31/01/10

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.

13 comments:

anu said...

>>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?<<

so true. painfully, lethally true.

Murli said...

Kufr,
This is my first comment, even though I have been reading your blog for many years. I like your blog very much. From the terms of the committee anounced by Chidamabaram it appears as if the Center has already decided to bifurcate the state. It appears the chances for a united state are reducing day by day. I want to comment on the roles played by YSR and CBN for the predicament that we are in. Do you think they played with fire by aligning themselves with TRS in 2004 and 2009 respectively?

Bhanu Prasad said...

Kufr,

BJP plans to blur all differences of language and religion and unite people based only on religion. Hence it's demand for seperate states. Even Savarkar had opinion that linguistic states is a "dangerous" idea. That is the reason I don't see any "Andhra Baago" rants from leaders of BJP. BJP's demand for seperate state is based on their ideology. Neither hate for andhrites or desire for adding one more state to their kitty.

In addition BJP likes to give a religious spin to Peasant uprising over feudal landlords. Apparently, according to BJP Intellectuals, the uprising should be seen as a popular hindu revolt against tyrannic Muslim Nawab.

But VHP uses OBC's and Dalits regularly to intimidate muslims. This is the most ironic aspect of all. How did the castes that were most subjugated under Hindu system have become it's foot soldiers after 50 years?

Anonymous said...

How come MIM issued fatwa against national anthem ???
so please dont represent MIM as if it represents all muslims..
I am a muslim too and never in my life MIM never represented true muslims nor it participated in any hyderabad problems! I even never saw MIM speaking in Telugu in State assembly when inturn we live telugu speaking state.

stop spreading fear in muslims by showing some irresponsible commentor saying some crap!
no body supports bjp and that commentrator might be some terrorist who want to disrupt our religion integrity and I am surprised that you are picking story from a comment..
you are no different then some TV channels who made a big story on ysr death from a russian website and created tentions

Bhanu Prasad said...

In essence BJP's demand for seperate state is straight out of Hindutva book.

But, is it feasible?. Can they blur our language for our Bueatiful language, Telugu, and make us completely loyal to Hinduism?. I have my reservations...

Unknown said...

”I want to comment on the roles played by YSR and CBN for the predicament that we are in. Do you think they played with fire by aligning themselves with TRS in 2004 and 2009 respectively?”

Murli,

No question. In 2004, Congress, desperate to beat seemingly unbeatable CBN, raised the separate T card and aligned with TRS. Remember that Sonia went to campaign with pink kanduva. They included separate T in the common minimum program and it was part of presidential speech. Congress did enormous damage for united AP. In essence congress brought legitimacy to a non-existent movement to defeat CBN.

Even if you go back to the history of state formation in 1956, the seeds of T separation were created by congress high command, led by Nehru who termed the formation of AP as 'Telugu imperialism'. Several politicians of Telangana, including Mr Chenna Reddy, who was the leader of andhra maha sabha and strong supporter of visalandhra few years before, sensed Nehru's reluctance and switched the sides and started dreaming about separate Telangana. The deliberate ambiguous language used by Fazal Ali in the first SRC report was influenced by Nehru's thoughts. So irritated Nehru about this Telugu imperialism, he overridden first SRC recommendations of including Humpi in Andhra Pradesh, as he thought such inclusion would give into the demands of Telugu Imperialism – a small win for his bruised ego. At the end AP lost several Telugu speaking areas in Karanataka and Orissa.

As far as TDP, the 2009 flip flop was a historical blunder. Should separate T form, TDP is no position to capitalize this to win votes in seema-andhra. This is giving tremendous leverage for Congress to carve out separate state and perhaps this should be attributed to TDP as equally responsible for the division.

At the end it is the leaders of Andhra Pradesh that failed this state with dirty opportunistic politics and destroyed 50 years of hard work. With emotions running high, with two perceptions completely opposite, all the indications are that the division is inevitable. Only historians, 50 years from now, can bring the correct perspective on this sad story of Telugu people - 'The rise and fall of Andhra Pradesh'.

kuffir said...

murli/ved,

thanks for those comments. i look at this from the angle of economic and social justice: i don't see much scope for attaining those goals in two/three divided states. what the very deaf ruling classes in delhi have heard until now is only a very unidimensional narrative. when they start doing the math, they'll have to factor in the future too, not just go by a legalistic plaint. if they do an honest job, i think their findings would be unpleasant for those who have been narrowminded, in all regions.

gaddeswarup said...

Ved, Kuffir and others,
It too seems to me that division is inevitable and it will be damaging to the whole state, particularly land locked Telangana ( I think Nizam made attempts to get back coastal Andhra from the British and also had plans to buy Goa from the Portugese for access to the coast). Are there some scenarios of division and reorganization which will minimize the damage?

Idler said...

kufr,

the bjp and the parivar, of course, have been the oldest supporters of telangana.

Kufr, in your mindless obsession against Telangana, you may be hurting your credibility (what little of it you may have) by falsifying information.

RSS disapproves of statehood for Telangana

And, you can read their editorial (at their mouthpiece) Think of governance and growth.
Not emotion and petty politics for new states
.

gaddeswarup said...

Idler,
Googling 'BJP on Telangana' I find lot of BJP statements supporting Telangana. But that is beside the point. I do not think there is any point calling names. I have been following this blog for a few years. Sometimes I do not understand the posts and sometimes Kuffir is angry. I think that he is from Telangana and not from one of the privileged classes. He seems frustrated by the political processes and lack of progress for the underprivileged. On the whole, I find Kuffir very knowledgeable with a strong background in the ground realities. Like many he can gets frustrated and blows steam off and on. I think that he is a valuable resource and we should use his knowledge and resources to form our own opinions on the problems rathen than calling names and resort to rhetoric. I do not have any strong opinions on two or more states with in A.P. but what one has to try to see are the consequences.

Unknown said...

"RSS disapproves of statehood for Telangana

And, you can read their editorial (at their mouthpiece) Think of governance and growth.
Not emotion and petty politics for new states. "


idler,

Those links are telling only half truth.

The day after above news came(1st link), BJP/RSS clarified that press quoted Mr Bhagat's comments wrongly and they indeed support separate T.

The second link is also partially true. What they mentioned in the editorial doesn't apply for Telangana. This was also clarified in later press reports.

BJP is definitely betting on Telangana at the expense of Andhra as they have very good chance of making it Hindu vs Muslim in T. In Andhra they gave up as they have no chance.

kuffir said...

idler,

please read. before you comment. i said 'parivar', not 'rss'. the rss is only one part of a parivar that consists of around different organizations including the rss, bjp, abvp, bajrang dal and so on.

because there are so many of them, you might sometimes think they hold different views. they only *seem* to hold different views to some credulous sorts. like you are taken in by the telangana movement.

kuffir said...

idler,

'the rss is only one part of a parivar that consists of around 33 different organizations including the rss, bjp, abvp, bajrang dal and so on..'

forgot the number 33.

 
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