Aug 21, 2010

Telangana: Its nature and future

AbdulMuqtadir Syed / Headlines / 21 Comments

Medha Patkar, in a meet in Osmania University said that Telangana has an independent and unique nature, culture and political consciousness and should have statehood. On the contrary, Lagadapati says that we are all one and that is, Telugu jati. Since then I want the uniqueness of Telangana to crystallize in my mind to be able to express it in writing.

There is a contention bandied about by so called intellectuals that “Telangana will be the same even after state is formed”. They say that Once Telangana state comes into being; it will be business as usual for the political leaders and moneymakers. I beg to differ and write about what we can do if we have our state and how different will it be.

I found a letter on this website by Vamsi Krishna on naming the forthcoming Telangana news paper. He has excellently summed up the nature and history of telangana in an apt and evocative way in his write up. It goes like this: “TELANGANA: intaku minchina Manavatvanni, Manchitananni Manishitananni, Nijaayatini Nirbayatwanni, Nirmalatwanni, Ammatananni, Prashnichetatwanni, Poraatanni palikinche peru maroti untunda? “

To understand the spirit of Telangana we need to put it in context by seeing at the adjacent regions of Telangana.

In the neighboring Rayalaseema, Poligars with private armies were morphed into today’s political leaders of Seema. The entire cultural apparatus of the region has been transformed as per this ethos of the socio-political structures and elite. The unruly history of Rayalaseema is written in blood. The movie “Raktha Charitra” is aptly titled by Ram Gopal Verma. (But remember that Ram Gopal Verma himself is a product of Andhra elite whose movies are puerile, non transformational and analytically arid; true to culture of his class).

Introduction of Ryotwari system in Andhra brought about a dose of social transformation with revolutionary social movements led by the social elite of those days namely Brahmins. It has thrown up Brahmosamaj movement, Raghupathy Venkata Ratnam Naidu, Verashlingam and Gurajada etc. The movements of that era were the result of emergence of middleclass by transformation of the political economy by Ryotwari system and the European liberalism British rule has brought in.

As time went by, the Krishna Godavari social class usurped power from this elite through the anti -Brahminiacal Justice party movement etc. They slowly garnered the land which was under irrigation. The surplus generated was pumped into the film field which churned out pulp, which was not of any consequence except social degeneration we witness today as stalkers throwing acid on innocent girls’ faces. They further launched the megaproject of Telugu Desham which systematically demolished the antagonistic feudal system. Once the ground was cleared CBN threw his father in-law out and the farming capitalist class became the political elite creaming off the wealth created during liberalization with continuing urban land grabbing. The ethic created by this class is in negative tone. The ethos is competitive rather than cooperative. The entire region reeks of casteism, economic greed and acquisitiveness of the elite.

They let the health care system and educational system to collapse for the benefit of the rich of their class. Rightful Welfare system was turned into charity to lull the populace. The earlier class at least has strived for widow remarriages, attempts to eradicate untouchability, panchama schools and starting women’s education; the present social class has given Karam Chedus and Chundurus.

Telangana has a different story, different context and different imagination & rhythm. It never went into farming capitalist class like elite of Andhra or grotesque Mafioso of Rayalaseema. By and large Telangana has been cleansed of feudality by the decades of revolutionary movements of Nalgonda or the later ones. If you look at the cultural iconography in the form of songs dances and paintings you find them live and vivid related to the commoner of the immediate present. The imagery it uses is of nature and it is proletariat in its tenor. It has developed a sense of justice and society. It did not acquire the smartness and cool under-hand operations of the Andhra elite or the brusque and brutal human handling of Rayalaseema.

In Telangana, after decades of revolutionary politics uprooting feudal remnants, what is apparent of Telangana today, is millions of working class masses, migrant workers who migrated to Dubai, Surath and Bombay and suicidal cotton farmers. But if you look closely you will see a revolutionary zeal, sense of justice & society and the boldness no other region in India seen, as happened in Nalgonda movement. It has the tender heart as shown by Ramchandra Reddy of Nalgonda in Bhoodan movement. It has imbibed the revolutionary culture and great social sense. There is a great feeling of tribal collective. Its festivals of Bonalu and Bathkamma are expressions of collectivity. Distribution of “bangaram” (jammi aaku) on Dassera is depiction of communal spirit, as is shown by Muslims on Ramadan. Look at the cultural songs of Telangana depicting the angst of the mothers for sons who were martyred for egalitarian causes, to understand the nature of Telanganites. Look at the songs of Goreti Venkanna to understand the relationship with nature and land. Telangana imbibed the spirit of equity from centuries by being with Muslims.

