Sunday, September 13, 2009

The plight of Telangana...

If for my earlier articles I had received either good response or indifference, for the present article I fear about the response I would receive as now I trade in to the topic of a particular region i.e, Telangana and Hyderabad in particular. I also fear of instigating a sense of displeasure among people from other parts or the people who have migrated and settled in Hyderabad. But that would not deter me from talking the facts, talking the events and talking about the situations…

We hear a lot about Telangana and the movement to separate it from AP but will it solve the problems of Telangana? Can we not have a better solution?

Being Unbiased:


The regional discrimination and biased approach has what led to the present situation where the separation itself is being seen as a probable solution. So, if that is the main problem the most possible solution also lies in it. The government can itself stop this movement and sentiments of the people by not being biased towards other regions against the other. Though a lot of allegations are made over the govt. policies and funds being managed in such a way that it helps the other regions to develop over Telangana, but still it is being continued without any retrenchment.

Even Hyderabad couldn’t escape from such a treatment; the revenues generated from Hyderabad are year over the year being transferred for the development of the other regions. The lands in and around Hyderabad are being sold due to their high value and that money is being used elsewhere. Which is completely unacceptable, till the needs of Hyderabad are met, large part of Hyderabad still remains neglected with dilapidated roads, ill fated traffic signals, centuries old underground sewerage which was constructed during the Nizam era, but now as the population of Hyderabad increased widely over the years due to the huge migrations which has become a prime reason for the floods every time even though it pours only a little, this needs an urgent attention. The companies which have come to the state eyeing Hyderabad are being diverted to other cities like Vishakapatnam, a biased approach even though it will lead to the even distribution of development, it might affect badly where in the state might completely lose the FDI coming in as it had happened in the case of Volkswagen.

Leaving Hyderabad aside, the inner parts of Telangana are in much miserable state where few districts affected with fluoride don’t even have proper drinking water, even after 50 years of state formation if people are being deprived of drinking water, the miss management cannot be better than this. It’s really heart rendering that even the few parts of Hyderabad are in this situation.

Tolerance and Mutual Respect:

For few years now the Telangana struggle has been taking the self respect turn, where even the major political parties have now identified it as an issue of self respect more than the development issue. Yes, they are right at least in this. We see a lot of mimicking happening around of the Telangana slang, its culture etc., it’s sad that it is just not confined to movies but it has reached into the lives. Any tradition, slang or culture can be portrayed to be funny if wanted to and it happens with Telangana every time.



Though this land has provided a new life, livelihood for many a people from other regions, sad that many don’t tolerate Telangana’s customs, traditions and its slang is always ridiculed. The same persons if they happen to migrate to other countries, let alone tolerating their celebrations and customs, they even celebrate them as in the case of Christmas, Thanks Giving, Halloween and many other days!!!
That show’s we display a tolerance towards other countries but not to our own regions…. We should develop the regional tolerance.

The land of Telangana, was transcended by different communities like Qutubs, Asaf Jahi’s, Parsi’s, Sindhi’s etc and every community was heartily welcomed by the people of Telangana and they have intermixed their customs, traditions and even the slang. Most of the people from Hyderabad speak Telugu mixed with Urdu even though most of the Muslims of Hyderabad can’t even understand Urdu set aside speaking. Even the Dargah’s are visited by hindu’s largely, more than the muslims but other way it seldom happens.

Here it’s very sad to mention that people even exhibit the religion tolerance but not the caste and region tolerance.

These are the few little things if taken care of and followed; Telangana and more exclusively Hyderabad will be nothing less to any best places to live in. A mixture of modern and history, a mixture of cultures, a mixture of communities which is really a very rare pattern; this happens in only very few cities and Hyderabad is the rarest of the all!!!

But to end the probable suggestions, I also want to warn that if these situations are not handled gracefully and with respect even the greatest National leaders couldn’t stop the Nation from being divided even though none had the intent to partition. So, even this situation unless and until understood to the core and handled accordingly none and even the greatest powers cannot stop the happening!!!
I sincerely and ardently hope that it doesn’t….




