situation and the ham handed approach to Jagan factor have forced them to come to this pass. In this mileu, the T – Congress never tried to assert their democratic responsibilities to their people. They have meekly followed the dictats of their high command. In fact as a group, if they had countered the motivated blackmail of Andhra Congress and TDP, they would have helped their high command to stick to their decision. This could have helped to enhance the prestige of Congress Party. Telangana would have come in to existence. With some trouble-shooting by the party and a diplomatic approach to Jagan, things would have fallen in to the groove in due course of time, for the advantage of Congress Party.
But, as it is, our Telangana Congress leaders, who are assiduously brought up on the ‘opium’ of loyalty to Gandhi family, never troubled their minds or hearts. Subsequently also they had several opportunities to play their trump card role, like in ‘Sakalajanula Samme’ and ‘no confidence motion’ against Kiran Kumar Reddy’s govt. In fact with their numbers, they were in a position to force a decision on Telangana and help their high command to extricate from the strangle hold of the filibuster of Andhras. But a politically inept Sonia Gandhi, Machiavellian Mukherjee and the corrupt ‘coterie’ have intimidated them. The unscrupulous Congress believed that, not exercising their democratic responsibility was for the good of their Party. The angst of their people was the least botheration for them. It is as the dictum goes ‘man proposes but God disposes’. The results of June bye-lections in Andhra region called the bluff of Andhra leaders in this matter, and have exposed the deceit of Congress and TDP parties, most strikingly. For all their malicious machinations, their high command is now caught on a sticky wicket – and struggling to bat on it.
Even now also, Telangana Congress leaders have a chance to make up for their earlier failures. They can corner their high command on the voting to Pranab K Mukherjee, the Presidential Candidate and the ‘bete noir’ of Telangana. But it is expecting too much from these ‘nincompoop-sychophants’, at this time. They say un ashamedly that they will jump on to the bandwagon before 6 months of next general elections, if the things continue as of now. They also entertain a hope in their hearts of hearts and greedily look forward to it. That hops is the declaration of Telangana before 2014, by Congress Party, giving them a new lease of political life and a windfall of positions, negating all their treachery to Telangana. The people of Telangana and the Telangana Joint Action Committee should think of a way to fix these traitors, for such perversion.
It is very difficult to explain this conduct from the same ethnic group of people, 4500 of whom have laid down their lives heroically in ‘Telangana Sayudha Poratam’; 369 of whom have dared the bullets of Police and became martyrs in 1969; 850 of whom have sacrificed their lives on their own volition in this present phase of movement. Perhaps it could be one of the other legacies of the past. They may be emulating the ‘henchmen’ of Nizam in ‘Telangana Sayudha Poratam’, as the old habits die hard. This syndrome is a ‘political serfdom’ in the middle of a democracy.