Speaking at a seminar on ‘Telangana State - social justice’ here on Thursday, Prof. Ilaiah said that the political JAC was dominated by upper caste feudal lords to protect their vested interests and weaker sections might end up more oppressed in such Telangana State than under Andhra capitalists.
Noting that the latest developments in New Delhi did not hold out any possibility for formation of Telangana in the near future, Prof. Ilaiah said even if the State was delayed by 20 years, only leadership of Dalits, BCs and minorities forming majority population alone would pave way for democratic and social Telangana.
can't imagine how so many dalitbahujan activists and thinkers ever came to the view that in the current telangana movement, the obcs and dalits of telangana could play a bigger role than being mere cannon fodder, of sorts. a movement which uses slogans like 'telanganaku aDDostE aDDangA narikestAm', which roughly means 'those who oppose telangana shall be struck down' (as with swords), obviously borrows more than just a leaf or two from other movements which have focussed heavily on so-called 'sentiments'.
the movement now doesn't speak to one of the mass migrations from mahboobnagar, the weavers' suicides in karimnagar or the cotton farmers' suicides in warangal or the fluoride victims in nalgonda or the endless parade of fake encounters across telangani villages in the last forty years. it doesn't sing about deprivation, repression or tragedy anymore. what it thrusts in one's face now is pure, raw, unbridled 'sentiment'.
slowly, but surely, i see all kinds of diverse minorities bowing down to the hectoring of this new, unexpected majoritarianism: from various obc caste groups to the madiga rights' activists to muslims in the villages. will they really have any say in shaping a new telangana? the brahminized political classes of telangana have rewritten the script, or are only now revealing hidden, crucial portions of it. it's quite clear to me that the aspirations of the impure will have to serve the sentiment and not vice versa. i can understand prof. ilaiah's apprehensions and think he deserves to be applauded for displaying the courage to take a second, closer look at the emperor's new clothes.
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2 comments:
Kufr,
What is the proportion of OBCs in Telangana and how prevalent is this caste discrimination? We hear that in Telangana there are no catse wars like we see in Andhra.
In Andhra the caste wars are big, but it is more of fight to get power. There is not much social discrimination or stigma based on caste. In other words everybody is proud of their caste and like to use it to get more power for their caste.
ved,
sorry for responding late.
steady, but not overt exclusion is sometimes more dangerous than in-your-face discrimination..except for some improvement in the socio-economic situation of a few sections, the large majority of dalits and obcs in a.p., live in worse conditions, i think, than in some neighbouring states.
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