and who is paying, and will pay, the costs of this movement? gaddar's vision of telangana, or andhra pradesh or india or the world, for instance, is radically different from kcr's. he doesn't expect much from a 'bhougOlika telangana' (or 'geographic telangana'). he is fighting for a 'praja telangana' ('people's telangana') or andhra pradesh or india. he's been involved in the movement for nearly 15 years, much longer than kcr, but the people he works with count only as numbers to be loaded into trucks by the 'mainstream' upper caste leaders like kcr. or as suicides.
but who counts more in the 'mainstream' media and 'civil society'? gaddar or kcr? i've pointed out many times earlier that the separatist movement primarily serves upper caste interests: this article (it's a popular pro-separation site) and the comments following it, especially the comments, clearly illustrate the points i've been trying to make. please read to figure out what the position of the dalitbahujans will be in the vision of a separate telangana nurtured by the brahminized classes.
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5 comments:
Kufr,
What is your take on the facts that dalits of andhra and telangana were unable to unite to form a common front and instead hanker beyond these movements started by upper caste hindu interests ?
Kiran,
Dalits of Andhra and Telangana have not been able to come on a united platform due to inherent subcaste differences within them.
Dalits in Andhra are predominantly Malas while Madigas dominate in Telangana.
Friction between those two castes pertaining to reservations is well known, with madigas accusing malas of cornering most of the jobs meant for SC's. Hence their fight for categorization of SC's.
This is my simplistic view, though other experts can pitch in.
kiran,
you know the answer: this movement isn't going to solve the problems of dalits of either region. unity is a more urgent necessity now.
subbarao: thanks for your comment.
Kufr, you ask "what the position of the dalitbahujans will be in the vision of a separate telangana nurtured by the brahminized classes".
Good question but can you answer the more important question: "what the position of the dalitbahujans will be in the vision of a united andhra nurtured by the brahminized classes"?
anon:
your 'important' question rests upon a fundamentally wrong premise. telugu is not a brahminical identity-- in fact it pre-dates hinduism or brahminism.. it is much older than the modern idea of india as a nation. even some of the more prominent upper-caste leaders of the so-called samaikyandhra movement, like lagadapati rajagopal, don't advocate the idea of a telugu nation-- they're quite comfortable with accepting the supremacy of delhi, or india, over the telugu people.
plainly put, telangana and andhra, in my view, are a creation of hegemonic politics.. the uc endorsed idea of an eternal india is a much bigger fiction. when compared with those tenuous identities, the telugu identity, through history, has been a very tangible idea: as a people and as a culture that has never been totally hinduised or which has always resisted hinduisation. so, telugu, like tamil and other dravidian cultures, has always been a dalitbahujan cause, identity.
secondly: your question about the position of the dalitbahujans in a united andhra.. i'll attempt a very short answer: in 1948, the literacy rate in telangana was 6%. now it's around 60%. i'd say a united andhra pradesh has been very beneficial for the dalitbahujans of telangana, in a comparative sense, than the hyderabad state.
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