My name is Sheena Roy, I reside in United States of America in the state of California.

I am representing the 7,000 members combining Telangana Fan Page, Telangana Group, Telangana – 29th State of India group on Facebook and writing this to you on their behalf.

I was astonished at how many Telangana NRI associations popped up across United States of America recently. Every major city in U.S. has a Telangana NRI Association (TENA) with events such as Dhoom Dhaam, Batukamma, Ugadi, Dasara and Diwali celebrations every now and then. Boston, SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, Sacramento, New Jersey, New York, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Houston, New Hampshire, Delaware, Rhode Island, Washington D.C, Seattle, even Portland, Oregon boasts of a TENA chapter. Then I just went on the Facebook (A social network) and saw that there are roughly 72 Telangana groups representing accent, culture, festivals, and political opinions of Telangana people. Curious about the phenomena, I went to Orkut, another social network and found even more forums and groups of Telangana people.

I was beginning to get the drift, but I was not completely satisfied. I was told that there are 14,000 blogs representing opinions of Telangana people worldwide, there are Telangana development forums in every major city where Telugu people live including the Middle Eastern, South East Asian, North American, European, and Australian countries. Every Telangana person who cared a little about Telangana talked or expressed their opinions vocally…they all want a separate Telangana that is politically autonomous, administratively autonomous, and financially independent from Andhra Pradesh. I was told that the TANA (Telugu Association of North America that represented the UNITED Andhra Pradesh) membership dropped by 40 percent. It looks like, in North America, the Telangana and Andhra people have demerged emotionally. This split even applied to the Temple board members and associations.

I was shocked to see this is even more pronounced within India. The people of Telangana have irrevocably separated emotionally from their counterparts in Andhra and Seema. Every major city had a huge congregation with over a lac of people, every single village and district conducted some kind of show in support of Telangana. Hyderabad itself had a multitude of these events representing various communities, genders, religions, and student groups.

The assembly seems like it is vertically divided into two. The Telangana ministers are performing their duties perfunctorily and sullenly without any passion or interest. They do not seem interested in the proceedings of the Assembly sessions. The MLAs from the ruling party have divided regionally, as did the MLAs from the major opposition party. Employees in Secretariat, Police, Revenue, and other government offices also segregated into their own groups. The same people who used to sit together to eat food, enjoy watching the movies together now looked at each other suspiciously. obviously there is no love lost between the Seema Andhra and Telangana people.

Hence I ask, do you think this union will work in the future? When people are this divided in their opinions, do you think that it is wise to force the Telangana people to live together with Seemandhra people? Can we operate in the Assembly, fighting about regional disparities on every single subject? Can the ministers even function while they are being threatened with bodily harm if they enter Telangana? Can a Telangana student get a fair treatment, when they think that the Andhra teachers are targeting them? What about the youth when they think that their job placements are fewer, their opportunities are minimal in United A.P? Do you want more Telangana youth to commit suicides because they are obsessed with the idea of Telangana?

Our answer is a resounding and emphatic ‘NO’ – People of Andhra Pradesh will not survive this in a UNIFIED ANDHRA PRADESH. Every self-respecting Telangana person wants a separate HYDERABAD/TELANGANA state. (I am deliberately calling this as HYDERABAD state, so no one would think that there is TELANGANA without HYDERABAD as it’s capital). Honestly, no Seemandhra person will be capable of living in Telangana with this kind of aggression, obsession, and political activism. The Hyderabadis or any other migrants, who have been living in Hyderabad or other T-regions for more than 25 years, should call themselves Telanganites and forget about their loyalties to the region they left behind.

Take a look around, TG people don’t want to see the Andhra dominated movies, and they want to ban Andhra goods to show their displeasure of staying in united Andhra Pradesh. They are threatening their leaders as well as the Seemandhra leaders not to set foot in their villages and districts until they are given a separate Telangana. The educated people are as divided and as invested as the rural Telangana people. The fight is for water rights that should not be ignored anymore. This fight is for the precious government jobs, and this fight is for self-respect of four crores of Telangana people. Telangana people do not want to be subservient anymore to the land grabbing, and opportunistic Seema Andhra politicians and businessmen.

As educated NRIs, we want to develop Telangana, fund rural schools, invest in our districts, but without the undue influence of the Seemandhra leaders who seemed to be diverting our positive overtures to their selfish interests.

Dear Sree Krishna Committee members, Please do not force this union on us anymore, we have irreconcilable differences, we have showed statistical proofs that Telangana has been treated unfairly under the Seemandhra majority rule for the last 53 years. Please do no break the hearts of Telangana people one more time, we have been betrayed many times before. We are peacefully requesting you to give your opinion that Telangana should be bifurcated from Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad as it’s capital.

