first, you drive a truck over people:
Hyderabad, March 10: Most students are jumping into the T-agitation bandwagon with the hope of getting government jobs.
Ironically, this is mentioned even in the suicide notes of those who took their lives for the cause.
“People like me will get jobs if Telangana state is formed,” read the suicide note left behind by S. Yadaiah from Ranga Reddy district who immolated himself in broad daylight in the Osmania University campus last month. “Please don’t stop this movement till Telangana is achieved.”
Many students blindly believe that their lives would become secure once the new state is formed because they will all get government jobs.
“People from other walks of life aren’t affected like students as they all hope to get jobs,” said Mr G. Niranjan, general secretary of the Pradesh Congress Committee. “But politicians are making contradictory statements leaving students in distress.” The number of students who prepare for government jobs is very high in OU campus. With the T-agitation getting fresh energy, many told their friends that they would be working in government offices in Telangana state within a year. But their hopes were dashed by the uncertainty that followed. [emphasis mine].
then you offer them band-aid.
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10 comments:
A simple question will probably answer a lot of questions. OU is in Hyd. So is JNTU. Then, why was it that all the T-agitations started in OU and not in JNTU or even HCU? A similar comparison between Kakatiya university and NIT, warangal will also provide a lot of answers.
Not all but only some of the OU students are politically motivated. These are the same students who are reluctant to graduate because if they graduate they will not be able to stay in the hostel. If they graduate, they will not be able to obtain meals at a discounted price. Surprisingly, the university authorities allow the entire students family (wife and kids) to stay in the hostel. At times like these, politicians swoop in with their untrue promises.
Universities should follow the rules. Kick the students out of the university as soon as they graduate. They will find it hard initially, but will later on learn to survive. By letting them stay on for years together without proper employment, the university themselves are making students easy targets to selfish politicians.
I will try to blog about it in detail sometime this month, hopefully.
I support this initiative! If the center decides to hush up Telangana, their services can be useful for providing counseling to the brainwashed. Just in case!
Had they used even half of their efforts for real clean up of politics and empowerment of the people, they would have made real contribution to the society. Perhaps the entire state would have benefited. That is the real sad part of this movement.
Ved: That is a good point. I think the problem in India is that people fail to see the root causes of many of the ills that afflict our society. Also, perhaps they have come to believe that they are incapable of reforming the democratic institutions to address any of these problems. May be it is this kind of collective hopelessness that drives them into mass movements - Telangana or elsewhere. Not that the present Telangana movement is without the myriad of self-interest groups that advance their pursuits in the shadow of millions of disgruntled participants of the mass movement.
--Surprisingly, the university authorities allow the entire students family (wife and kids) to stay in the hostel--
KC,
Are you sure? I happened to spend few years as student of OU. But have never seen the families.
Of course a "modern" family is always possible. Both the man and woman happen to be in OU and they marry :)
These students are often from very poor families and are often ill equipped for Indian jobs(Which require good english).
Compared to 1969, this movement is so hushed as there has been an explosion in employment opportunities and there are not enough unemployed students to manipulate with
A simple question ............will also provide a lot of answers.
somehow repeatedly comments in this blog relegate OU to a lower grade. (see Kiran's). As if, political ferment is such a bad thing or anything (including faculty members) from OU can't be taken seriously. I guess, Prof. kancha ilaiah is from the same uni.
Who r these comments trying to discredit. Of note, i appreciate Kufr's refrain from doing that (if i have not missed anything ).
krishna chaitanya,
i'd met a few students from o.u., who had participated in the agitation precipitated by the brutal, totally uncalled for lathi charge against them during the first week of kcr's fast. they were very intelligent, articulate and a socially conscious lot. the congress administration has a lot to answer for pushing some of them towards the trs and other rightwing outfits.
in the ten years since the beginning of the movement there weren't any provocative incidents or speeches in the university. many of the students are politically and socially conscious and responsible, but it is the professors who are more politically ambitious. most the assaults on public figures,politicians, businessmen etc in the city and elsewhere are being conducted by outfits affiliated to the abvp and the trs.
yes, there is a great deal of difference in attitudes and backgrounds of those studying/staying in the campus and pursuing courses in humanities and those studying for professional courses like engineering etc.. the latter come from relatively affluent backgrounds and have more career opportunities and hence are less enthusiastic about the agitation, but the former are usually from poor, rural families, very insecure about their future because there aren't so many opportunities around for them. the separatists have cleverly used the bait of government jobs for them, and have repeated that promise consistently over the last ten years.. one needs to blame the govt for neither pointing out realities-- that a new state can't support lakhs of new jobs-- nor creating more opportunities for humanities students in the last couple of decades.
and i believe most of the students leading the agitation in andhra university and sku etc are also from mostly poor, rural families. i know a little about the environment in a.u. in particular.
the freeloaders you refer to are a myth. there used to be some misuse of facilities in the past, around twenty years ago-- but believe me most of the freeloaders were actually from landowning velama and reddy families..
sridhar,
'May be it is this kind of collective hopelessness that drives them into mass movements..'
very, very true.
bhanu prasad,
'Compared to 1969, this movement is so hushed as there has been an explosion in employment opportunities and there are not enough unemployed students to manipulate with..'
true. and there are large support groups around to prod the students all the time because they need the students to give this movement the substance of a mass movement, but they also hate the students because they can't be controlled totally.
prabin,
'somehow repeatedly comments in this blog relegate OU to a lower grade.'
because certain student leaders affiliated to right-wing groups have been making extremely provocative verbal attacks on people from andhra-rayalaseema. there is anger and suspicion in public discourse, all around.
a large section of the students participating in agitations in telangana and andhra-rayalaseema are from dalitbahujan communities. i'm very impressed by the fact that so many of them have so effortlessly assumed leadership, but also very saddened that they've chosen to invest their energies and intellects not in a broadbased struggle or movement against caste and inequalities, but in a mainstream cause. one of the perils of joining a mainstream cause, i'm talking about telangana in particular, has been that the student community of ou has attained a certain notoriety.
kancha ilaiah has made a case for a 'samajika telangana' ( telangana for the dalitbahujans) and not a 'dorala telangana' (telangana for the landowning upper castes). but even the dalitbahujan students participating have not made this point focefully, and it has been ignored by most of the political parties supporting the cause and even by some of ilaiah's own dalitbahujan colleagues. he had also made a strong demand for negotiating a formal agreement from the upper caste led political parties that a dalit or obc would be made the first chief minister of the new state and other such demands.. these too were mostly ignored.
his support for a separate telangana state (without social agenda) is less intense than his support for an adivasi state stretching from the northern telangana districts to the borders of orissa in the east. i agree with him on that.
as for ou/hcu, you know quite well i'd always rank universities like ou always above elitist showpieces like hcu or the jnu or the iits..i'd always believed in the need for breaking hierarchy in the education system.
would appreciate much your views on my earlier posts (jan/feb), please.
Kuffir: I think the majority of participants regardless of caste and class think that raising issues like social justice would dilute their demand. And that seems like a fair strategy. The leaders of the separatist camps have successfully led the people to see the presence of andhra rulers and businessmen and jobs lost to non-locals as the bigger enemies and problems that are of immediate concern.
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