breaking up india 6

[notes from a forthcoming book: part 6 of a series of exercises involving breaking up india into parts to understand it better. i'm not posting all the notes, only random ones]
i'd said:

india was always considered an empire all through history - how did it become a nation?

perry anderson asks this question too - how did india become a nation? or why did india become a nation in the minds of all major leaders of the freedom movement - from gandhi to nehru - and still remains such a strong idea among even the 'most distinguished Indian intellectuals' - like amartya sen to ramachandra guha to sunil khilnani to meghnad desai - when historically it never was a nation? anderson notes:

Nehru’s claim of an ‘impress of oneness’, going back six thousand years, persisted from pre-war writings like The Unity of India to his final dispute with China, in which the Mahabharata could be invoked by his foreign office as proof that the North-East Frontier Agency had been part of Mother India from time immemorial, rather as if the Niebelunglied were to clinch German diplomatic claims to Morocco. Such notions have not gone away. The facts gainsay them. The sub-continent as we know it today never formed a single political or cultural unit in pre-modern times. For much the longest stretches of its history, its lands were divided between a varying assortment of middle-sized kingdoms, of different stripes. Of the three larger empires it witnessed, none covered the territory of Nehru’s Discovery of India. Maurya and Mughal control extended to contemporary Afghanistan, ceased below the Deccan, and never came near Manipur. The area of Gupta control was considerably less. Separated by intervals of five hundred and a thousand years, there was no remembered political or cultural connexion between these orders, or even common religious affiliation: at its height, the first of these Buddhist, the second Hindu, the third Muslim. Beneath a changing mosaic of mostly regional rulers, there was more continuity of social patterns, caste – the best claimant to a cultural demarcation – attested very early, but no uniformity. The ‘idea of India’ was essentially a European, not a local invention, as the name itself makes clear. No such term, or equivalent, as India existed in any indigenous language. A Greek coinage, taken from the Indus river, it was so exogenous to the subcontinent that as late as the 16th century, Europeans could define Indians simply as ‘all natives of an unknown country’, and so call the inhabitants of the Americas.

you'd think anderson had delivered a resounding slap to the collective face of the brahminized classes through his book. but they're not easily daunted, and ignoring totally the unpalatable parts, such as the excerpt quoted above, they quote him selectively with a lot of enthusiasm these days. because it's a trendy thing to do in academia, perhaps.

so why do all of india's modern day leaders and intellectuals lie, why don't they admit that there never was any india? anderson's essay is just one recent example, there have always been others who had questioned this 'idea of india'. anderson's scaled down, but very effective presentation of some plain facts makes it seems such a commonsensical question. why don't people ask it more often?

why bant singh can't go to rahul pandita

something led me here, to this very entertaining piece of information:

The meaning of the word 'Saraswat' has more than one origin. One refers to 'offspring of Saraswati'^{[citation needed]} , the Goddess of learning applied usually to learned and scholarly people. It may also denote the residents of Saraswati river basin. The brahmins of this region who are referred to as 'Saraswats' in Mahabharata and Puranas were learned in Vedic lore^{[citation needed]} . They concentrated on studying subjects like astronomy, metaphysics, medicine and allied subjects and disseminating knowledge^{[citation needed]} .

the heading, you'd notice says 'history'. history? do people really believe that's history? gods and goddesses are history? do you notice anything like dates in that whole section?

that piece of history whetted my appetite for more such knowledge. this page tells you about the origins of the nambudiris:

The ancient Sangam literature mentions Brahmins of Chera Kingdom (which became Kerala) who may be Namboothiris as there is mention of Perinchellur(Taliparamba) village, which is one of the most important villages for Namboothiris, as a great Vedic village. There is no concrete evidence to suggest migration of Namboothiri Brahmins to Kerala but would most probably be the heavily civilised Aryans who took the Red sea route to Kerala even before the 100O BC. The recent evidence of Brahmin migration to Kerala is the Embranthiris who were originally Tulu Brahmins.

no concrete evidence, but they're most probably heavily civilised Aryans who took the Red sea route to Kerala even before the 100O BC (100O BC?).

what's funnier (than the content of those histories) is the fact that some people, at least two persons, actually wrote those pages. why? to tell people like me: this is not your history, you can't bask in the glory of the saraswats or the nambudiris, you can only admire them. but would anyone have written those pages if non-nambudiris/non-saraswats like me didn't exist? what's the point of being a brahmin when there aren't any non-brahmins around? so i am there in those narratives: as, say, most probably the heavily uncivilised native who didn't take the red sea route to kerala even before the 100O BC, but was born here. no non-indian can read between the lines and spot me, the non-saraswat or non-nambudiri, who doesn't deserve any history. the nambudiri is the light, i am the shadow that gives the light meaning.

if i ever tell a non-indian that my people studied astronomy, metaphysics and medicine ages ago, i'd be lying. because it was the saraswats who studied astronomy, metaphysics and medicine. so i have to make sure no brahmins, saraswats especially, are around when i tell non-indians that my people studied astronomy, metaphysics and medicine. but a lie is a lie and as long as that page, and less crude but similar pages exist in many forms, i can never really be proud of the fact that 'indians' were smart enough to explore astronomy etc a thousand or more years ago. not as long as some 'indians' claim that they're brahmins.

they say the chinese first started making rockets, or something like rockets. it's quite possible a chinese nobleman first made it. but now, any chinese soldier or hawker or sex worker or scientist or film star could proudly say: we invented rockets. because there is no single endogamous group of people in china who could say: my forefathers invented rockets. so everyone is free to claim that glory.

when someone explicitly tells the world he's a brahmin, like the writers of those two pages, he's claiming a lot of history for himself. a history filled with 'glorious achievements'. you might have problems with the authenticity or incompleteness of that history, but there's very little you can do about it. the problem is, a lot of history attaches itself even to those who don't explicitly tell the world that they're brahmin. a lot of history attaches itself to all brahmins, as long as they're brahmins, in whatever fashion, for the simple reason that indian history doesn't have much space for anyone else.

the reason why indian history sounds so much like a bad zombie movie in which the characters seemingly incapable of any voluntary, conscious action so smartly and purposefully keep cornering the conscious, hyperactive ones, is because it implicitly makes the claim that those mostly unconnected with any production produced all of indian science, astronomy, medicine etc. indian history reads so much like mythology because those claiming its 'glorious achievements' as their own have no idea whatsoever how those achievements were accomplished-- it's obvious that they know only a part of the story, so they add a lot of mumbo jumbo to complete it, to obfuscate the dalitbahujan contributions. indian history is such a colossal crime because by depriving the dalitbahujans of any past, it steals their future too.