Respectfully yours,

Sheena Roy

Lowest:
MahbubNagar – 44.40% In Telangana
7 out of 9 districts are below 60%
4 out of 9 districts are below 55%

Rangareddy district has most colleges but only because all the big colleges are in the outskirts of the capital city.

Andhra Statistics: 7 out of 9 are greater than 60%
1 out of 9 is over 55%
1 out of 9 is under 55%

Rayala Seema:
3 out of 4 are over 55%
1 out of of 4 is over 60%

(capital not included)
4 out of bottom 25%
6 out of bottom 50%
2 out of top 50%
1 out of top 25%
/* Bottom 3 are TG */

Andhra & Seema:

(13 districts)
2 out of bottom 25%
7 out of bottom 50%
6 out of top 50%
4 out of top 25%
/* Top 2 are Andhra */
]]> http://sheenaroy.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/district-income-in-andhra-pradesh-2004-2005/feed/ 3 sheenaroy http://sheenaroy.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/i-am-from-telangana-i-am-not-a-naxalite/ http://sheenaroy.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/i-am-from-telangana-i-am-not-a-naxalite/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:32:00 +0000 Sheena http://sheenaroy.wordpress.com/?p=37 ]]> Today, I went and saw the movie called ‘I am khan, I am not a terrorist’. The movie is about a Muslim man suffering from a type of autism called ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’ who suddenly finds himself branded as a terrorist after the September 11th incident in US. As a law-abiding man with simple ideals, he doesn’t understand why he is accused of being a terrorist. The moral of the story was that there are only two kinds of people, good and evil, and they exist everywhere in all races, regions, and religions.

A few people brought to my attention that in some pro-united Andhra forums, and groups, any person asking for Telangana is termed as a Naxalite. The members are claiming that the Telangana supporters are instigators of violence, and they are T-rouble makers of the worst kind who are disrupting the peace and tranquility in Andhra Pradesh.  The accusers are educated Andhra people who have some form of fear that they will be driven out from Hyderabad if Telangana state is formed and Hyderabad becomes the capital of this new state.  Being a moderator of the Telangana forum, I will say that this kind of rhetoric is not just confined to the pro-United Andhra forums. Most of the administrators continuously monitor our walls for inflammatory speeches and try to moderate them. But still a few escape our close watch.  Some people attack the Andhras with equal fervor as they attack the Telangana people.

Firstly let me say clearly that I am all for the bifurcation of Telangana region from Andhra Pradesh. I don’t want the people to break up because of language, or because I have hatred for the other side. In fact, I enjoy the food, the movies, the literature belonging to the Andhra region. My reasons for the de-merger of the state are political, economic, and administrative. I think that ‘Unity’ is a politically correct word and in normal circumstances, every sane person would and should want people to be happily united. The key word here is in ‘normal circumstances’.

I strongly believe that smaller states are better for administration, especially with the high populace in India. India has already separated three states in the recent years into six. The three new states, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarkhand have stated higher GDP growth since their formation.

Secondly, I believe that there are regional imbalances because of the uneven political representation in the state. The Seema Andhra people have a majority in the state, they have roughly 75 more representatives than Telangana. In the last 56 years, they have enjoyed their leaders at the helm as the chief minister of the state. Only four times, the Telangana chief ministers have come to the power and three out of the four times, they have been pulled down by the Seemandhra leaders before they fulfilled their tenure.

Because of the weak political representation, most of the irrigation projects in Telangana were put on the back burner, not maintained, and those that started were drawn and built to give more water to the Seemandhra regions than the Telangana region. When I tell this fact to my Andhra friends, they told me that our farmers are too lazy, so they didn’t want the water but wanted the dole outs from the state. Some told me that since Telangana region is a plateau, the lift irrigation is more expensive.  Painstakingly I did research and found that majority of the projects are not lift irrigation.  The government did not make any efforts to implement drip irrigation, minor canals, small lift irrigation projects that are less expensive to curtail the over usage of ground water. This resulted in depletion of ground water. The farmers took loans from the banks to dig bore/tube wells. But they needed electricity to run the borewells. Electricity was scarce too because there were no power projects in Telangana. So the farmers failed miserably and defaulted on their loans. In the last decade, Telangana ranked the highest in terms of farmer suicides.

