By Rakesh Reddy

 

Anybody who watched the AP assembly proceedings on Friday will now understand why a separate Telangana state is needed and why people are so agitated. There was a 4-hour long discussion on the incidents that happened on Thursday on Tank Bund in Hyderabad.

 

For about one and a half years, when the state was burning, nobody, literally nobody neither raised a question nor initiated a discussion in the assembly about Telangana, the why, what and how. What does this convey? Now this tells us something about the so-called temple of democracy.

 

Everybody starting from the proponent of the two-eyes theory (Chandrababu Naidu), the self-declared intellectual (Jayaprakash Narayan) and some other politicians very eloquently said how their sentiments were badly hurt after Thursday’s incident. Yes, your sentiments were hurt. But did you know how sentiments of an entire region were hurt when you directed a drama on Dec 10th, 2009 duly enacted by your bunch of followers.

 

How many of those really understand what cultural oppression means ? How many statues of great Telangana poets, social reformers etc are found in this state? Is there no cultural history to this region? How is Komaram Bheem any less than anybody who fought oppression in the most adverse conditions?

 

Now people will ask me if i support vandalism and violence. No I dont, but I do hate people with selective amnesia. As long as we debate and argue of what happened yesterday and never go into the why’s, we are here to see many more ugly incidents. Democracy has failed us and in a big way.

 

The self-declared intellectual went on to say the people whose statues were demolished transcend regional boundaries. Yes, they do. Which also means the ones from this region also should have transcended those boundaries and sadly they dint. No statue of a Telangana person is found in any remote corner of the coastal Andhra or Rayalaseema regions. He also mentioned article 51A of the indian constitution that outlines fundamental duties of citizens.

 

51A. It shall be the duty of every citizen of India—

(e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;

(f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;

 

Does preserving heritage and culture apply to only one region? Who will talk of the Telangana culture and heritage that is sadly lost in these 50 years? Where is the mention of Bathukamma? Where did the stories of uprising against the Nizam go? Where is the story of Komaram Bheem lost?

 

Shouldn’t we ask all these questions instead of only condemning yesterday’s violence?

 

Jai Telangana. Jai Hind.

 

 

(Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu is a RTI activist)