as long as the brahmins, as brahmins, are around, and in very large numbers, in academia and other places that produce history-- it'd be very difficult to find anything resembling objective history in that kind of an environment. no, i have no problems with people whose forefathers might have been brahmins filling all available seats in universities with their..behinds.

but as long as people who can trace their ancestry back to the nambudiris or saraswats are around, i might as well give up thinking that i can produce something of value, because indian history tells me i'm totally incapable of producing anything of any value. only the brahmin can.

but mr.dipankar gupta would object to that kind of a caste sneer:

Only recently, a newspaper article, while discussing Narayana Murthy’s inept attempts to wriggle out of his faux pas with the national anthem episode, calmly added without context that one cannot expect much from a Brahmin after all. Now where did that come from? As if to explain further, the journalist went on to remind the readers that Narayana Murthy, the Brahmin, as a Brahmin, also opposed reservation quotas. This is clearly a caste sneer!

yes, that clearly is a caste sneer, because it attributes a negative trait to all brahmins. gupta is trying to say that the journalist accused narayana muthy, the brahmin, of acting as a brahmin. can the word brahmin be sanitized of its history, and of its sociology? can a person just be a brahmin, just as someone can be tall, fat or dark? can someone be a brahmin and not be acting as a brahmin?

isn't the very claim to be a brahmin, a claim on an exclusive right to a long line of 'super-achievements', also an act of consigning almost everyone else to an history of 'non-achievement'? isn't that a caste sneer, in a way?

--------------------------------

i started on this post nearly two years ago-- don't know if all the links work now. but its logic still seems ok to me, and i feel more confident of that theory today, after reading this article by rahul pandita. he says:

As a Brahmin, does it make me less sensitive to the plight of the poor or the marginalised? Why is it such a big deal that I can wear my Janeu, recite my Hanuman Chalisa, and yet go to Bant Singh’s house in Bhurj Jabbar, thirstily gulp down a few glasses of water, and tell his story? Where is the contradiction?

yes, why is it such a big deal that he wears a janeu etc? i don't believe the practice of rituals etc make a brahmin. so giving them up won't make one less of a brahmin, either, in my view.

the big deal is that bant singh can't just get up and go meet rahul pandita in delhi or mumbai or wherever he lives, gulp down a few glasses of water, and tell his story. bant singh was attacked because he wanted to do exactly what rahul pandita does. get up and go do the things he wanted to do.

the big deal is that rahul pandita has the freedom to do so and bant singh doesn't.

if you say bant singh lost his freedom of movement because of the line of work he chose to do-- organizing farm labour-- you'd be wrong because he didn't have much freedom of choice to begin with. history had seen to that. now rahul pandita, despite being forced out of home 'at the age of 14', seems to have done quite well for himself. that's the contradiction.

when rahul pandita says he's a brahmin, he's making a claim on a lot of indian history. when bant singh rebels against his present, he is also rejecting pandita's history, his claim on privilege. if pandita doesn't see that, he shouldn't have undertaken the trip to bant singh's home. 

jayashankar, mythmaker

We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, it is passion. It is not necessary that it shall be a reality. It is a reality by the fact that it is a good, a hope, a faith, that it is courage. Our myth is the Nation, our myth is the greatness of the Nation! And to this myth, to this grandeur, that we wish to translate into a complete reality, we subordinate all the rest.

that was benito mussolini on myth.

jayashankar liked to say: i think in urdu, write in english and speak in telugu. all the the feudal elite of hyderabad state before independence could also have described themselves in that fashion. the top 5% of the people who prospered and were entitled to many privileges while the rest weren't worth even primary education in their own language. telugu, the people's language, therefore, held that kind of relevance for him-- a language you used to communicate with the lower classes, to tell them they need to know little other than to serve. not a language for the expression of high thought. and he always knew better than the people-- even when the people's representatives overwhelmingly voted for a united state for the telugus, he knew that the majority, which in his view consisted of himself and a reactionary, minuscule minority comprising a few feudal elements, were not in favour of andhra pradesh.

his politics completely derailed the process of evolution of dalitbahujan consciousness and politics for the last decade and more in andhra pradesh. when the dalitbahujans should have been asking for their own rights-- their stolen entitlements, jobs, resources and share in political power-- he appropriated their angst and converted it into a fictitious regional divide.

he brought back the forces of hindu nationalism and savarna casteism into telugu politics.he trivialized people's aspirations for greater decentralization and democracy. he leaves behind a political legacy that upholds retrograde myths over facts, lumpen muscle over dissent and democracy.

finding soodrahood in telingana

It has also been noticed that in speaking the Teloogoo, the Soodras use very few Sanskrit words; among the superior classes of Vysyus, and pretenders to the Rajah cast, Sanskrit terms are used only in proportion to their greater intimacy with the Bramins, and their books; and when we find even such Sanskrit words as these classes do adopt, pronounced by them in so improper and rude a manner as to be a common jest to the Bramins, who, at the same time, never question their pronounciation of pure Teloogoo words, I think we may fairly infer to be probable at least that these Sanskrit terms were originally foreign to the great body of people. 

from  the 'Introduction' section of the 'A Grammar of the Teloogoo Language, Commonly termed the Gentoo...' by A.D.Campbell. published in 1816, around the same age as when the nizams of hyderabad were either gifting away or being made to 'cede' the coastal andhra and rayalaseema regions to their colonial overlords.

two centuries later, if campbell were still around, he'd probably notice again that the 'Soodras' still can't get a hold on any sanskrit word without taking little conscious preparatory pauses. and their pronunciation still causes much jest among both the 'bramins' and those 'pretender' classes who have developed a much 'greater intimacy' with the bramins.  

when the the srikrishna committee submits its report to the central government today, and when delhi acts on it: both actions should be seen as the 'bramins' exercising their suzerainty over the 'soodras' of 'Telingana' (as campbell calls the whole of telugu speaking lands, including what are now referred to as 'coastal andhra' and 'rayalaseema' and other regions which are now a part of other states) yet again. as implied in the short paragraph, forces 'foreign to the great body of people' have always played a great role in the life of the 'gentoos'. brahminism and sanskrit, holding sway for several centuries couldn't destroy the ethos of the soodras even until the nineteenth century. it remained 'pure teloogoo'. but that project is still on, because soodrahood, innate to such pre-hindu cultures as the telugu culture, still poses the greatest challenge to the brahminical idea of india. and will, always. but how long should the soodras remain tethered to the trenches, fending off one assault after another, never attempting to subdue the enemy? they have to realize that soodrahood can also be a weapon, not just a shield to ward off the bramin's attacks. 

