Secession is a tongue twister if you think about it. Sufficient reason to keep off it, one would think? Apparently not.
Telengana is a great mistake. In a federal democracy, breakaway states send the wrong message. We might soon have twice the number of states as we have today. Bifurcate Andhra tomorrow and how are you going to turn away other separatist movements? Bodoland, Kashmir…
But giving the evil his due, I suspect KCR too was taken by pleasant surprise with P.Chidambaram’s annoncement on Telengana. He might have expected the Centre to take shelter in a tried-and-tested-method of democratic procrastination or negotiation – set up a committee of retired High Court or Supreme Court judges to look into the possibility of bifurcating Telengana. For this, he was ready to get his kidneys shot. For this, I suspect, he would have given up his fast.
As Andhra burns, I’m tempted to ask a certain lady-who-shall-not-be-named, “Why?”
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Even as I try to unify my many blogs in the spirit of spurning secession, do check the photoblog. Updated.
I think Mr. Chidambaram was honestly not in his senses when he made that midnight statement.
Notwithstanding the above, “India Warming” or disintegration had started the day, “Political correctness” became the benchmark for decision making by Governments with total disregard to Governance and Constitution.
You may yet have a reason — but you haven’t stated why it’s a bad idea. That there may be similar demands is a poor argument.
And, you seem to equate the demand for statehood with separatism. The two are as different as you and I.
Statehood is not separatism? Ah, is that where you come from? O yes, you are right, we are different – me and you. I don’t think you will ever see my point, and since you dont care to state your point, beyond an ideological difference of opinion, I don’t see how I can see yours.
[...] What did I say here? [...]
I think we got to be cautiously clear that people of telengana do not want to be a separate country…. they just want to remain as a separate state within India.
What’s democracy all about then….should we leave everything to our corrupt and selfish politicians to decide…Shouldn’t a real democracy have a referendum like system in place to allow people to express their views on issues like this….Its only natural for people to demand a separate state when for decades a region is neglected…ignored…as if it belonged to an alien country…And politicans ought to have the grace to accept this…Its a price for their failure, and they cannot deny it, perhaps can delay it utmost.
Sam,
Thanks for your response. Am completely in favour of a referendum. The mistakes of the past can be corrected democratically. But this is where the problem arises. Do you think you are going to have a flawless ref. with Telegana? Was the Congress decision to grant Statehood based on a referendum?
And the backlash for that decision, the violence – what is that all about? It is because the constituents of the State themselves do not agree with Telengana. In a democracy, dissent is as important as consent, as we very well know.
But you should understand here that the constituents that defected and protested the union’s decision are the very parts which telangana people blame as dominating carpetbaggers.
Aren’t they proving the claim of telangana supporters right by making a case of United AP?
Moreover the grass root support telangana demand has got cannot be denied. It can only be realized if you can take the pains to tour the villages of telangana.
As usual, as you said before the employers/editorial policy is hell bent to suppress the real news about people’s agitations at village levels to reach the main editions other than the local district editions in telangana.
There is no doubt Andhrans are enjoying the fruits of having telangana merged with their region. But if it is at the cost of poor, then it should be certainly opposed. The verdict should favor the victims not the perpetrator of crime, even if the later forces justice by all means.
Sravan,
If your point is about the need for justice, I am with you. If you want me to ignore the violence that broke out after P.Chidambaram’s announcement, I am not. There is a place for dissent in a democracy, however obnoxious that might sound to you. Incidentally, I’m not against bifurcation – just that it was obviously consensual in at least three previous instances – Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal.
However, it puzzles me how you came to this conclusion: “as you said before the employers/editorial policy is hell bent to suppress the real news about people’s agitations at village levels to reach the main editions other than the local district editions in telangana.” considering I said nothing of the sort.
About the consensus, the case of the three states is very different from the case of telangana. Here the other regions not only exploited the resources to maximum but there has been a lot of one sided immigration, that too against existing safeguards and agreements to protect telangana jobs and agricultural lands for the local people.
Here the perpetrator of crime is not willing to let the victim go because he is delusional that the victim will retaliate once the victim is free. And more over the resources that are exploited are not like the mined and spent. These regions are completely dependent on continuous supply of these resources like water and coal. Another bone of contention is Hyderabad where these so called carpetbaggers have heavily invested by all means. They fear the loss of power in the region would put their businesses in stern competition from the outsiders and new investors. After all they have been dominating the power structure all these days to prevent such equal competitors. This is evident if you look at the past. Before the merger most outside investors in hyderabad came from various backgrounds and regions all over india. Today what we see is they are all completely cornered to few particular communities and castes of one region.
Instead of suppressing the protests and postponing the inevitable the union should take effective steps to control such vested interests in favor of the downtrodden poor.
Ofcourse violence at any level should be discouraged. But the history says otherwise especially if the formation of states in India are concerned. Right from the formation of Andhra state to that of Jharkhand, all had precedence of inflicting violent sentiments. Telangana demand is not a special case. It has been present right from 1950’s.
In this case if you observe carefully, protests on both sides have turned violent at times.
Anyway presence or absence of violence is certainly not a yardstick to determine the verdict. Is it? Moreover history proves that telangana movement has always been brutally suppressed by the government. Instead of dealing the case with courage and determination the government has been playing hide&seek and delaying tactics. Definitely this sends a wrong signal to the people.
More over mass mobilization and processions are more practical methods of people’s democratic exercise. No body can deny that. But simply by speculation the govt. cannot act prematurely with brute force. That is what happening here.
People are not allowed to conduct meetings or processions with out permissions that are hard to come.
PS: I could not delete my old comment which I posted at a wrong place.
If you kindly do not consider this as littering, please delete the previous comment which I am just pasting here. TX in advance.
Hi Ramya:
Yes…there should be a system to guage public sentiment and opinion in such crucial issues….When we trust our electoral system despite the bribing of voters and all forms of malpractices….there’s no reason why we shudn’t believe in a referendum ! And am not backing congress’ decision either to back or to go back on telengana…At the same time giving up to a dominant and overpowering dissent too doesnt make things right…Lets go by merits of he case…And sadly media has off late has become fond of sensationalising….its politically polarised….and deliberately refrains from giving any sensible analyses of the historical perspectives on the issue.
My thoughts here are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer.
Wow,
But when you write your articles do you write the opinions of your employer?
Or the employer selects only those which are compatible with his own opinion.
I was just wondering why you really put these statement along with your profile.
Honestly I was just wondering.
If you do not think you should answer and feel offended, then I apologize. You can just delete it.
TX
Every newspaper has an editorial policy – its stand on various issues. Ergo: the opinions of the employers.
Ofcourse violence at any level should be discouraged. But the history says otherwise especially if the formation of states in India are concerned. Right from the formation of Andhra state to that of Jharkhand, all had precedence of inflicting violent sentiments. Telangana demand is not a special case. It has been present right from 1950′s.
In this case if you observe carefully, protests on both sides have turned violent at times.
Anyway presence or absence of violence is certainly not a yardstick to determine the verdict. Is it? Moreover history proves that telangana movement has always been brutally suppressed by the government. Instead of dealing the case with courage and determination the government has been playing hide&seek and delaying tactics. Definitely this sends a wrong signal to the people.
More over mass mobilization and processions are more practical methods of people’s democratic exercise. No body can deny that. But simply by speculation the govt. cannot act prematurely with brute force. That is what happening here.
People are not allowed to conduct meetings or processions with out permissions that are hard to come.