why the bjp loves telangana

one commenter warns another commenter (who responded to this news report):

Abhe oye nizam ke bhadwe chup kar. Pakistan bhag chal. Telagana se pehle andhra walloh ko bhagayenge phir landiyo ke baari hai. Yaad rak ye baat

the bjp and the parivar, of course, have been the oldest supporters of telangana. that's one major reason why the majlis hasn't responded to the overtures of the separatists until now. overtures is actually a very mild description of the open, but democratic, intimidatory tactics adopted by the various groups, affiliated to a wide spectrum of parties, organizations, other outfits springing up by the dozens in almost every block and district every day, supporting telangana. all these groups have come together as joint action committees (the acronym jac doesn't need elaboration in any news reports these days) at the level of the whole region. and then there are jacs at the district level, mandal level, village level. and then there are jacs of journalists, lawyers, doctors, artists, babus, workers, students and a hundred other kinds of groups. then there are the caste/community jacs. and women's jacs. and jacs of the disabled. of various religious groups. of various ethnic/linguistic groups living in the region. i don't know how many thousand jacs have sprouted over the last few weeks, across telangana.

they are everywhere, so you can either shut up or become a member of a jac. of course, if you shut up, it automatically means you support telangana. because, you see, all the people of telangana support separation. look at the dhobis of that village, they refused to wash the clothes of the local political leaders who refused to resign from their panchayat posts in support of telangana! look at the kaati kaaparis (caste assigned occupation: burning the dead), they're refusing to burn the dead from those families! look at the barbers, they refuse to attend to people from those leaders' families!

the ancient code of caste is now being deployed to excommunicate those who usually enjoyed the prerogative of deciding who's pure. have the dalit and obc activists who have joined this movement really examined closely what this strategy indicates?

it upholds caste, gives the dalitbahujans a false sense of empowerment for that brief moment of being equal. the weapon that was used against them for ages: how can they wield it? don't they understand their acceptance of that weapon for that brief moment gives it new life for several more generations?

i'd talked about this majoritarianism earlier, how it's using the dalitbahujans to dig their own future graves. now, those exhilarating moments of gheraoing politicians, officials, businessmen, film stars in hyderabad and all other cities, questioning them, pestering them to speak up in support of telangana, or chant slogans, or badgering them at public places, airports, railway stations, official functions: those exhilarating moments haven't been so very exhilarating for those who were gheraoed, pestered, badgered. for some, those moments must have been their very first experience of how being the target of majoritarianism, of caste, feels like. when people you see every day on television can be treated like they're impure, when the city becomes the village, one can only shudder at the thought of what could be happening in the villages, those 'cesspools of degradation, corruption and worse'. judging from what's happening on the net, what could be the fate of the rare dissenter from a dalit or adivasi community, the statistical aberration who speaks up against telangana in some village?

but there were others who were not merely gheroaed, pestered, badgered. they were physically attacked. and the many who weren't attacked could sense quite clearly they should count themselves lucky. for that unexhilarating moment.

the abvp, the students' wing of the parivar, has been quite at the forefront of many campaigns to canvass support for telangana from public figures. especially those who demurred and seemed to entertain thoughts of disagreeing. film shootings were raided, politicians' homes were attacked, various andhra leaders regularly threatened to leave hyderabad, through the media. the parivar must be enjoying itself.

update: after i posted this, a fresh commenter on my previous post made me aware of a new campaign launched by some pure telanganis. this time, they've decided to purify the ipl. purge it of all untelangani elements.