i remember an excellent post by dr.p.keshava kumar, teacher of philosophy and occasional blogger, on how the dalit movement is trying to deal with brahminism in tamil nadu-- let me quote a passage from the post in which he tries to explain the political philosophy of thol thirumavalavan of the viduthalai chiruthaigal katchi:

Let me elobarate further, tamil identity is not just a linguistic identity. As an eminent philosopher Wittegenstein said language is the form of life. Life has to be understood as social life. Social life exists in our social relationships. The social relationships are much rooted in our cultural life. For Thirumavalavan, tamil identity means it is all. He believed that tamil society is much more democratic society. There is no trace of caste system and is different from Brahminism, Hinduism and Aryanism. This distinct identity is maintained for so many centuries. On contrary to this our existing relationships hierarchy prevails there exists one over the other. The caste system is responsible for this. The hindu religion had the sole responsibility for strengthening it. It is the characteristic of brahminism/Hinduism which is internalized into Indian nationalism. In the course of time even it influencing the tamilians. Again to revive tamil identity one has to necessarily annihilate this caste system.

the democratic roots of soodrahood in telingana (i mean campbell's telingana, of course) have to be found again. one needs to dig a little, but not very deep because an outsider like campbell could spot them quite easily a couple of centuries ago.

do-it-yourself history kit

lingams, vaishnavaite figures, a half parsvanatha. and there are probably also some buddhist influences in the temple complex, battlefield of ancient politics, where these nearly thousand year old reminders of telangana/telugu history (and also kannada history) were so callously stacked up.

one set of believers obviously built the structure first. and then another set of believers invaded the place, and selectively destroyed and rebuilt the place to celebrate their beliefs. and then another set of invaders emerged. and then another. and these battles happened long before the muslim rulers ever set foot in telangana. the disagreements, and the battles, as one can see, were quite fierce. now, trace the history of that mongrel shrine. who were the good guys and who were the bad guys?

the easy way out is to follow the path of the telangana separatists: pick up one figure and break the rest into shards with it. follow the example of the ancient invaders.

the history of all hitherto unexciting society...

nice to be around when history is being made:

One is witnessing the process of ‘Telangana’ itself acquiring a history, identity and cultural integrity. Dalits, a strong presence in several forums, are contending that Telangana’s culture is a ‘Sabbanda culture’ that is predominantly non-Sanskritic or un-Hindu.

or made up:

Telangana region was mentioned in the Mahabharata as the Telinga Kingdom which said to be inhabited by the tribe known as Telavana and said to have fought on the Pandava side in the great war of Mahabharata. It is also evident from the fact that there is Pandavula Guhalu in warangal district (wherein Pandavas spent their life in exile (Lakkha Gruham))

And, in Treta yuga, it is believed that Lord Sri Rama along with his consort Sita Devi and brother Lakshmana, spent their life in exile at Parnashala on the banks of Godavari river which is about 25 km from Bhadrachalam in Khammam District of Telangana.

or being designed: discover how un-hindu or non-sanskritic telangana thalli ('mother telangana') is, in the words of her creator, here. if you can't read telugu, don't worry. you can feast your eyes on the telangani diamond 'koh-i-noor' in the goddess' crown.

bloodthirsty media

Perhaps History has cursed Telangana. Its two flourishing empires—of Kakatiyas and Kutub Shahis—were destroyed by Tughlaq and Aurangazeb respectively. It would have been better if the British Empire had made Telangana its province. Good or bad, Mecaulay’s heirs would have thrived here too. Telangana people would have learnt a bit of strategy, a bit of administration and a bit of politicking. Unfortunately, it is their proclivity to struggle that was always dominant here. It is in this place, swords were drawn for the first war of Indian independence. Ramji Gond was hanged here. While mobilizing Adivasis, Komaram Bhim lost his life here. When the entire country was scoring victories through ‘refomative’ nationalism, even satyagraha was banned here. Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, prohibited Satyagraha only in Hyderabad. When entire villages armed themselves to fight against the feudal order, the world eulogized Telangana saying “you are second to none in shedding blood.” The sacrifice of five thousand martyrs and the struggle of ten thousand villages—got lost in time. Here, every battle ends with either a sacrifice or a betrayal. The snake in ‘Snakes and Ladder’ game keeps biting. But the Vikramarka hauls Bhetala onto his shoulder yet again. You experience a 1969 and a 1978. For the next three decades, it is the dead bodies of Telangana that would be hung from the threshold of the fort. Still these people don’t learn or won’t accept defeat. Even as experience tells them that nothing can be achieved, they don’t give up. To get something, one keeps raising one’s voice. To live here, one has to die.

For Telangana, its ‘present’ is another curse. One who grows into a leader turns out to be a landlord. Youth become Naxalites. And there is so much concern (from others) for the people of leaderless Telangana!

What a wonderful people! But what a disgraceful leadership! Stubborn or strong or naïve or foolish they may be, and yet what a great people! Telangana took pride—when Telugus and the rest of the world lauded them for its tremendous courage and struggle. When such a people are begging the leaders to assume their role of guiding people, pleading them to occupy the throne of Telangana government, isn’t it a pity that the leaders, in self-deception, choose to land at the gates of the high command and feel secure? What a great tragedy to openly admit that they are not qualified to become leaders, and that they are happy to remain in the second rung and get whatever the higher ups dole out to them?!

Siripuram Yadaiah is an orphan, just like Telangana. Telangana is without a leader. No leader to give a little assurance to its people. No one to at least pledge that he will not compromise, if not resign, from his position. There is no leader to dispel the thick clouds of despair fast engulfing the hearts of these orphans.