History

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If interested in knowing the history and the events that have turned into this ugly situation please go on with the reading …

Why there is fuzz about Telangana and a movement or fight for its separation from Andhra Pradesh that we keep hearing on news channels etc…


To list out a few, Telangana was merged with the Andhra State against the wishes of the people of this region under the guise of linguistic based states. This led for utter discontentment of the Telangana people. Adding to it the major conditions which were agreed upon for the merger which is popularly known as ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ of 1956 was never implemented. Not a single person from Telangana was appointed as Advocate-General so far in the State's long history; more than this the agreement of nominating a telangana person either as CM or Deputy CM was never followed later on. The first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, ridiculed the post of Deputy Chief Ministership as the sixth finger and thus useless! While he served as Deputy Chief Minister in the B. Gopal Reddy’s regime till October 31, 1956!!

From then without any representation in the top posts of the state and in power making bodies, the people of telangana kept losing their ground. Before 1956, all jobs in Hyderabad State were filled with Mulkies with 15 years residence or birth in Hyderabad State. While no Telangana youth was appointed in Andhra districts, thousands of jobs in Telangana were filled by Andhras, some of them obtaining bogus mulki certificates. By 1969, it was estimated that over 22,000 posts were filled by Andhras with bogus certificates. In the name of rationalization of Departments, large numbers of engineers, doctors, gazetted officers from Andhra region were dumped in Telangana districts. They in turn brought their own Andhra staff for lower posts!!

Telanganas felt that their enrollment was not proportionate to their numbers. The selection of the city of Hyderabad as the state capital led to massive migration of people from Andhra into Telangana. Telanganas felt discriminated against in education and employment, non-Telanganas had been hired under the guise that qualified local people were unavailable. In addition, the unification of pay scales between the two regions appeared to disadvantage Telangana civil servants.

In such a situation, due to the public outcry an agitation for Telangana started in 1969 from the students of O.U. which spread throughout the region. Government employees and opposition members of the state legislative assembly swiftly threatened "direct action" in support of the students. The Congress-controlled state and central governments offered assurances that non-Telangana civil servants in the region would be replaced by Mulkis, disadvantaged local people, and that revenue surpluses from Telangana would be returned to the region. The protestors, however, were dissatisfied, and severe violence, including mob attacks on railroads, road transport, and government facilities, spread over the region. In addition, seventy-nine police firings resulted in twenty-three deaths according to official figures, the education system was shut down, and examinations were cancelled.

This led to the formation of Telangana People's Association (Telangana Praja Samithi) led by M. Chenna Reddy, who won 11 out of 14 seats in the elections from the region stating obvious support it had from the people of the region. But later due to political ambitions the association was merged into the Congress which became a debacle for Telangana.

With these unforeseen incidents, both the central and state governments passed Eight-Point programme of 1969 which protected the interests of Telangana but was never followed. Failure of which was succeeded by PM’s Five-Point forumla of 1972, following the tradition this again was never followed. Though these things couldn’t help the plight of the then Telangana, a reply for this was started from Andhra in the name of movement for Andhra. This eventually led to the popular Six-point Formula of 1973, providing decently good rights for the settlers from the other regions in Telangana.

Though the six-point formula was in a way advantageous to the non-Telangana still what little advantages it had for the Telangana been kept routinely violated, 126 times till 2006!!! Not even 200 employees belonging to Coastal Andhra working in Hyderabad were repatriated till 2006; taking a sample in that year, 80 per cent of the 15,000 youths recruited through `outsourcing' for different departments were found to be from Coastal Andhra. So by and large discrimination still continued towards the Telangana.

If the above was about employment, Telangana still faces a large discrimination in the allocation of funds etc., which are usually raised and talked upon by the now TRS in the assembly but never they are heeded.





What is the role of Hyderabad here?


I always will be more interested to talk about Hyderabad than anything else, as I have a very strong boding to this place!!!