Telanganites and SA elite are incompatible by nature. (SA commoners instead of being reactionary and obstructing Telangana aspiration should struggle against the political and social establishment of their Elite. They should build their own struggles to succeed and to build a specific revolutionary character).

Once Telangana is formed it is not business as usual. We will build a welfare model of Telangana rather than the American free market which CBN wanted to bring in, which perfectly suits Seemandhra elite.

KCR has announced that we will have top quality non-caste based; residential, universal and compulsory education for all children of Telangana. It will be the duty of the police administration to see that every child goes to school, at the peril of losing their jobs.

We will bring back top quality government hospitals like Indian army has across Telangana, as we used to have in Hyderabad in Nizams reign. We shall scrap beggarly Arogya –sree which is only to enrich SA corporate and to promote the charade of parties helping the poor. We shall encourage people to fight and get rightful quality health care through government run hospitals. We shall run a health care service to be run like army is run (which is also in public sector). We will stop the SA corporate hospitals parasiting on government hospitals. Health care is a human right and we will encourage people to go to human rights commission to get the dictates from them if health care is not up to the standards. We will decentralize healthcare, put it under the local government to be more responsive to the people’s needs. For doctors and teachers to work in far flung areas like army, we will get them all the facilities available to the army like schools, recreational facilities and socializing facilities and remove the influence of the local politicians. It will be an autonomous tightly run body free from politicians’ interference; and in return we will extract total dedication in their work.

We shall scrap all welfare schemes including ration shops to avoid the corrupt officials and pilfering party middlemen and put that money, 8000 or so crores directly into the pockets of the poor to spend it according to their need and genius as we see in western European welfare states. We will keep the politicians and the economic elite away from the policy & planning of welfare, health and education. We will bring Sam Pitrodas or Pricewaterhouse-Cooper like international management consultants (who designed Delhi water supply and management) and design the execution of these plans and projects.
Telangana has 12% Muslim population ghettoed out in old city and in other districts. We will bring them to the mainstream and give them equal share in the wealth creation and distribution. Ganga Jamuna tahseeb is our motto and spirit. We shall restore their dignity and make them equal partners. We shall harness their innovative and administrative zeal and talent. We are not going to make them ministers only to oversee wakf board.

We will confiscate all the land including assigned lands which were grabbed or sold by CBN and YSR through ordinances. We will not only distribute them to landless poor majority of whom are SC, ST and BC’s but see that land gives them a viable livelihood. We will make rest of it state assets for the future generations. We will bring in a law that no government land should be sold henceforth.

We will create state corridors from Karimnagar, Warangal and other towns in 100-200 km radius accessed through superfast trains to the Hyderabad city centre and further metros to any place in Hyderabad, so that anyone can live in these towns and villages but can work in Hyderabad. If need be we will build dedicated rail tracks for this purpose. We will rebuild Hyderabad with underground metro with meticulous detailing and utilitarian spirit which Nizams had, unlike andhras who expanded the city to increase the value of their urban lands or to relieve the clogged traffic on adhoc basis. We shall make Hyderabad and the surrounding towns’ connectivity and infrastructure similar to London, Paris or Saigon. We shall make similar hubs around towns and smaller towns. We will develop Karimnagar and Warangal and Nizamabad as satellite cities of Hyderabad.

There are lacs of beedi worker women working from home in Northern Telangana. It is an interesting model of production. We shall develop it to produce more goods like computer chips, cloths, and the bric-a-brac as China is doing; and as Harwardian Economics Professor Subramanian swami of Janatha Party envisaged. We will set aside the useless IAS officer who have only bureaucratic mind and bring in the experts in management like Nilekhani to guide us.
We shall do away with all government sponsored projects, jala yagnam etc which will only fill the pockets of the politicians and their henchmen, contractors or caste men. Instead we shall build cooperatives of farmers with public private partnership and build the projects. Government will only raise loans for farmers by being a counter guarantee. We shall take the inputs of people like Medha Patkar and Israeli agricultural expert’s whether we can build tank irrigation system of world class as well.

This is what we meant of “Koti Rathanala veena-Telangana”. The bold and the courageous will inherit the earth. We shall see Telanganites to be so. KCR said after formation of Telangana he will be a KAVALI KUKKA to protect Telangana. We want him to be overseeing these things come true.

We know “Jai Telangana” is not only the liberation from colonialist Seemandhra elite, but having the kind of revolutionary history; it is to grow into a social, economic and representative democracy to establish a true welfare state with spectacular development and be a model for other states.

Thanks M K Rao for sharing

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