56 years after Jawaharlal Nehru shot down the proposal to merge Telangana and Andhra into one state as a “tint of expansionist imperialism” planned by the coterie with power and pelf in the then Andhra state, Telangana now finds entangled in the same capitalist games Nehru feared. As KCR's fast-unto-death enters its 8th day today and all associations worth their name in Telangana lent their support and quite visibly so, the men in power and in opposition maintain a deafening silence. The apolitical movement led by students and supported by government employees, lawyers, teachers, journalists, artistes, peasants and others as disparate as barbers and washermen gained unheard of support across castes, religions and much to its credit stayed peaceful unlike the previous agitation in 1969. Formulations ranging from the extreme left to the extreme right of the political spectrum are supporting the demand for a separate state. But nothing seems to move the political parties despite such an overwhelming advocacy for the new state. It is almost as if the much boasted democracy does not even exist. If the numbers are so overwhelmingly in favour of Telangana then why is that the parties don't jump on to the bandwagon and spearhead the movement politically? Why is that political parties and political leaders are failing to protect the interests of the people whom they claim to represent even when the people concerned are openly threatening to close their political careers? Therein lies all that is wrong not just with Telangana's backwardness but with Indian democracy.The answer lies in understanding how our 'democracy' works now. The present situation in AP makes us believe that somehow the CM and his ilk believe the agitation will subside as days go by and then all those agitators' votes can be bought by money thrown in by all those big businessmen who get to benefit with the status-quo - the undivided state. After all, that is the confidence our political elite got over the years in absence of any meaningful people's movement. Welcome to our Plutocracy. Irrespective of the party in power, this is how our beloved democracy works now. Masquerading as a democracy, the plutocracy thrives with a 21 gun salute.
The history of Telangana's negligence is testimony to the fact that power and pelf overrules all agreements, safeguards, even those provided by the supreme court. The plutocrats in AP have grown from strength to strength playing mostly playing the caste politics. They have acquired a vice-like grip on administration machinery, government policy and the media. The same is continuing now. Just look at the media coverage of the mass moment in AP. NDTV's Hyderabad correspondent literally makes fun of the agitating students as if they are some uneducated thugs. He makes absolutely no mention of the cause of the agitation. And of course there is no debate on how the government broke all laws during and after the arrest of KCR. Same with how the police baton-charged the students when they are in a peaceful rally. Times of India does the same. It laughs at KCR, the agitators, calls them all hooligans. Among the vernacular media, it is to be noted that the two major media houses EENADU and SAKSHI continues to ignore the movement, when they are not showing it in bad light. This is not a surprise considering the stakes these media house' owners have in the present political setup which would be disrupted in case Telangana becomes a reality. Most of the national media like NDTV, IBN seems to have taken the ruling party's membership! Their coverage on any event/issue reflects what is whetted by the madam's aides in Delhi's Race course road, if not their correspondents' own narrow-minded views.The media example is but one aspect of the present opposition to the movement. The more important part is that the YSR regime spawned a whole political and administrative system closely linked with Mafia. A mafia that operates on the realty business in and around Greater Hyderabad and which made a successful business out of the huge 'welfare' and 'development' programmes in irrigation and health. The MLAs, MPs presently representing AP, including Telangana, are but products of this system. The money spent in the last election in AP is estimated to be the highest in the country, thanks to this Mafia's sponsorship. So how would we expect these representatives to break the tentacles of money-driven politics and reflect people's aspirations? That explains why not all the MPs, MLAs representing Telangana are forthcoming about what they are doing to attain statehood despite their parties' manifestos supporting the creation of Telangana.
While all stakeholders who get to loose with a separate state are already united across party lines, the forces for the new state are grouping together right from grassroots level. The spark that ignited this voluntary mobilisation is the governments' atrocious actions against KCR and the students. What KCR could not do in his lifetime has been achieved by the brutal use of force by the rulers. It triggered unprecedented solidarity among the Telangana advocates. Despite the fact that the matter determines the destiny of 35 million people, the CM and Chandrababu Naidu planned their Delhi visit during KCR's planned fast and stayed put there for few days. They must have hoped KCR issue would be settled by the time they return. But it is not to be. Even after they returned, they are feigning indifference and are avoiding even media and public appearances. These two who are otherwise at each others throats on every other issue have adapted a common approach towards the Telangana movement. Not just them, Loksatta Jayaprakash Narayan indeed was a shock when he compared Telangana demand with that of Ayodhya Ramjanmabhoomi issue! JP who incessantly talks about rights of citizens maybe considers Telanganites to be second-class citizens and so he sees no issue in the continuous diversion of Telangana's resources and open discrimination of government policies against Telangana. The fact that all possible alternatives for the statehood have already been experimented with in the shape of The Gentlemen’s Agreement, The All Party Accord, The Eight Point Formula, The Five Point Formula, The Six Point Formula etc and that they all failed does not even merit a discussion for JP. JP 'the objective and the intellectual' has been a revelation. So much for his fight to empower the common man.
It is clear Telangana and its people continue to be low on the priority list in the existing setup. Whether the building up civilian movement for Telangana would sustain itself and challenge the might of the political setup is to be seen. If this indeed upturns the plutocracy, it would be a milestone not just for Telangana but for the spirit of democracy in this country and goes a long way in inspiring other grassroots movements that are fighting the reckless destruction caused by the plutocrats in the Indian state. Nehru, in whichever world he is, would find solace. If this movement is suppressed as per the plans of the plutocrats in Congress and TDP, I would hate to imagine what it would mean for the fabric of democracy in general and the self-respect of Telanganites in particular. Though I have a lingering feeling this would not be another Irom Sharmila case.