Perhaps Telangana requires a new leadership, not merely for a separate state, but for the future. It needs a leadership that doesn’t abandon its people midway, but shows them the path ahead. The disturbed and the orphaned people should lead themselves. They should be led by wisdom and rationality and not by illusions and wordiness. They should stop getting disheartened when betrayed by the leaders who lack integrity. They must not waste their valuable lives by dying.

found that at this google group. one of the members seems to have translated it from telugu. the author is k.srinivas, the editor of andhra jyothy.

the world can't take it if telanganis live in peace. srinivas spent a couple of days in jail recently, for hinting in a front page story that dalitbahujan activists of andhra pradesh can be bought. now he can barely control himself from urging the same dalitbahujans to shed some more blood, to follow ramji gond, komuram bheem, chakali ailamma, doddi komuraiah, kishta goud.. siripuram yadaiah. and thousands of others. so that telangana doesn't lose its reputation as a war cry among the well-fed upper caste revolutionaries of jnu?

suddenly learnt the other day, that a couple of 'leader-less orphans' who had climbed up a cellphone tower a few days ago (minor news on television) in the village my folks came from, were my second cousins. one of their grandparents had been beaten up very badly by the razakars around sixty years ago, because their uncles (barely in their teens then) were carrying supplies and messages to the communists. if someone like srinivas had been around, i don't think they'd have climbed down. i strongly suspect it was someone like srinivas who sent them up there, to join their grandfather, in the first place. look at what anant maringanti is talking about here.

a state within a state

p.s. krishnan, an ex-bureaucrat who had worked in andhra pradesh for long, and had also served on the mandal commision, in v.p.singh's team and as adivsor to arjun singh a few years ago on the obc reservations issue, suggests an innovative solution to the telangana issue:

The widespread demand for the establishment of Telangana State has met with opposition in the Andhra area on two grounds: (a) The general sentiment against division of the linguistic State of Andhra Pradesh and against the division of the Telugu-speaking people; (b) Apprehension about protection of Andhra interests in Telangana, especially in and around Hyderabad city, and particularly the protection of the large number of people of Andhra origin who came to Hyderabad because it is the capital of their State and made it their home. Leaving aside a handful of big industrialists and realtors, they belong to the middle class, the lower middle class and even unorganized labour who have invested a lifetime’s savings in Hyderabad and Greater Hyderabad over two or three generations. Most of these properties are no more than a house or a residential plot or investments in some small trade or profession.

It is possible to reconcile the sentiments and fulfil the aspirations of both Telangana and Andhra people by adopting the following measures for which a Constitutional framework exists, and to which suitable modifications / adaptations can be made:
(i) Establishment of an Autonomous State of Telangana within the State of Andhra Pradesh.
(ii) The Autonomous State of Telangana should have its own Legislature and its own Council of Ministers.
(iii) The Legislature of the Autonomous State should have power to make laws for Telangana in respect of matters enumerated in the State List or in the Concurrent List. Power to make laws includes power to repeal or amend existing laws with prospective effect in the interest of the people.

Whether every item in the State List and Concurrent List should be brought within the purview of the Legislature of the Autonomous State of Telangana or whether a few items of common interest, e.g., law and order in Hyderabad/ Greater Hyderabad, should be kept out is a matter to be settled by detailed negotiations.

In the case of the latter, if it is agreed to by all sides in detailed negotiations, it could be brought into the concurrent list or a new category of concurrent list involving the Autonomous State of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and the Indian Government.

iv) This will also mesh with the larger concern over terrorists targeting major cities of India, including Hyderabad, for which mega policing, aerial surveillance, etc., are being thought of but will be possible only with Central participation.In that case, what is done for Hyderabad in the present context will become a model in respect of other metropolises of India in the larger context also.

v) A mechanism can be created, maybe an expert commission or some other, for equitable sharing of water resources between the Autonomous State of Telangana and the Andhra area of Andhra Pradesh. In addition to this, there can be, on the basis of negotiations, a permanent expert commission to pursue matters on a continuing basis taking off from the award that will be issued by the commission set up under statute.

vi) Formula for sharing of taxes, especially taxes generated in Hyderabad city, can be evolved on the basis of correct financial principles and available statistics by an expert body and through negotiations. There is the experience of what was done in this regard about 40 years back as part of the budgetary exercise.

vii) Hyderabad, which is embedded within Telangana, should continue to be part of Telangana and capital of the Autonomous State. The futility of any effort to alter this should be evident from the aborted move in the late 50s of the last century to separate Bombay (now Mumbai) from Maharashtra as a Union Territory and the delay this caused in the formation of the linguistic States of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the bitterness that this delay gave rise to and the agitations that it set off for a few years and other events of that period ending with the bifurcation of the bilingual State into Maharashtra (including Mumbai) and Gujarat.

At the same time, since formation of the Autonomous State of Telangana does not require the division of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad can also continue to be the capital of Andhra Pradesh. Thus, the dispute and problem relating to Hyderabad can be avoided.

viii) Andhra interests that have grown in Telangana, especially in Hyderabad city and its surroundings in the last half-century, should have all lawful protection in the Autonomous State. In particular, a system should be created under the proposed Constitutional route to ensure law and order, and security and sense of security, for the people in Greater Hyderabad.

The advantages of the above route are that a) Telangana will get autonomous statehood while preserving the existing Andhra Pradesh State and b) the unfortunate bitterness that has grown between the people of the two regions may also disappear with the emergence of an agreed solution as is possible on the above basis.

This opportunity can also be utilised to provide Constitutional systems for the protection of the people of the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and their lands and other interests and also to provide proper Constitutional, legal, institutional and organizational systems for securing the economic, educational and social advancement of SCs, STs and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes, including BCs of Muslim and Christian communities.

The autonomous State concept was earlier applied in the case of Meghalaya which, of course, later became the State of Meghalaya. But, the situation in Andhra Pradesh is more propitious than it was in the case of Assam. The “ethnic” difference between the Assamese (Ahomiya) plains people of Assam, and the Khasi and Jaintia and Garo tribes of the erstwhile Assam / Meghalaya Autonomous State / Meghalaya State does not exist between the people of Telangana and Andhra. The disturbing external factors experienced in Assam do not exist in Andhra Pradesh. Further, the political experience and maturity of the people of Andhra Pradesh promise longevity for this Constitutional arrangement of autonomous State within a State in the case of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

If it comes about and succeeds it will not only help resolve the present impasse in Andhra Pradesh in a positive way and put the people of the autonomous State of Telangana and of Andhra Pradesh on the path of development, welfare and equality, it will also set up a model for resolving similar aspiration-based movements in regions of other States. This issue cannot be wished away or brushed under the carpet.