90% of the white-collar bureaucrats in the government are from Seemandhra. When a Telangana person does all the due diligence and goes for a mining permit, somehow the permission is given to a native of Andhra. 95% of the government contracts go to the Seema or Andhra businessmen. This monopolization suppressed the Telangana people and you can name probably a handful that are millionaires, while there are hundreds of people from Andhra who can claim to be millionaires and even a couple of billionaires.

The corruption and greed of Seema Andhra leaders and businessmen is another reason why I believe it would be best for us to divide. The government (i.e. Chief ministers and powerful politicians belonging to SeemaAndhra) gave away lands almost free of charge to several Andhra policians and businessmen for favors received. The lands in Hyderabad and surrounding Telangana villages were given on the pretext of creating industries for employing locals, but instead were turned into real estate ventures. Today about 167,000 acres of government urban land in Hyderabad is in the hands of Seemandhra people.

When it comes to funds distribution, the inequality is glaringly visible. The universities in Andhra enjoy a lot more funds, and every year a new university pops in that region while the Telangana universities are always squeezed for money and have bare facilities.

Based on the weaker political power, lower per capita income, lower literacy rates, lower employment numbers, and less number of acres that are irrigated in Telangana, and increasing greed of the Seemandhra leaders, I believe that a division is absolutely necessary.  Added to this are the growing animosities between the two people, the mental anguish and fear from both sides.

So what happens to Hyderabad? Hyderabad being in telangana region will have to stay as the capital of Telangana. The state capital for Seemandhra region needs to be selected, the money and seed capital for the infrastructure needs to be given to the Seemandhra people. The people who will lose the government jobs will need to be repatriated to their region. If Andhra people want to remain where they are, they should remain where they are – after all, Hyderabad is in India and we are all Indians, as an Indian, you or I should have the right to stay where we want.

I want to be fair to the Seema Andhra people in Hyderabad. Most of them are ordinary people who came to Hyderabad because it is the capital of A.P, they found jobs and settled here. Some of them have been in the city for 25 years or more. They fear that they will be sent back if Telangana comes, their jobs will be in jeopardy and their lands will be seized. Being a moderate and educated person, I would like to impress upon them that unless they are in a state government job, they have nothing to fear. But like Khan’s mother said, there are good and evil people in the world, and some evil people do threaten violence against the ordinary Andhra and Seema people with dire consequences. Will this increase or decrease if Andhra Pradesh remains united? I believe if the separation happens quickly and smoothly, people will live and let live. The longer the agitation is let to simmer, the worse the consequences will be.

I have a lot of friends who have had mixed marriages. I sympathize with their plight. They want the state to be united. They want their kids to have one native state, now they have to go through the same identity crises that most of the American Born Indian kids go through. Who do they show loyalty to? Where do they live? This is a delicate problem, but this is not the same kind of problem that the Telangana farmers are facing, this is not the same kind of problem that the Telangana unemployed youth are battling. Their agitation is for food, shelter, and education not for emotional comfort.

Are people from two different states not marrying today? How are the children from such marriages coping with the situation? It’s not like we are going to be two states speaking two different languages, right? It’s not like we are building a wall between our regions.

The only culprits here are the leaders from both sides, who have a lot more to lose or gain if Telangana comes. These are the Seemandhra leaders who have acquired lands illegally in Telangana, especially in Greater Hyderabad and worry that people will start looking closely into their activities. These are the Telangana leaders who are power hungry and not interested in their constituents and their needs.

The rhetoric on both sides is increasing day by day. The hostilities on internet forums is reminding me of ‘Road Rage’. On the road, people try to cut each other off, they curse, they yell obscenities when someone breaks the rules, the drivers show their middle fingers, and sometimes they even shoot each other when a crazy person loses his or her cool. I think this is probably because we are pretty sure we will never see that person face to face in a party or workplace. The same phenomenon is taking place on the forums, facebook, Orkut, Myspace groups, and fan pages. Under the guise of anonymity, we take swings at each other, trying to be as crude and as insensitive as possible.

On the Telangana forums, every Andhra person is a leech, a bloodsucker, or a Shylock. But most of the Andhra people are your co-workers, your neighbors, and your family members who probably had no idea that all these injustices were happening in Telangana. They were blissfully ignorant all this time, and now that the shit hit the fan, they are bristling at the personal insults and attacks against them. The telangana people show insensitivity about the migrants, screaming slogans like ‘idli sambar go back’,  ‘Andhra Bhago’ etc.

Telangana people should stop blaming the ordinary Andhra person. Their only fault is staying silent and blind when injustices were happening and enjoying the favors bequeathed upon them by their leaders. It is perhaps not a deed done with deliberation, but with oblivious ignorance.

