“The process of forming the state of Telangana will be initiated. An appropriate resolution will be moved in the Assembly.” “We are concerned about Rao’s health. We request him to withdraw his fast immediately. We also appeal to all concerned, especially students, to withdraw their agitation and help restore normalcy” - Chidambaram
OU, my Alma mater is brimming with pride. For, it provided the rigorous democratic voices that stomped the streets and formed a deadly cocktail with KCR's righteous challenge of fast-unto-death. The cocktail had to be detoxified before it boiled over today at the massive rally towards the assembly. Chidambaram, the boss of home affairs did just that. He announced the initiation of the process to create Telangana. For someone who is hell-bent to extend the rule of state deep inside the Maoist bastions of dandakaranya, to appeal to the students especially means an acknowledgement of the purposeful agitation they spearheaded. Just for once, everyone felt the country is still alive to democratic voices. Its invigorating to see a 5 decade just struggle achieve its rightful end in a 10 day spontaneous outburst of restrained righteous anger. For a country that is a starved of civil movements, this is a tonic, coming as it is to fruition on the Human Rights Day.
"Slept in Andhra, Woke up in Telangana". Thus went an SMS doing the rounds today. This is more true in case of Chandrababu who seem to be startled to wake up in a state, he thought, would exist forever, only in parties' manifestos. Ever since he trucked up with TRS in elections earlier this year, he maintained his party is all for Telangana but he also took pains at times to explain that TDP itself as a party would not participate in any movement to campaign for the new state. That is a stand which clearly exposed whether the alliance was for votes or to address the genuine concerns of Telangana. He thought he made sure he would get the TRS vote-bank even while absolving himself from any responsibility to keep the issue alive, leave aside sustaining or taking the movement forward. Showing his credibility, he didn't budge from his stand and did nothing for the cause. So much so that he and his party sat like mute spectators watching the Govt's 11 day emergency-type rule to suppress KCR's fast and the student agitation. It was almost as if Chandrababu announced with his indifferent attitude that Telangana is not just a different state but a foreign country! So for anyone to expect him to accept Telangana as a reality is a bit too much. Now he says he only supported starting consultations on the issue, not the creation of the state itself. The fact that his party in an all-party meeting with the CM reaffirmed support for the Telangana resolution, whenever it is placed in the house, as recently as on 07 December makes a national laughing stock out of Chandrababu. This duplicity on his part stands in contrast to the clear-cut agenda the students agitated with. And it is this incompatible outlook towards issues and resolutions that is now making Andhra and Telangana break apart, with absolutely no effort made to talk away the discrimination concerns. It is this dubious attitude on the part of Andhra political leadership that confined, one after the other all agreements and accords made to do justice to Telangana, to the dustbin. While for 11 days the students struggled and KCR fasted forces in all parties that have reservations against the new state maintained a deafening silence on Telangana trusting their lobbying to succeed over the democratic campus/street/hospital agitation and suicides. In fact, for 2 days TRS insisted on discussing the Telangana issue in the assembly while both the Congress and TDP avoided it and made it a low priority issue to be discussed later in day. While the advocates of Telangana insisted on discussion, the TDP and the Congress did everything to silence them and when the parties woke up in Telangana, they all whined in unison that they were not consulted!
The opposition for Telangana is spearheaded by the plutocrats who built business empires worth thousands of crores leveraging their power in this vast state. For them to succumb to the new state would mean the risk of dishonouring commitments to made businesses to barter away Govt land, resources and lucrative contracts in lieu of investments made in their own companies. Even while the whole mining mafia is unravelling, Telangana serves as a double whammy. To see the many big ticket industrialist MPs trying even today to gain favour with her highness in Delhi just vindicates that it is the interests of these plutocrats that were and are stopping Telangana in its tracks. Its natural all these forces across party lines trust in the same lobbying which in the first place merged by force Telangana into this state in 1956. But this time, the uprising has been so severe no lobbying worked its way into Race Course Road thanks to the reckless use of force by the state. The disproportionate use of force without leaving any scope for dialogue left only 2 options as possible results in the end - Yes or No for the new state. The National security adviser was supposed to have told our state MPs that he has reports of an apolitical 'civil uprising' in Telangana and that it is worrying Delhi. Hence the use of force has been counterproductive for the plutocrats. Left with no middle ground, the creation of Telangana has been fast-tracked last midnight. The plutocrats lost the plot. KCR rose from the phoenix, albeit looking over his shoulders, the students behind him.
