Telangana Agitation Loses Sting

The agitation for separate Telangana state appears to have lost its sting and the agitators seem to be disgusted with the attitude of the leaders.
That is the opinion one would get going by the agitation programmes announced by the Telangana political joint action committee after its steering committee meeting on Thursday.
According to the programme announced by TJAC chairman Prof M Kodandaram, the Telangana people would observe “Telangana self-respect day” on December 9 to recall the announcement of Telangana state formation by home minister P Chidambaram on the same day two years ago.
A Telangana flag would be hoisted at Gun Park in front of the assembly in the morning and there would be candle light programme from evening to midnight.
The Osmania University students would sit on one-day fast on the same day. On December 23, the people would observe Telangana betrayal day to protest the withdrawal of Telangana statement by Chidambaram.
If one were to call these programmes as intensifying the Telangana agitation, then one can say the agitaton has lost its sting. One can easily understand what impact to they have on the Centre’s decision making on the Telangana.

Telangana: A distant dream

In October, everything had come to a standstill in Telangana as the movement for a separate state for this underdeveloped region of Andhra Pradesh was at its peak and it looked like the central government would yield to pressure tactics. A month later, all the guns appear to have fallen silent.

A few days before the second anniversary of the central government's announcement Dec 9, 2009, to initiate the process for carving out a Telangana state, the dream of a separate state still looks like a distant one. Political parties are fighting for one-upmanship and appearing more interested in pushing the issue to the 2014 elections for reaping the benefits.

After government employees and mine and transport workers called off their 42-day-long strike Oct 24, the movement virtually disappeared from the streets in the region comprising 10 districts, including Hyderabad, and is now confined to the legislature and political circles.

With the region's political and non-political groups in total disarray and frequent strikes alienating people, it is not surprising that the central government too has developed cold feet over the issue and is even dropping hints that a separate state will not be a reality, at least in the near future.

Even the protest in parliament by Congress MPs from Telangana and two MPs of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has been drowned in the din over foreign equity in the retail sector.

With the political leadership losing credibility among the Telangana people for setting frequent deadlines without achieving anything, a sense of frustration has engulfed youth and students, which is reflected in their suicides.

The mass strike saw the Telangana movement reach its highest peak since TRS revived it a decade ago, but going by the present public mood, it looks unlikely if any political party can give it a new lease of life in the near future.

Even the Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC), comprising TRS, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and some other groups, appears to have given up, as it dropped its grandiose plans to hold a million-man march on the lines of protests in Egypt.

TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao, whose 11-day hunger strike had forced the central government to make the Dec 9, 2009, announcement, is also having second thoughts on carrying out his threat of another "fast-unto-death".

TRS critics blame it for the present situation, saying it is only interested in furthering its own political agenda.

"It was never a people's movement but a movement led by a political party which has a shortsighted agenda," P.L. Visweswara Rao, chairman of the Telangana Intellectual Forum, told IANS.

"A people's movement is one in which all sections of people and all castes participate. The present movement is being run by some upper caste people," said Visweswara Rao, a former head of the journalism department at Osmania University.

As a student of the same university, he had participated in the 1969 movement. "That was a real people's movement," Rao recalled

Both political and non-political critics of TRS feel the party is only interested in strengthening itself as proved by five legislators - three of the Congress and two of the TDP - joining its ranks.

"TRS has no credibility. It says it is opposed to Polavaram, but gets a contract for the same," said Visweswara Rao in an obvious reference to the allegation that a company which invested in a daily owned by the TRS chief bagged the contract for the irrigation project in the Andhra region.

Visweswara Rao believes a people's movement has to be transparent. "People want to know why the indefinite strike was called off and what deal led to the JAC suddenly withdrawing the strike," he said.

He, along with veteran freedom fighter Konda Lakshman Bapuji and other Telangana protagonists, is now trying to build the people's movement by bringing all the groups together.

He claims it would be an ideological platform with a common agenda of achieving the Telangana state.

They acknowledge that it would be an arduous task, given the serious differences among dozens of groups and the fact that all the three major parties - TRS, the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) - are not willing to share a platform

KCR Sons & Co. got its share????

KCR under scanner

Kancha Ilaiah, a professor of political science, has always been a bitter critic of KCR and his ideological moorings. The dalit intellectual has charged the undisputed leader of TRS of sabotaging the movement for the separate state in lieu of Polavaram contract.
The diminutive professor also alleges that KCR’s family were given away sub-contracts in the ongoing Metro project and expensive cars besides the Rs 4,000 cr worth Polvaram contract for derailing the ‘sakala janula same (general strike)’ and diluting the agitation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singsh would not have made a categorical statement against separate Telangana without the ‘dangle’ of Polavaram, Dr Ilaiah,  presently director for the study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad, concludes.
He charges the leadership of political JAC of being in cahoots in this deal.
KCR would be another Madhu Koda or a Sibu Soren in illegitimate collections, even in the event of Telangana being formed by a remote chance in the backdrop of the politics of Mayawati, the contrarian thinker argues.
In any case, the Andhra politicians would not allow division after having allowed KCR grabbing the Polavaram contract, the activist-writer says.
Congress Party would not order any inquires into the illegal assets of this first family of Telangana politics, as TRS had saved the government from the threat posed by Jagan, Prof Ilaiah concludes.