The Seema Andhra leaders and the predominantly Andhra media today are trying to term Telangana people as naxalites, trying to create a fear in the Center and suppress the student movement. This propaganda has moved to the internet, now the Andhra people take pleasure in calling all Pro-Telangana people naxalites. They too show their indifference and apathy when young kids from Telangana die, committing suicides.

Andhra people should stop thinking that these demands are because the Telangana people are against them. The movement was born ‘For’ the Telangana people, not ‘Against’ any other region.

In these circumstances, it is foolish to stay together and beget violent thoughts or deeds on both sides. It is a merciful thing if the center grants the separation of Telangana as quickly as possible when there is still some love and respect between us.

I am from Telangana, I am not a Naxalite.

“Deceit!” Cried the Telanganite. “We are once again Cheated” bellowed many a young men from Telangana. The fury on the road was visibly scorching. Effigies were burned, ministers convoys got attacked. The news channels broadcasted the angry tirades of the Telangana student JAC leaders. The Sree Krishna Committee’s terms of references elicited a violent and explosive reaction in many people, surprisingly from some of the Andhra and Seema people as well.

The clichéd expression of ‘Tangled web’ is entirely applicable to the UPA government that seemed to do nothing right in regard to Telangana. Did the UPA government really set out to cheat and deceive the Telangana people, or did it end up here because of Congress party’s incompetence?

Let’s tackle the machinations first. The accusations against congress party are many. Firstly, that they have succumbed to the money bags from Seemandhra businessmen and politicians. Secondly, there is speculation that Congress wants to demerge Telangana from A.P in time for Rahul Gandhi’s accession to the Prime Minister’s throne in 2014. Thirdly, Congress is scared of losing elections in Andhra and Seema areas if the division does happen.

Is it likely that there is tremendous influence of the Seemandhra MPs on the congress core committee in Delhi? Most emphatically yes. It has been very obvious from the beginning that Veerappa Moily, Ahmed Patel, and Pranab Mukherjee have been seen rubbing shoulders with YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, KVP Ramachander Rao, Lagadapati Rajagopal, T. Subbiram Reddy, Kavuri Sambashiva Rao, the five rich businessmen/politicians that have the most to lose if Telangana splits from Andhra Pradesh. There have been accusations that money changed hands, and this was done with the knowledge of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and the congress high command. Whether the charges of corruption and bribery are true or not, the Telangana people lost their faith in getting justice from Congress.

What about Sonia’s aspirations to see her son becoming the PM in 2014? If this is really the intent of Congress, I am not sure if it is entirely thought out. It is highly unlikely that Congress would win the elections in Andhra and Seema areas in 2014 if the center caves in to the Telangana demands. The win in Telangana also is dicey, because the delay is going to give TRS and TDP the grounds to attack congress. They are not going to relent in the next three years. Congress is growing increasingly unpopular in Telangana as it delays the decision. Would it be better if Congress acts faster on the Telangana issue? It is possible that at least it will score big in Telangana area, and given three years to forget, it might not fare too badly in the opposing side. Right now, with the delay, both the voters, and the JAC is leaning on congress leaders to resign. It has become increasingly unsafe for the representatives and ministers to travel in their constituencies.

If you analyze the politics in Andhra and Seema area today, the following facts emerge. Chiranjeevi of Praja Rajyam is marginally popular in only two coastal districts. The powerful Kamma community supports the TDP almost exclusively. Jagan, son of YSR is threatening to break away from congress and start a new party in Andhra area if Congress goes ahead with the bifurcation.  But his popularity seems to be waning (or never existed) and he is seen as both inexperienced and not a suitable heir to his father. Since Congress is popular with the backward and scheduled castes as well as the minorities, it might even come slightly ahead of the three in 2014 as memories fade away in the next three years.

Is the Congress party intentionally deceiving Telangana person because of the reasons above? If this is indeed the case, then the web it weaved has become cumbersomely tangled. Is it more likely that the party is incompetent and has taken wrong steps from the beginning? Let’s view the sequence of things from Dec 9, 2009. First the union cabinet met to discuss KCR’s fast un-to-death for Telangana amidst rumors of his failing. All the eight parties from Andhra Pradesh came to a consensus and declared that they were not opposed to the separation of Telangana.  At midnight that day, the home minister Mr. Chidambaram announced on behalf of the cabinet that the process for Telangana would be started and appealed to KCR to end his fast. The announcement brought great joy to the pro-separatists but anger and sporadic protests in Andhra.  Although Chidambaram is accused of taking matter into his hands and that he has an ulterior motive of giving his home state Tamil Nadu an edge over Andhra Pradesh by splitting AP into two, this was a little far-fetched. More than incompetence from the center, this looked like a deception of the Andhra and Seema leaders for agreeing to Telangana during the 2009 elections and then again around KCR fasting but now demanding a united Andhra.