Realizing the strong sentiments in favour of linguistic States (which also had a democratic justification), the Constitution- makers provided in Article 3 for formation of new States. This was utilized on several occasions. Also, the Indian leadership showed resilience in the matter of Article 343 and the Eighth Schedule and its expansion from time to time. All these helped meet powerful regional/linguistic sentiments (which also had a democratic content) and simultaneously strengthened India’s federalism and unity.

i think a division would be disastrous, for many reasons, for both the telugus and india. the current level of 'sentiments' in favour of telangana don't reflect a permanent divide, in my view. and these kinds of 'sentiments', history tells me, have a way of changing shape and even location and may reincarnate as new upheavals in coastal andhra or rayalaseema in the near future. this is not a 'problem' that the ruling classes of india can 'manage' and 'deal' with over a couple of years and go back to being the same ruling classes of india, later. because the telugus seem to have been around even before there was any india, and political schisms over centuries haven't been able to cause any serious damage to their ability to separate and regroup. and separate and regroup.

so i find some of krishnan's suggestions interesting, because they seem to take a saner, more mature approach to dealing with this 'problem', not because i agree with them totally.

telangana's palestine

KHAMMAM: Chanda Lingaiah Dora, chairman and convener of the ‘Mannesima Rastra Sadhana Samiti’ (MRSS) on Saturday demanded the Centre and the State to accord the status of ‘national tribal festival’ or the tribal Kumbh mela to the ‘Sammakka Saarakka Jatara’ held once in two years at Medaram in Warangal district and make arrangements for it accordingly. In a statement issued here, he took strong exception to what he called, the Telangana JAC claim for considering it the Telangana festival. Its importance cannot be restricted to a region, he added.

very few people, drowned in all the static generated by the separatist movement, might have heard of it: i am talking about Mannesima Rastra Sadhana Samiti. the separatists tried to shout down lingaiah dora in a recent public debate organized by a telugu television channel for voicing his demand for a separate adivasi state. democracy, as defined by the separatist movement, is all people speaking up for telangana.

the incident happened in warangal, the capital of the kakatiya empire which had brutally put down seven centuries ago an adivasi rebellion led by two women, sammakka and her daughter saralamma. now the telangana movement claims to own samakka and saralamma.

the adivasis in telangana form around 12% of the population, a people bigger than palestine. and a nation, we always forget, before they became a minority. shouldn't they claim a state? there is not much of their geography left. all kinds of kindhearted people have over the centuries, and very rapidly in the last sixty years, in the name of educating, developing and liberating them have liberated a large portion of their lands, and much else, from their reach. so, in a dissent movement like telangana, lingaiah dora should've been honoured as the first among dissenters. but the separatists can't dissent against themselves, can they? for instance, they look at the singareni coal belt as a resource that was plundered by outsiders. and if they start thinking about what the adivasis think about their homeland being referred to as a resource by the original outsiders, would they become owners ever? so, is this movement about ownership or justice? when all the talk is about hyderabad, rivers, jungles, mines, lands, government jobs etc, could it be about justice?

the separatists have also acquired ownership over other adivasi rebellions, like the one led by komuram bheem in the first half of the last century against the nizam, who incidentally, also belongs to the trs and the separatist movement now. but one of their most crafty claims of ownership has been the siege they've laid to certain adivasi movements outside the state. jharkhand and chhattisgarh are, according to the theorists of the movement, hindi speaking states. could there be anything more disingenuous? when those two movements took roots, adivasis formed a majority in both regions. and the states were announced several decades later when the indian state had finally managed to reduce them to large minorities. the adivasis who had originally started those movements wanted adivasi states, but the indian state conceded their demands only after making them speak hindi. like the separatists who will start to listen to lingaiah dora only when he learns to stop speaking for himself?

more the voice of the prosperous and the articulate

found this interesting article on the current telangana movement by a participant in the 'hypocritical' 1969 movement. his characterization of the current separatist movement as a voice of the prosperous and the articulate is something that i agree with to a large extent:

But this time it is not a voice of the backward and the cheated. It is more the voice of the prosperous and the articulate. It is more the demand for a share in power first and then for power exclusively by a new coterie of self-centred elite of Telangana basking in the relative development of the region over these 2-3 decades since the earlier agitation. However, to hide the reality this new class is inventing and singing the songs of backwardness and betrayal to hoodwink the masses who otherwise may not join their bandwagon. It is not as if the entire saga is a mere figment of imagination - we cannot say that there has not been or there is not any backwardness at all in the region, that there has not been or there is no cheating at all of the people of the region, etc. But it is a case of clear exaggeration of the actuality, a blowing-out-of-proportion, of making mountain of a molehill, of the alleged exploitation, oppression, humiliation and suppression of the Telangana region, its people and its leaders. On the contrary the real facts of the situation are that over the decades, especially keeping in view the very low base, the very backward state under the Nizam Rule with which Telangana had started and with which alone any real comparison of development indices can be made, Telangana has progressed more rapidly than other regions of the State. This has created a very powerful and articulate middle class, which is now espousing the cause of separation in which alone it sees its salvation if it were to ascend to the portals of exclusive power. In a sense this is a problem of affluence and not of poverty - of course relative affluence of a powerful middle class.[emphasis mine]

that's an extract from a post by mallikarjuna sharma, who as a student had participated in the 1969 separate telangana movement. the post is long, but carries a crisp summary of the history of the telugus, the telangana peasants' struggle, separation movements in the state after 1956 and so on. the author also clearly points out the 'dishonesty' of the current lot of separatists, in quoting selective history and facts and figures, and tries to present a more realistic picture of development in the three regions.

those who'd like to get an objective overview of all the issues involved, please go read the article. though it seems to have been originally written and published a few years ago, most of his arguments still remain valid. but i warn you, it's very long, and the author i suspect, is not very familiar with formatting, for online audiences, all the large quantity of information he puts together into appropriately short sections (to fit the short attention spans of the internet age).

lastly, would like to quote another interesting paragraph from the post which i think loudmouthed shashi tharoors of the maoist movement like kishenji, and left-oriented students at osmania and kakatiya universities need to read:

