09/02/10

cutting off one's nose

an excellent analysis (in telugu), by sam gundimeda, of why some dalit activists/leaders in telangana and andhra-rayalaseema seem to think that separation would solve the problem of categorisation. and the author's view? he thinks it won't solve the problem, and i concur with him completely.

in another post, he wonders why dalits of andhra are supporting the movement for a united state when the movement is led by upper caste businessmen who wish to protect their businesses and properties in hyderabad, especially when those big businessmen don't even employ dalits, except in the lower rungs.

will those who have businesses and properties in hyderabad be affected by the creation of a new state? the answer is a clear 'no'. the indian constitution offers enough protection to those who own businesses and properties anywhere in the country.

the creation of a new state shall not stop either lagadipati rajagopal of lanco or kavuri sambasiva rao of progressive constructions or a few others like them from doing business or acquiring more property in hyderabad, or telangana. in fact, the creation of two or three or four new states (telangana, coastal andhra, greater rayalaseema and kalinga-andhra) would help them much more than other sections of society, in general, and businessmen in particular. because, as businessmen with special interest and experience in the field of construction and infrastructure, in the event/s of the creation of one or two or three new capitals each requiring 50,000 crores or 1,00,000 crores or much more of investments in infrastructure in the next ten years or twenty years or more, wouldn't business opportunities for them go up several times?

both lanco and progressive constructions have operations across the country now. please check those websites: lanco, for instance, has projects in around 11 states. logically speaking, i think companies like lanco would like nothing better than one or two or three new telugu speaking states where the company's top bosses would have strong links with both the political bosses and the top layers of the old/new bureaucracies (including those in telangana).

so, why do businessmen-politicians like l.rajagopal or k.sambasiva rao support the idea of a united state? as businessmen, as i pointed out, they should prefer division. but i think as politicians, they can't afford to ignore the concerns of their constituents, especially the vocal middle classes. and there are hundreds of other elected politicians, apart from those two and a few more, who aren't businessmen and they don't see much sense in division either. those two businessmen-politicians are more important to the separatists in telangana, than to the supporters of a united state, because they are so very easy and visible to point out, to caricaturize by infusing a lot of speculative masala about their deeds or misdeeds in popular discourse, build a not-very-savoury figure of a typical andhra politician. and by logical extension, build a strong stereotype that shall serve to demonize all people from andhra-rayalaseema as not-very-pleasant human beings, progressively, in the eyes of the average telangani. and that stereotype shall embrace everyone, eventually, irrespective of class, caste or creed.

i think it's good to start thinking about what all the classes, starting from the lowest, of andhra pradesh start to lose if the state is bifurcated or trifurcated or cut up into more pieces. one can't support or oppose division depending on what your traditional oppressors are doing because your enemy's enemy isn't always your friend. to use another cliche, to put it more eloquently: one can't cut off one's nose to spite one's face.

13 comments:

Bhanu Prasad said...

Kuffir,

But the larger issue is the binami properties of these business men. These capitalists have always been the ones that Adam Smith would dread of.

Indian capitalism is the most harmful one, namely the culture crony-capitalism. It is neither productive nor it rewards the best talent. As per my prediction, in 20-30 years a large chunk of GDP will be in control of a handful upper class business families.

Also, how do you think about the arguments of Jai andhra agitators. Will seperate andhra be much more prosperous and advanced?

Sridhar said...

Why blame the capitalists when our administration itself is so lax and in cases deliberately allows the fraudsters to go scott free.

Our government institutions are hand-in-glove to the corrupt politicians and businessmen. As long as we can not reform our institutions and laws it is unfair to expect capitalists to be saintly. Given the rules of the game they are simply maximizing their payoff!

Sanjiv said...

The Reddy comunity controls all politics & most of business & most of land since ages & all political power. They have money & muscle power & use them. Are they brahmins?

Anonymous said...

Kuffir,

You cant get any stupid then this. Lagadapati is trying to save his life. He has taken loans of over hundred crores for lanco hills project in hyderabad. Thge telangana movement has halted his work as there are no sales. Hence he trying these gimmicks. When a company's brand is effected as with Lanco (on acquiring Wakf land), then they will find it difficult to business anywhere. Thats the point.Please dont come up with stupid logic to support they politicians.

kuffir said...

bhanu,

i've hinted in my post that people like rajagopal would still continue to wield influence over political/bureaucratic bosses in the new states too..so telangana and creation of new states wouldn't bring in any structural change. so the question, i think, is related.

i believe all regions of the state have enough potential to grow much beyond their current levels, if we shifted our focus from purely 'resources' to people. kerala has halved the population dependent on agriculture in the last forty years, its paddy and food grains production has also halved but it's per capita gdp is much higher than a.p.'s. it scores better on all human development indices.. and it's been a power deficit state all through its post-independence existenc,but it produces more graduates/1000 people than a.p. we need to look at those questions.

sridhar,

agree with you on the reforms of institutions totally.

kuffir said...

sanjiv,

thanks for your comment, but didn't understand your question. could you please elaborate?

anon,

thanks for your comment, but the rudeness is not appreciated. i'll overlook that for now.

let me see: rajagopal is hundreds of crores in debt, but has hundreds of crores to buy mps/mlas and other elected politicians' resignations and finance the participation of lakhs of people in the agaitation for a united state? interesting.

i agree that participation in agitations on both sides is being financed by certain interested parties to a great extent, but i think the level of voluntary participation is also high.

Anonymous said...