The next steps that the center took on Dec 23 were more reactionary than well thought out. The announcement on Dec 23, took the process of Telangana backward. The Telangana people considered this retreat a deception. It was a conciliatory step toward Seema-andhra, but shouldn’t the government stand by what is right? The agitations continued with gusto in Telangana ever since the retracing by the center. Despite the Andhra media controlling the news of the grass root level movement, the Telangana people showed their extreme displeasure by their innovative methods. All men, women, child, community, educational, and professional organizations participated with fasts, and sit-ins. Students organized and conducted massive protests and convened in hundreds of thousands in the seven universities in Telangana region. Medicos, lawyers participated in hunger strikes. Almost half a million people partook in a human chain across 500 KMs. Music shows, strikes, bandhs, cooking on the streets, classes on the street, you name it, the Telangana person engaged in it. But the center paid no attention to it. This is gross negligence and incompetence. Instead they brought in a new governor citing the presence of Naxalites, the maoist extremists in Telagana region and their infiltration into the student movement.

If the center is turning a blind eye to protests, then should it not pay more attention to what’s happening to the losses to business in Andhra Pradesh and how it is affecting India? Every time a bandh happens in Hyderabad, the losses incurred by the state and center increase. What is important for the rulers in Delhi, the economic health of India as a whole, or it’s own self-preservation?

What is it really hoping to achieve with one more committee, has not the case for Telangana been made repeatedly in the past fifty-three years? It is inconceivable that the center does not know that the people of Telangana feel discriminated and have been at a disadvantage?  Is it not public knowledge that inequalities exist in the areas of political power, jobs, irrigation projects, urban land allocations, monopolization of government contracts in favor of the Seemandhra businessmen? The center wants to ignore all this – this is both deception and incompetence.

Telangana was blindsided yet again, after Dec 9 announcement they had their hopes high.  They hoped that the Sri Krishna committee would be tasked to develop a roadmap to divide the state but the committee’s terms of reference include united Andhra Pradesh State option. Whether it is their naivety or stupidity, it doesn’t matter. Now the agitations will continue for another ten months (The SKK committee deadline is December 2010), more suicides will occur in Telangana, businesses will suffer, and student education will be in limbo land.  The disenfranchised and frustrated Telangana youth who has so far protested peacefully might turn violent – I sincerely hope not. One year of economic downturn, and persistent agitations will definitely make India as a whole a loser and give advantage to China. At the end of the day Congress will be a loser all right, tangled in it’s own web of self-deception.

On the other hand, Telangana land, that we describe as ‘Koti Ratnala Veena’, a bejeweled lyre, a plucking instrument had been possessed, oppressed, and bedeviled by the Nizam rule for hundreds of years. Just when India sighed relief that it got its independence and Telangana people celebrated as they broke the shackles of Nizam’s iron chains, Telangana was merged with the Andhra which broke away from Madras. The Andhra people felt suffocated in the predominantly Tamilian state and felt they were treated as second-class citizens. They desperately felt their self-respect was under attack in the Madras state and looked for other avenues to escape. They looked around and saw Telugu people in the state of Hyderabad and wanted to merge with them to create a state under the linguistic principle proposed by the central government. It was their promised land. On the other hand, Telangana people, recently freed from Nizam’s rule were not too keen to jump at the chance of the merger where they would be a minority. They had their doubts and with good reason. Against their intuition and the then Prime Minister’s judgment, the union happened. What became the ‘promised land’ for the Costa and Rayala Seema people, became an ‘afflicted land’ for the Telangana people. It seemed that their troubles and travails began all over.

The disparities emerged rapidly. The urban Telangana people were educated in Urdu under Nizam, while the élite in Costa, and Seema people were educated in English under the British. The Rural Telangana poor were indentured labor under Nizam as well as their feudal landlords. They did not know the ways of the world. The diversity was transparent; it was seen in culture, language, and outlook. The lopsidedness of migrant entrepreneurship of the Costa, Seema people weighed heavily against the submissive, and docile slavery of the Telangana people. With the merger Andhra moved their capital to Hyderabad since it was equipped with two airports, a well-developed railway system, hospitals, universities, and administrative buildings and a parliament. It has all the facilities that one would need in a capital.