In this context I think I should also say something about my personal experience during the Separate Telangana movement. I was not only a keen observer of but also a sort of participant too in this hypocritical movement. I was an engineering student in Warangal at that time and an activist in the just split away Marxist-Leninist group (called Charu Mazumdar group) mainly in the student front. I was even arrested once in connection with that movement but somehow managed to escape from police custody. Along with another student comrade I represented our student wing at the Kavali Conference of the Student Federation of India, which at that time was almost exclusively in our i.e. revolutionary students' hands. It was I who proposed the resolution that the Conference adopt a resolution for "People's State in Separate Telangana" and persuaded it to do so. Of course I did all that under the dictates of Comrades K.G. Satyamurthy and K. Seetharamaiah who were our party leaders at that time. I was quite ignorant about the Andhra Mahasabha movement in the 1930-48 period or the Vishalandhra movement of the later days. I did not know even about the developments which led to the communist party espousing the cause of "Vishalandhralo Praja Rajyam" (People's State in Greater Andhra) which was parodied in the above slogan given by our leaders with regard to the Separate Telangana movement. But soon the naxalite movement broke out in Telangana and I was one of the first amongst the student activists to go underground and plunge into the 'armed struggle' and that naturally 'separated' me from the Separate Telangana movement, which we considered not so important as compared to our liberation struggle for seizure of power though we did support it. However, the communist revolutionary group led by Tarimela Nagi Reddy and Chandra Pulla Reddy had strongly and efficiently opposed the Separate Telangana movement at that time and we were fuming and fretting about it criticizing them left and right (just as the People's War group comrades would now do with other 'revolutionaries' opposing the present Separate Telangana movement) and asking what business 'revolutionaries' had to oppose an anti-Government mass upsurge, etc. But later my study of the history of Andhra and Telangana, especially of the vicissitudes of the communist movement in our state in the background of the history of the international and national communist movements as well as the betrayal of the Separate Telangana movement by Channa Reddy and the like other feudal, bourgeois leaders convinced me about the correctness of the stand taken by Nagi Reddy and Pulla Reddy at that time.

manufacturing bogus history

too many people, especially the young, have swallowed without questioning the entirely fictitious stories manufactured by the separate telangana activists about how progressive pre-1948 telangana actually was. the most ridiculous of those stories is definitely the incredibly naive fantasy about hyderabad being a kind of beehive of vibrant industrial activity. some valiant souls have tried to compile a list of major industries in hyderabad state before 1947 on this wikipedia page, but the list you can see, is very, very short.

let's look at what P.Sundarayya had to say about the only industry that hyderabad could truly brag about, exploitation, in feudal telangana in (the very first chapter) Telangana's People's Struggle and its Lessons:

The basic feature that dominated the socio-economic life of the people of Hyderabad and especially in Telangana was the unbridled feudal exploitation that persisted well-nigh till the beginning of the Telangana armed peasant struggle.

Out of the 53,000,000 acres in the whole of Hyderabad State, about 30,000,000 acres, i.e., about 60 per cent, were under governmental land revenue system, (called diwani or khalsa area) ; about 15,000,000 acres, i.e., about 30 per cent, under the jagirdari system, and about 10 per cent as the Nizam's own direct estate, i.e., sart khas system. It was only after the police action that the sarf khas and jagirdari systems were abolished, and these lands were merged in diwani (brought under governmental land revenue system).

The income or loot from the peasantry, from the sarf khas area, amounting to Rs. 20,000,000 annually was entirely used to meet the expenditure of the Nizam's family and its retinue. The whole area was treated as his private estate. He was not bound to spend any amount for economic and social benefit or development of people's livelihood in that area. If anything was spent, it used to be from other general revenues of the state. In addition, the Nizam Nawab used to be given Rs. 7,000,000 per annum from the state treasury.

After the police action when the sarf khas area was merged in the diwani area, the Nizam and his family offspring were to be paid Rs. 5,000,000 per annum as compensation, apart from another Rs. 5,000,000 as privy purse. The peasants in these areas were nothing but bond-slaves, or total serfs under the Nizam. Even whatever little rights existed in the diwani area were denied
to them.

The jagir areas constituted 30 per cent of the total state. In these areas, paigas, samsthanam, jagirdars, ijardars, banjardars, maktedars, inamdars, or agraharams, were the various kinds of feudal oppressors. Some of these used to have their own revenue officers to collect the taxes they used to impose. Some of them used to pay a small portion to the state while some others were not required to pay anything. In these areas, various kinds of illegal exactions and forced labour were the normal feature. Some of these jagirs, paigas and samsthanams, especially the biggest ones, had their own separate police, revenue, civil and criminal systems ; they were sub-feudatory states, under the Nizam's state of Hyderabad which was itself a stooge native state under the British autocracy in India. In jagir areas the land taxes on irrigated lands used to be 10 times more than those collected in diwani (government) areas, amounting to Rs. 150 per acre or 20-30 mounds of paddy per acre.

and so on. hyderabad was built with such loot from the countryside. a history of exploitation, written in sweat and blood, forms the foundation of the claim of the people of telangana on the city of hyderabad. is the claim of the people from andhra-rayalaseema on hyderabad any different, 53 years after merger? i don't think so. only the methods used, and the exploiters, are different. i think the claim of the ordinary people of andhra-rayalaseema should also be measured in the same light. but more on that later.

let me repeat, despite the tall claims of kcr and other votaries of a separate telangana, there was very little that resembled modern industry or economy in hyderabad or telangana in pre-1947 days. a sugar factory here, or a bidi factory there, a spinning mill here or a timber mill there: when compared with industry in calcutta, bombay or madras or even surat or ahmedabad, hyderabad was a city that belonged in the middle ages. all the loot went to build a city meant for the leisure class, for pleasure. and for the administrative classes who kept the machinery of exploitation running. hence, it had an airport, hospitals and a university. but it imported doctors, pilots, engineers and teachers from across the country. because until the last couple of decades of the feudal rule, the rulers, despite their unquestionably immense wealth, never really woke up out of their feudal stupor to build a society that could produce its own doctors, pilots, engineers and teachers. if one runs through the long list of scions of ex-jagirdars and big landlords like kcr who are now legislators and mps, one can't help but wonder: how many of them had grandfathers who had ever entertained thoughts of being economic agents of change like some of the privileged landowning classes elsewhere in the country? like those who started banks in karnataka, textile mills in mumbai, engineering industries and film studios in madras, for instance? run through the whole of telangana with a fine comb and i'm sure you'd come back with nothing more than crumbling fortresses as the only material evidence of those rural tyrants ever having existed.

could the nizam alone be blamed?

whatever infrastructure that existed in hyderabad city before accession owes its origin to some progressive thinking on the part of the last nizam and his father. they did try to make some sincere efforts to bring modernity to the state: the university and the hospitals they built, some public buildings like the secretariat and the assembly, other infrastructure like the airport, roads and the water supply and sewerage system. the last nizam also tried hard to persuade the local rich landowners as well as industrialists and businessmen from across the country to invest in the city, offered them land and incentives to set up manufacturing units in industrial parks that he had developed. very few businessmen from outside hyderabad state actually took up the offer. and there were fewer takers among the local telangani landowners. weren't they wealthy enough? going back to sundarayya's book again:

Some of these notorious feudal deshmukhs who owned tens of thousands of acres, against whom bitter battles were fought, during 1940, are listed below :-—
1. Visunur Deshmukh—40,000 acres, landlord over 40 villages in Jangaon taluka, Nalgonda district.
2. Suryapet Deshmukh—20,000 acres.
3. Babasahebpet Deshmukh—10,000 acres, Miryalagudem taluka.
4. Kalluru Deshmukh—100,000 acres, Madhira taluka, Khammam district.
5. Jannareddy Pratap Reddy—150,000 acres, Suryapeta taluka.