We keep hearing about that the formation of AP and making Hyderabad as its capital has led to Hyderabad’s development. Whenever I hear these talks I laugh my soul out…. Hyderabad was made the capital as it was already a highly developed and orderly city then and provided the best amenities and the infrastructure. Hyderabad has got a history of over 400 years and its twin Secunderabad over 200 years, how can a few 50 years add in such a great extent to it. Infact the resources of Hyderabad had been exploited for the development of other regions.

If the pre history of Kaktiya’s, Mughals, Qutub Shahi’s are set aside as discussing them will make this post never ending… From the Asaf Jahi’s era Hyderabad was well prominent state under the rule of the Nizams extending over the Deccan, including the Telangana and Rayalseema. Hyderabad was always seen as a well rich state with surplus money reserves, noting the fact that the seventh Nizam was once world’s richest, even the then king of Dubai before the advent of oil travelled regularly to Hyderabad for the material gains from the Nizam!!

Even before the formation of the AP state, Hyderabad had well constructed buildings. Which the government had used to set up its offices like High Court, Osmania Hospital, Assembly, Osmania University and lot many structures which are still in use. The recent boom of IT and real estate is also because of the Hyderabad’s well developed facilities and importance. Even before to these recent IT and real estate, Hyderabad was always seen as an integral part of Telangana. Recent arguments are usually taken up, such as International Airport could have been constructed elsewhere other than Hyderabad, had it not been the capital. But they might be unaware that Hyderabad had airport, at times when Vizag, Vijayawada or for that matter any other city in the state could even dream of!! Hyderabad was the first state to separate the Judiciary from the Executive in 1901.

Hyderabad was developed over the centuries with the money of the Nizam state i.e, Telangana largely and also a bit from Rayalseema as it was given away by the Nizam to the British government to attain autonomous over the rest of the left out region i.e, Telangana through an agreement. That is the reason why there were mass conversions into Chirstianity in Rayalseema for the favors from the British. Thus, Hyderabad was, is and should remain a part of Telangana!!!

A historic Fight for Hyderabad State:


The people of Hyderabad had gone through a lot of turmoil and agony to join with the Independent India; still citing their patriotic passion finally was able to win their war with the Nizam.

The Nizam was very anxious to become independent and it had been Nizam's ambition to secure Dominion Status for his State. He tried to achieve this ambitious desire with the help of Khasim Razvi of the Ittehadul Muslimeen and its storm troopers, the Razakars; they were even ready to join the Pakistan than with India.

Fortunately, the Hindus of the Hyderabad State accounted for 93 per cent of its population. They launched the "Join India" movement with the cooperation of a very few patriotic Muslims for the integration of the State with the rest of the country – hats off to them!!!

The negotiations between the Nizam's Dominions and the Indian Union proved abortive. The Nizam Government did not agree to the accession to the Indian Union. The activities of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen and the Razakars within the Dominions were posing a serious threat to peace and harmony. The growing violence by the Razakars seriously jeopardized law and order.

The Government of India tried to persuade the Nizam to sign the Instrument of accession with India. After tortuous negotiations, the Nizam finally entered into a "Stand Still Agreement" on November 29, 1947, with India for one year to maintain status quo.

This agreement provided the Nizam to gain time to procure military hardware from different parts of the world and smuggle them into Hyderabad. With the growing violence by the Razakars and the Nizam's attempts to get himself independent, the Government of India decided to curb these tendencies by launching a `Police Action' against the Nizam. The Razakars helped hand in hand for Nizam like digging and destroying the roads to put a hindrance for the movement of Police and the Army. The Indian Army, led by Major-General J.N.Chaudhuri entered the State from five directions and the military action was a brilliant success. On 18th September 1948, Nizam's forces surrendered to the Indian army and Mir Laik Ali, the Prime Minister of the Nizam, and Khasim Razvi were arrested. The merger of Hyderabad Dominions into the Indian Union was announced.





I feel highly distressed to say this that the people of Hyderabad and Telangana so
bravely fought with the Nizam and the Razakars to join with India, now they are being subjected to the discrimination and injustice in every govt. policy and funds and even its resources are being exploited.

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