Over the next five decades, the Andhra and Costa people dominated the Assembly, cornered urban lands around Hyderabad.  With dominance in bureaucracy and the legislature Andhras consistently granted their regions higher allocations of resources especially in the area of irrigation projects at the expense of Telangana. The farmers of Telangana depended on the rainwater and bore wells for irrigating their lands which were often undependable resulting in much hardship and occasional suicides.

The Andhra chief ministers had muscle and majority in the Assembly; they simply marginalized the Telangana leaders. Over 56 years, only four chief ministers from Telangana were elected, only one survived his whole term. The Andhra and Seema leaders ousted the other three chief ministers unceremoniously before their tenure completed. The Nagarjuna Sagar project on the Krishna river exemplifies the deception of the Andhra Engineers. The irrigation minister (from Costa) deliberately moved the project 20 miles downstream from the original planned location, as a result Costa districts got maximum benefit at the expense of Telangana. The contractors in question were also exclusively from Andhra. Numerous villages in Telangana were submerged and the displaced farmers did not get any compensation from the Government. The Pochampad project on the Godavari river was constructed to serve Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Adilabad, Warangal but the canal system was delayed for lack of funds for decades and now the reservoir is silted up reducing the storage capacity. Thus the fate of rural Telangana person was sealed.

The urban and suburban Telanganite did not fare any better. The Costa and Seema people occupied most of the top positions in the government. They broke all the rules of central government orders (ex. GO 610) and disregarded the reservations for Telangana people.  Government contracts usually went to Andhra businessmen. Any time there was a survey done on a Telangana irrigation project, an unfavorable report came out stating the project was not viable, and it was too expensive. In Judiciary, there is not a single advocate general from Telangana region. In Police, most of the top positions went to Andhra region. 90% of the top jobs in the areas of revenue collection, forestry, census board, civil engineering, land surveys, mining surveys, teaching, law, and other administrative areas were filled by the Andhra and Costa people.

The lands around Hyderabad were granted to Andhra speculators by the Government for paltry prices under the garb of industrial development.   The despair felt by the average Telangana college graduate and farmer increased tremendously. This initiated the first separate Telangana movement in the late sixties. The neo-literate of Telangana started pointing out the inequalities being meted out in the Andhra Pradesh Government. A historic win for Telangana party in the elections did not win anything for the people as they were soon sold out. Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India made Marri Chenna Reddy, the Telangana Praja Samiti chief, the AP Chief Minister. Chenna Reddy sacrificed the movement for personal gains. In the mean time Telanganites distrust for Andhra leaders continued.

When NTR came to power in 1980s, he marketed the ‘Telugu Pride’ and ‘Atma Gauravam’ brand and won the elections for his new ‘Telugu Desam’ party. But this pride was not spread to the Telangana region. During the subsequent governments of Chandrababu Naidu, and YS Raja Shekhar Reddy, things got worse. Naidu devised a scheme of selling the government land under the ‘special economic zone’ act at less than 2 Rs (approximately 10 cents) an acre to his buddies and his relatives, and to people who returned favors. (SEZs are often developed under a public-private arrangement, in which the public sector provides some level of support (provision of off-site infrastructure, equity investment, soft loans, bond issues, etc) to enable a private sector developer to obtain a reasonable rate of return on the project (typically 10-20% depending on risk levels). But instead of developing industries, the buyers quickly turned them into real estate ventures. This inflated the land surrounding the areas, and the clever speculators quickly made big bucks. This process continued in Raja Shekhar Reddy’s government. 99% of industry licenses were given to powerful Andhra lobbies. Almost all government contracts ended up either in the Andhra and Seema businessmen’s hands. The trickle down to Telangana areas was almost nil to none.

Mr. Naidu hyped Hyderabad as the second silicon valley of India, and it attracted some multi-national companies to Hyderabad, thus deriving the name ‘Cyberabad’. But still, the Telangana people benefited very little from the Information Technology and BPOs set up in Hyderabad. The Andhra and Seema youth became the beneficiaries of their parents’ wealth and steady jobs. They looked down on their Telangana peers, saying that they are not qualified, and they are lazy. In truth, the children of the Telangana farmers, and lower middle class had no way of competing with their Andhra and Seema contemporaries.

At this time, a young leader who was not particularly popular got peeved with Mr. Naidu and quit the Telugu Desam party and started his own party called Telangana Rashtra Samiti. Whatever his motive was at the time(Most people think, it’s because he wanted a key position in the cabinet and lost out), the premise with which he started the Telangana movement became a huge success.