Here are a few more examples of the big landlords, who owned more than 5,000 acres, in a few talukas to which the movement spread : Mallapuram Rangareddi, Chandampalli Doralu, Mosongi Doralu of Koppulu, of Devarakonda taluka ; Cherukupolli Narasimhareddi of Miryalagudem taluka ; Betavolu zamindar, Kapugallu Muttavarapu family, Penubadu Seetaram Rao of Huzurnagar taluka ; Chandupatla Sudarshana Rao, Dupalli Venkatarama Reddy of Bhuvanagiri taluka ; Musakuri family of Tangadapalli, Alwala family of Polapalli of Ibrahimpatnam taluka ; Mandameri Madhava Rao (10.000); Pusukuri family (10-20,000 acres); Narsapur Samsthanam (50-100 thousand acres) of Lakkisattibeta taluka, Adilabad district.

The land concentration in Hyderabad state and the Telangana region was tremendous. The administrative report of 1950-51 gave figures to show that in the three districts of Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Warangal, the number of pattadars (landlords) owning more than 500 acres were about 550, owning 60 to 70 per cent of the total cultivable land. The extent of exploitation indulged in by these jagirdars, paigas and samsthanams can be imagined from the fact that 110 of them used to collect Rs. 100,000,000 every year in various taxes or exactions from the peasantry. Out of this amount, Rs. 55,000,000 used to be appropriated by 19 of them, while the whole revenue income of the Hyderabad state before 1940 was no more than Rs. 80,000,000. This was only the legally admitted collections. But it was a well-known fact that total collections, legal and illegal, amounted to thrice this amount. When the Nizam issued his firmana banning illegal exactions, it mentioned 82 varieties of illegal exactions !

But this firmana remained a mere paper proclamation. The jagirdars, deshmukhs, the big landlords continued their illegal forcible forages with the active connivance of the corrupt officialdom of the Nizam state. To give one example :

Visunur Ramachandra Reddy, the notorious deshmukh in Janagaon tehsil of Nalgonda district, used to forcibly seize the the lands from the tenants and the peasants. He used to force the peasants in his area, of about 40 villages, to do forced labour in his fields, all through the year ; pay nazarana (presents in kind or cash) at the birth of a child in the family, marriage or death ; (every handicraftsman, artisan, merchant had to pay a certain portion of his products or fixed amounts in cash. The cobblers—shoes and ; shepherds—blankets and supply of sheep and goats for the feast and free milk ; and peasants—grain, vegetables, etc.) He built a house costing Rs. 200,000 in the thirties and forties, out of which nearly half the cost was collected in cash from the forced labour for various construction jobs. A young mother who had delivered a child only three days earlier, was made to do forced labour in his fields, leaving the infant at home, with nobody to look after it and the child died of lack of milk and care. He was so notorious that peasants hesitated to give their daughters in marriage to persons living in those villages. It was against such forced labour and illegal exactions and evictions that the Andhra Mahasabha, the cultural organisation of Telugu-speaking Andhra people of the Telangana region of Hyderabad State, waged innumerable struggles. The beginnings of the Telangana armed struggle were against the atrocities of this very same Visunur deshmukh in 1946, when his goondas attacked and murdered Doddi Komarayya, the local Andhra Mahasabha worker, in Kadivendi village on July 4.

the nizam did try, but his hindu, upper caste jagirdars were quite content with things as they were. they were very rich without ever having to work, or even having to think about work. while their control over people's lives was, to put it very mildly, almost godly in many places, the nizam's control over his jagirdars, it'd seem in hindsight, was very weak. historians have been very harsh on the last nizam, and very kind towards his hindu jagirdars, one has to admit.

telangana: a little education

a couple of years ago, motivated by a certain impulse, i tried to check how many colleges, of all kinds, existed in all the regions (which today constitute the state of andhra pradesh) in 1948 (the year hyderabad state became a part of the indian union). i found this page on the ugc site useful- here are the results i had jotted down and saved:

vedaand sanskrit college..nellore 1926
a. u. college of science and technology , vizag, 1932
a.j. college, bandar. 1910
agricultural college, bapatla, 1945.
andhra christian college, guntur, 1900.
a.u.college of arts, sciences, 1931
andhra women's sanskrit college, rajahmundry, 1931
besant theosophical college, madanapalle, 1915
college of engineering, anantapur, 1946
college of engg., kakinada, 1946
college of fine arts, hyd., 1940
dr.gururaju homeopathy college, gudivada, 1945
govt., city college, hyd, 1924
govt college for men, kadapa, 1948
govt college for women, guntur, 1944
govt degree college for men, anantapur, 1916
hindu college, guntur, 1935
hindu college, bandar, 1928
islamiah arabic and tibbi college, kurnool,1923
n.s.z., college of music and dance, narsapur, w.g.,1934
p.g.college, secunderabad, 1947
pithapur rajah college, kakinada, 1852,1866,1884
osmania medical college, 1846
s.r.r and cvr govt degree college, v'wada,1937
s.v.j.v.sanskrit college, kovvur, w.g.,1912,
sir c.r.r college, eluru, 1945
sri maharajah college of music and dance, vizianagaram,1919
sri narasimha sanskrit college.,bandar, 1923
sri venkateswara arts college, 1945, tirupati
st.joseph's college of education for women, guntur, 1946
university arts and science college, warangal, 1948
university college for women, kothi, hyderabad, 1924
university college of agriculture, hyd, 1946
univ college of arts and social sciences, hyderabad, 1918
university college of engg, hyd, 1929
university college of engg., vizag, 1946,
univ college of science, hyd, 1919
univ college of technology, hyd, 1929,
vr college, nellore,1920

gudivada, bapatla, narsapur, bandar (machilipatnam), kovvur, madanapalle, anantapur, eluru, kadapa-- not many outside andhra pradesh would've heard about many of those towns. some of them have not crossed a population of one lakh even now.

