Fireworks light up the sky in Osmania University – Photo: Arjun Maddy
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By: Sujai K
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.
Though Telangana was merged into Indian Union in 1948 it never experienced freedom and self-rule. The promises made by Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech on night before Independence in 1947 and the guarantees made in Indian Constitution of 1950 were never applicable to people of Telangana. They remained subjugated and suppressed in their own country, stripped of their political freedoms, through the tyranny of majority. They were converted into an internal colony within a democratic setup.
Today’s decision is a sigh of relief for all of us, but a brief one, before we set onto the task of bringing political freedom, social emancipation and prosperity to our people. Now, we have to embark on building Telangana in a political atmosphere which is free from Seemandhra domination. We shall feel for the first time the taste of self-rule. And this occasion, while it calls for celebration, also calls for sobriety. Because now that Telangana will be delivered, it is time to keep up the promises made to people of Telangana. It calls for utmost responsibility, because there are nearly 35 million people who have very high expectations on how the new state is going to be.
The current decision to announce Telangana by Congress could be a ploy to contain the political parties like TRS and YSRCP, a political maneuver taken for political gains. For four long years, the same Congress party refused to pay attention to the struggles of millions of Telangana people who have participated in thousands of protests and rallies, carrying out hundreds of major agitations, wherein nearly thousand people sacrificed their lives.
It is indeed sad that India has not demonstrated political maturity in dealing with aspirations of peoples through proper democratic means and methods, and instead it has curbed such movements as long as possible, only to grant the statehood when it made political sense for the ruling parties.
We hope that in future, people of other regions in India, who suffer from the tyranny of the majority, do not have to go through so much struggle and pain as people of Telangana have gone through in the last sixty years. We hope that there are no more of saga of betrayals, the delaying tactics of commissions and committees, the brutal suppression of people’s movements through armed forces, imposition of emergency like situation, and curtailing of freedom of expression, when it comes to creation of new states.
We believe and support in creation of more states in India and extend our full support to those people’s struggles.