(Next part will continue with Mr. Raj Shekhar Reddy’s regime and rise of TRS and popularity of Telangana sentiment)

The difference here, however is that only one party claims irremediable or irretrievable breakdown while the other says everything is fine the way it is and we should stay together. The impasse by itself is an irreconcilable difference in the path of clean de-merger or bifurcation of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.

Typically in these cases, a no fault divorce is granted if both parties agree. In this case, Telangana claims the fault sorely lies with the Andhra and Seema rulers.

On the other hand, for the Andhra people, the bone of contention is not so much the divorce of TG, but the claim of joint property in Hyderabad. They claim that they invested 53 years in Hyderabad and they want Hyderabad to be a Union Territory, a free zone. Telangana people argue that greater than 400 years of history binds them to Hyderabad and since it lies in the middle of Telangana and can not be wrested from them at any cost.

The tug-of-rope between the two is causing a major headache for the U.P.A govt and becoming a classic catch-22 situation. If they go ahead and bifurcate the state, they may lose the vote of Costa and Seema districts. If they don’t, they will lose miserably in the Telangana districts. Added to all this is the fact that in the recent 2009 assembly elections, every single party in their manifestos promised to give Telangana state. When KCR the chief of TRS went through an indefinite fast, U.P.A govt quickly went into a huddle to avert a major riot in Telangana, came out and announced that it will start work on the bifurcation. But the hue and cry raised by the Costa and Seema leaders and the staged protests by the people left the govt aghast and scrambling to retract their statement in less than a week. This 180 degree turn by the politicians indeed took every one by surprise. Firstly the politicians never thought that their bluff would be called by the U.P.A. Govt and secondly they did not expect the ire of their constituents. Now, the central govt is confused and is dilly dallying on the issue even as Telangana leaders threaten the govt with a deadline for Jan 28.

The differences continue to be raised and magnified in the mean time. The fight for political sovereignty, water rights, resource allocation, and administrative control have now gone beyond that, and the same people who used to co-exist peacefully are back biting and telling each other they are different in culture, language as well. They spar over how there was emasculation, belittling of their culture (mainly the Telanganites point the blame at Coastal/Seema people) They fling hundreds of reasons at each other why they should separate or not separate. No one listens or comprehends the other persons debates or arguments whether they are factual or made up, but the rebuttals come instantaneously. Telangana people claim that the Andhra dominated movie industry does not depict any locations from Telangana regions citing that it is always A for Amalapuram in Andhra but not A for Adilabad in Telangana or A for Ananthapur in Seema and B for Bheemavaram in Andhra and not B for Bonagiri in Nalgonda. The examples given are many saying that the hero always hails from Andhra, speaks with Andhra accent, and the Telangana guy ends up being the villain or comedian. The dubbing is all done in chaste Coastal accent and Telangana accent is laughed upon.

The Andhra people claim that Telangana leaders were useless leaders that did nothing to Telangana and that they are more educated and more entrepreneurial while Telangana people are feudal and backward.

Telangana people accuse that Costa and Seema migrants to Hyderabad never integrated into the society but instead cocooned themselves in their expensive bungalows in Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills.

The biggest squabble is about the land grabbing/land mafia in the Greater Hyderabad. Telanganites point the finger at Mr. Naidu and Mr. Reddy the last two chief ministers who sold the govt and wakf lands at almost nothing to their kith and kin. Now those lands are worth in millions. Mr. Lagadapati, the son-in-law of an ex-cabinet minister Upendra Parvathaneni is considered to be a Billion dollar money. The Lanco Hills property of Mr. Lagadapati lies in Manikonda that was alleged to have been purchased for a pittance during Naidu’s regime.

As the time progresses, the squabbling is getting worse and worse. Even people who were neutral before are taking a stance for or against Telangana.

Why is the division becoming so hard for the U.P.A govt when BJP successfully bifurcated three states in the recent past? What will happen on January 28? Will all the parties in Telangana come together and announce their resignations or will they squabble amongst themselves as usual and put aside the movement?

Will the Telangana Rashtra Samiti party be adjusting and be a consensus player? So far it has exhibited remarkable control considering that K. Chandra Shekhar Rao, a firebrand with a caustic and wayward tongue is at its helm. However, his daughter landed in trouble when she started telling the Telangana supporters to stop the movies by the unified Andhra Pradesh proponents. This irked some of the Greater Hyderabad elected representatives and some movie goers. The opinion was divided among the common man about the banning and blocking of the movie. The rift between TRS and Congress became apparent when Congress ministers Mukesh Goud, Danam Nagender clearly sided with their constituents who comprised mostly of Andhra and Seema migrants.TRS in turn accused them of appeasing the costa/seema sentiments.

