Jai Telangana - Part 2

In January 2010, I was returning to my hometown, Warangal, from Hyderabad. I was with my parents in a car. That day was a bandh in Telangana region. We passed through several villages along the way. In the town squares a few people sat down and protested peacefully, with banners made of cotton cloth. In one of the villages, they stopped the traffic from passing through the village. We waited behind a long line of trucks and cars. After some time, we drove through the narrow by lanes of the village to save time and reach home early. While passing through one of the houses, I saw a lean old man in a white dhoti, and a young boy, who sat side by side on the step in front of their house and protested with the placard, ‘Jai Telangana’.

Few of the people said, ‘Why are you allowing them to pass? Stop them.’ Before they could take any action we were far ahead.

These people who protested for the formation of Telangana were common people in Telangana region from a nondescript village. They were daily wage workers/farmers who supported the cause in their free time. They showed their desire to be a part of the movement, in every small way they can. They took a piece of cloth, wrote slogans with paint on top of it and chanted, ‘Jai Telangana’.

The next morning, in the newspaper, I looked at photographs of protests in the Seemandhra region. The protesters were all well dressed and they held flashy banners of ‘Samaikhyandhra’. Wow! What a contrast! All the more, nobody even reported in the papers about the protest in the small village that I passed through, yesterday!

This movement is a people’s movement and is not fueled from rich politicians’ pockets or their motives, because every rung of the society from farmers to doctors to lawyers, in every village, in every city in Telangana protested peacefully from 2009 to 2013 and even before that, in 1969. Just think about it, how much money would be needed to organize such mass scale protests, for such a long time? 

Whenever, I saw the police patrolling in Osmania University (O.U.) campus, it hurt me. I am the product of this great institution. I lived in the campus for four years during Engineering and experienced the beauty, the intellect and calmness of O.U. During the Telangana movement, I saw the students, having a clash with police. Rubber bullets were shot at them, as though it was a merciful alternative to killing them. They were beaten up ruthlessly like animals and random police cases were booked on them, destroying their future. I vicariously experienced the anguish of the students, since we are from the same institution. O.U. and the students have been maligned by the press as close to being an anti-social institution, producing anti-social elements, when it is not so.  

                Campus is meant for students to roam around free, not for the police to patrol

                                                      Telangana struggle in O. U. 

Every Telanganite who has lived in Telangana region at least for a short period of time experienced the struggle. I read a very beautiful article about Telangana movement in which author compared the relationship between Seemandhra and Telangana people as the relationship of husband and wife. The wife wants divorce from the husband; she is psychologically separated from him. All she needs is the physical separation. Instead of giving the divorce, the husband beats her, rapes her and tortures her every single day and he has been doing that since 1957. In a very simple sentence, this is the story of Telangana struggle.

I want to leave you with a question. Take any job organization, any educational institution be it government or private, be it within the country or overseas. What is the ratio of Andhra people to Telanganites? Andhra people are at least twice as that of Telangana people. Why do the people from Andhra dominate everywhere? Are people of Telangana so stupid, that they could not improve their lifestyle? Or is it because the poverty of the region prevented most of the people from getting access to basic education and thereby a better lifestyle?

                                                        THE END
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Images from google images