i might've missed some names, the list itself might not be exhaustive etc, etc., but it does give you an idea of the status of educational infrastructure in both the regions. of the importance the ruling classes attached to education. it also indicates the aspirational levels of the middle classes in both regions, maybe. 28 colleges in the coastal andhra-rayalaseema region and 11 in telangana (all of them, except for one, in hyderabad-secunderabad). there were more than a dozen towns in andhra-rayalaseema where you could pursue higher education, or a graduate degree (as it is now called) in andhra-rayalaseema. and in telangana?

please note that the list does not include colleges in madras which was the major destination of a large number education-seekers in the andhra-rayalaseema region.

another important fact that one notices is that while almost all of the colleges in telangana (or hyderabad city, to be more accurate) were started (reluctantly, it'd seem in the last stages of the feudal rule) by the government, private initiative seems to have played a major role in the establishment of colleges in the andhra-rayalaseema region. you might ask what were the jagirdars of telangana doing? their major and only contribution to the field of education was the jagirdars' college (which was/is actually a school), now called the hyderabad public school. and to think that many among them actually owned tens of thousands acres of land (one actually owned over 1,50,000 acres)!

some lies rankle, and some half-truths rankle much more. the rosy picture of a glorious hyderabad and telangana that some learned people, professors and retired dons, try to paint rankles like hell. british india was definitely better.

villages without moonlight

as one poet described it, moonlight was stolen from too many villages in telangana for too long. the fear of police patrols in 'naxal-infested', as the media would describe it, villages was too strong for people to step out of homes in the evenings.

do you think moonlight was ever stolen from the lives of these two champion bull-breeding brothers?

those bulls, as the news report tells you, are an expensive passion: almost half a dozen moonlightless families could live on the money that's spent on them every month. until a week or so ago, the brothers were champion defenders of the ysr clan's right to rule the state (one of them was a minister in ysr's first ministry and the other is a minister in the current government). now they are champion promoters of the telangana cause, champion mike-grabbers who never miss an opportunity to tell opponents of the sacred cause that they shouldn't dare step into telangana.

one of the last scenes in the movie 'maa bhoomi' shows the upper caste jagirdars in the telangana villages stepping out of sherwanis and silk dhotis etc to don khadi kurtas and gandhi caps to join the indian national congress after the annexation of hyderabad by the indian state. yes, history repeats itself like it has run out of ideas. like its growth has been stunted by too little exposure to moonlight.

r.i.p.

victims of hyderabad riots, december 1990.

jehad

i am watching everything
observing your every move
the bodies that drifted away in the blood rivers of december 6th
i am still searching for them with wet eyes

while no foot can turn a man into man now
i watch them turn into rocks and maniacs

the al kabeer gherao
which stands between my hunger and my livelihood
the falling flag post which turned into a trishul in hubli idgah
'mathura' lying crushed under your kautilyan plans
i am watching all.

thinking, indivar- is the light of our home
rajeev- the fragrance of my heritage
i celebrated
you too turned into vamana's feet
walked over the guldastas of my dreams
to rip open the pyjamas of my trust
hacking me, anointing your foreheads with my blood
leaving me with a bougainvillea citizenship.

with nothing more to bring down
perhaps, you might be annoyed or impatient.
spread your hawk's eyes across the land once
by the yamuna, some mad dada of ours,
you'll find, had turned all his love for dadi ma
into a milk and cream moonlight mansion.
in delhi, someone had plucked a piece of the eastern sky,
you'll see, and planted it as a palace soaked in his blood
my traces shall continue stoking
as qutub minars char minars buland darwazas
jama masjids mecca masjids maharaja palaces
your restless fanaticism.
when you destroyed or cut down throats we stayed silent
as you set fire to our history
and announced compensation with another hand
but- when you break the country into pieces
stamp people down into graves
and raise beasts in the cities, i wouldn't tolerate that
you necrophiliac-
to release the dead if one needs corpses-
it's inevitable
the first corpse would be mine.
i am watching everything.

my translation (like my other attempts, this shall remain a work-in-progress for some time) of jehad, a telugu poem by khaja that i found in padunekkina pAta, a compilation of dalit poetry published in 1996.

why is renuka chowdhury a chowdhury?

because a certain group of progressive kammas, prominent among them being tripuraneni ramaswamy, in the early part of the last century, had started a rationalist protest movement, a rebelllion against brahminism, ritual and caste. forget the rationalist...rebellion... part, what remains of the movement now are vague theories about how the kammas are connected with the kayasths and jats and other equally interesting formulations. why was it important for the kammas to claim kinship with those north indian communities? because it'd place them on a higher notch in the varna hierarchy- the kayasths, depending on the region, claim a kshatriya or brahmin status.

the practice, among some kammas, of appending the title chowdhury to their names started around that interesting period in recent history. not all kammas like to embellish their names with that armour- only those who believe strongly, i guess, that the kammas have been wrongly thrust with the lowly status of shudrahood.

renuka chowdhury is probably the only politician to have spoken out, admirably and consistently, against the sri ram sene goons and in support of young women's right to choose how and where they spend their free time. but i still can't see why she chooses to be a chowdhury- the rationale behind the adoption of the title chowdhury, roughly, is an endorsement of the worldview the sri ram sene advocates: every man and woman should be aware of his/her place in the hindu social order.

think twice before you say you're twice-born

"The Karni Sena wants a ban on the film 'Jodhaa Akbar' an unconditional apology from its director for misrepresentation and social devaluation of Rajputs," Sena patron Lokendra Singh Kalvi said here.

if you were hitler's grandson, would you object to the portrayal of nazis in the film 'schindler's list'? wouldn't you think twice before you even step out and identify yourself as hitler's grandson? wouldn't you object to being identified as a nazi just because your grandfather was one?

it isn't nice to call yourself rajput: you weren't the only people who died fighting invaders. the nameless lower caste soldiers outnumbered you by a hundred to one. maybe more. but you got all the credit. and you claimed all the power after the wars too. just as you had enjoyed them before the wars. and you also enjoyed ownership of all the lands, waters and even the jungles. you fought more fiercely to protect the caste system than you fought the invaders. you shared power with the invaders, so that you could continue to oppress all the lower caste people who'd fought alongside you, after the wars ended. you were the sword arm of the brahmin. unless you still believe you are the master race or of a superior varna, how can anyone 'devalue' you? the terms rajput, brahmin, vaishya do not denote identities, they announce your continued subscription to an hideous ideology.

every time you call yourself a rajput or a brahmin you insult all the lower caste people of india who'd like to be acknowledged as human.