Another silent spectator is Marri Shashidhar Reddy, who seemed to want to stay away from the mess. His father Marri Chenna Reddy is considered as a betrayer of Telangana by his peers belonging to Telangana Praja Samiti who defeated Congress in 1969 with thumping majority. TPS as it was known had a single item in its manifesto. ‘Bifurcation of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh’. After the election, Mr. Chenna Reddy was believed to have succumbed to Congress’s bribe, the chief minister post.

MIM, a Muslim political party won 7 seats in Hyderabad (old city) area. They fare extremely well amongst the 35 lakhs of Muslims in Hyderabad. They want a piece of the pie as well. Their main worry is that if Congress doesn’t give into the desires of the Telangana people, Congress may suffer an ignominious defeat in the elections and BJP may come to power. BJP, a party that favors Hindus raises fear and doubt in the Muslims.

That leaves TDP, Telugu Desam Party which is headed by Chandra babu Naidu, the ex chief minister of Andhra pradesh hailing from Andhra/Seema area who is said to have been a front-runner in the Jai Andhra movement in the seventies. Although his party is divided vertically on the Telangana issue, majority of the Telanganites express doubts on the leadership. TDP has aspirations to be a national party, and is hoping that under Mr. Naidu it will have a stake in both the states.

Mega star, Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) has lost all its base in Telangana and became irrelevant in the struggle, since they have only one assemblyman from that region. Seeing the writing on the wall, Chiru as he is known moved his base to Costa and sided with the Samaikhya Andhra movement.

While the U.P.A govt considers its game plan, the chasm between the Andhra/Seema people within Hyderabad has become deeper and the tensions have become tauter. The talk in clubs, during the basketball, cricket games, in the kittie parties revolves around Telangana.

When hate is increasing between the two groups and neither is willing to back down, doesn’t it make more send to grant them a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences?

In this particular game, Team A had eight members and Team B had five. The yardage line was shorter for Team A, they didn’t need to abide by any rules, when they were ‘out’, they were really not ‘out’, they could pause for breath any time they wanted. The referee was chosen from Team A and completely sided with Team A breaking all rules. The outcome was ‘Team T’ lost miserably. The villagers applauded the win by Team A, the village head gave the trophy to Team A amongst much fanfare.

This was a unique protest conducted by the villagers depicted the current political scenario in Andhra Pradesh. ‘Team A’ hailed from Andhra and Rayala Seema, ‘Team T’ hailed from Telangana. The simple play that was enacted clearly showed what could happen if there is no level playing field and if the game is not played by the rules.

According to Hobbes, man in the state of nature seeks nothing but his own selfish pleasure, but such individualism naturally leads to a war in which every man’s hand is against his neighbour. In pure self-interest and for self-preservation men entered into a compact by which they agreed to surrender part of their natural freedom to an absolute ruler in order to preserve the rest. The State determines what is just and unjust, right and wrong; and the strong arm of the law provides the ultimate sanction for right conduct. (Catholic Encyclopedia: Obligation, 1911). Thus Hobbes supports an absolute monarchy, where power resides in the king or queen, as this absolute power to create and enforce laws was necessary for justice and the formation of a moral society.

Since then, times have changed. We, the people believed in a democracy, we didn’t need monarchy anymore, we needed elected representatives of people who can make decisions for the electees.

Telangana elected representatives to play for them, but they were smaller in number, less effective because they could not elect a chief minister from their region for the last 27 years, in fact, during the entire 53 years, there were only four chief ministers from Telangana, most of them did not complete their full term in the assembly as chief minister.

I have heard from many people hailing from Andhra and Seema saying that the Telangana leaders are useless, are weak, and are unable to fulfill the demands of Telangana. Partly it is true, there was always dissension amongst the Telangana leaders and they squabbled amongst themselves for fame, glory, and the tidbits that are thrown to them by the Andhra Chief Ministers. But there is another side to the equation. It is very simple, they couldn’t get their demands heard by the more powerful lobbies from Andhra and Seema. If a Telangana leader made a fuss, he was immediately shifted to a lesser known post in the cabinet. They were emasculated and stamped upon at every turn. The weaker leaders who turned into ‘yes’ men were given posts that are strong but were manipulated and played as puppets from behind the scene. The balance always tilted toward Andhra and Seema in regard to Power projects, irrigation projects, jobs, education institutions, and disaster relief funds.

Today a friend of mine said that competition can only occur when there is a level playing field. Where is the level playing field? Who is abiding by rules of the game?