Kuffir,

Lagadapati returns on lanco hills projects is expected to be thousands of crores if completed and sales be on planned lies. Hence to get that returns, he is paying a fraction of the money to lure mla and mps. Its an open rumour that he has paid crores to owaisis. Thats why they dont raise the issue of lanco inspiite of it being in the open that those are walkf lands.. Classic case of thinking big..you are missing the point. not lagadapati and his seemandhra peers.

kuffir said...

anon,

as i said, very interesting.and why did lagadapati's returns on lanco hills not materialize? no, there is no slump in real estate, i guess. and nri buyers of lanco hills' properties are not suffering from any recession in america, either. every other builder's flats, offices across india have been selling well for the last two years..there's been no slump in india. there are no empty commercial properties in bangalore, gurgaon, new mumbai etc..

only lanco hills is facing problems from a market that's gone dry only for rajagopal.

so to recover money from a market that's dried up only for him, rajagopal needs to buy around 175 mlas, each of whom has spent around 2-10 crores during elections, and 25 mps (or more, if you include the rajya sabha mps), some of whom have spent around 50 crores during elections, to start a bogus agitation for a united state..how much must rajagopal have paid them? say, 10 crores for each mla, and 30 crores for each mp (the going rate for mps who crossed over during the nuclear bill was 30 crores plus tickets for the 2009 elections and other privileges)..and that adds upto: 1750 crores plus 750 crores equals 2,250 crores. and that's the cheapest wholesale price for all those mlas and mps..if each mla, mp started demanding more, the total bill would easily cross rs.3,000 crores.

the other elected politicians from hyderabad themselves are crorepatis several hundred times now, what'd rajagopal have paid them, i wonder.

so, rajagopal has dished out all those thousands of crores to save a project that has no buyers?

thanks for all that scintillating gossip...i mean, analysis.

kuffir said...

'1750 crores plus 750 crores equals 2,250 crores.' that should read 2,500 crores, i guess. but does it matter? what's a few hundred crores more or less for someone who wishes to save a precious property that has no buyers? rajagopal has all that loose change, but he won't repay his loans to the banks because he'd rather shell out more to buy corrupt politicians and common people in order to launch an agitation which may or may not save his property by bringing him any buyers..

Sampath said...

Kufr,

You are missing the point again!! Your analysis is based on two premises

1. Rajgopal is the only person playing all the mla.s and mp's

2. That every mla and every mp is being sold.

these are baseless assumptions, which makes no sense and hence your analysis also makes no sense.

Its a known fact Q4 2008, Q2, 2 and three of 2009 have been bad for real estate across india. Please get your facts right

kuffir said...

anon/sampath,

get my facts right? didn't know you guys dealt in those commodities.

i had tried to clearly explain how rajagopal, if he were at least one slight bit more rational than the average separatist, wouldn't be thinking of opposing telangana if his sole motive was to save his project. in a united state, or in a separate telangana, his project is doomed anyway.. it was conceived during an irrational boom period and it will never find that kind of huge irrational, buyer response that it generated initially.

my analysis is about your premises. so, your premises are baseless assumptions?

you guys have been the spreading the idea that the agitation for a united state is financed by a few big businessmen like rajagopal..i pointed out how irrational the idea of one businessmen or two or a dozen buying over all the mps/mlas and lakhs of people of two regions is. you've no answer to that.

but thanks anyway for all the gossip you guys bring to this blog. i'm sure gossip would be the biggest industry in the new telangana state..i'm already brimming with pride in anticipation: what if that's the only industry we would be left with by the time you guys are finished with your telangana project, we would be leaders in the whole of india in that particular field of enterprise!!

Sampath said...

Kuffir,

Who have you come to a conclusion that his sole motive of rajgopal and others was save their projercts and land. The purpose may be to save their political careers and lives. If convicted of illegal dealings in hyderabad, what would happen to his political career and all his business. That's why many people as its business driven agitation.

I also for one believe that the United AP agitation is not solely by business minded politicians, there are lot of apprehensions for students, farmers and other people of seemandhra on water and hyderabad. For e.g a student might feel what will happen to his employement and education opportunities in hyderabad if hyderabad. That's a fair question. But, the answer to that is not United AP. There is way to settle such issues.

On gossips industry, any sensible person would not respond to such illogical statements. I request you to sensible when you write, because i feel you have good gift of writing. Dont not waste this by irrational thought.

Unknown said...

Sampath posted..

'I also for one believe that the United AP agitation is not solely by business minded politicians, there are lot of apprehensions for students, farmers and other people of seemandhra on water and hyderabad. For e.g a student might feel what will happen to his employment and education opportunities in hyderabad. That's a fair question.'


Apprehensions by seemandhra people is just a fair question, but apprehensions/hatred caste by T separatists is beyond any questions. Typical separatist mentality. People on the other side count for nothing. The reaction on Dec 10th for united AP from seemandhra region was spontaneous. There were no TDF , ourtelanagna, TRS, JAC , jana naatya mandali to plan, incite and create a platform for every disgruntled, unemployed and up-coming politician. Yet the spontaneous dissent by united AP activists was bigger than what T separatists could carefully plan and nurture for last 5 years. Lagadapati is inconsequential in andhra politics. He can barely win his own constituency. He is as eccentric and opportunistic as KCR, although no match with KCR in manipulating people.
Sampath posted
'But, the answer to that is not United AP. There is way to settle such issues.'


But the answer for the political hunger of separatists is separate state. Cordon off an area solely for them to plunder and feast. That is the only way to settle such issues, it seems.

 
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