savarnas have the largest number of reserved constituencies

a study done by the hindi daily 'dainik bhaskar' reveals that there are 125 parliamentary (lok sabha) constituencies in india which elect only savarna or upper caste candidates in every election. no, not because they're savarna majority constituencies..you could say those constituencies are permanently reserved for the upper castes, by custom. and custom is always stronger in india than law, as we know. please check the heading the newspaper gives to the section of the news report which deals with this phenomenon:

सवर्ण हिंदू - 125 सीटें 

ये वोट बैंक नहीं है, फिर भी कुछ सीटों पर किसी भी धर्म और जाति से परे पार्टियां और लोग सवर्णों को ही चुनते हैं

'they (savarna hindus) are not vote banks, but parties and people choose/elect only savarnas in these seats'. how dare anyone call the upper castes in india vote banks, right? that's a term permanently reserved for the marginalized castes and religious groups in the brahminized imagination.

the number of the constituencies reserved for the upper castes (125) exceeds the total number of parliamentary seats reserved for the dalits and adivasis put together (121). while the combined population of the scheduled castes (16.6%, 2011 census) and the scheduled tribes (8.6%) in india is around 25.2%, the share of seats reserved for them in parliament comes to around 22% (2009), which obviously is less than their share in the population. but the share of parliamentary seats reserved (23%) for the savarnas or upper castes, very obviously, exceeds their share in the population (from 12.5% to 20%, according to various estimates). 

but those are not the only seats reserved for the upper castes in parliament, if one looks at history more closely. if a more comprehensive study of all the constituencies in the country (excluding the ones reserved, by law, for the dalits and adivasis) is done, one would definitely find that every single one of them, or overwhelmingly most of them, elected savarna/upper caste mps on more occasions than they chose non-savarna mps. 

those 125 reserved constituencies are not the only ones which sent savarna mps to the lok sabha in the 2009 elections, for instance. in the 297 seats that remain after excluding the reserved seats (those reserved formally, by law, for the dalits and adivasis, plus those reserved, by custom, for the upper castes), the upper caste share ranges from around 100-150 seats (in the 297 'unreserved' seats). the muslims and the obcs have to share the rest of the seats. 

as long as political parties continue to reserve those 125 constituencies for the upper castes, there is no point in voters from dalit bahujan and minority religious communities exercising their franchise there. don't vote.            

lessons from paramakudi for telangana

does anyone seriously believe that the telangana agitators now pleading/begging/cringing before the congress brass in delhi are liberators? do they seem to be upholding telangani self-respect? or that they care about decentralization?

their actions disprove all three claims.

why do all those valiant 'revolutionaries' from telangana seem like so many unctuous petitioners outside a high powered public official's office? because they are exactly that: petitioners seeking recognition.

this is no revolution. it's something that has happened many times in the past, across many regions.

every major state in india has 100-300 castes. at the top of this pyramid are around 10 castes, on an average, who are always over-represented in the houses of legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy, media, education and academia, industry, trade, cinema etc. their presence in all those fields helps them dominate the field of culture and ideas too. all the rest are under-represented in all fields.

in the north, castes identified with the top three varnas are a natural part of the top layer of the pyramid. other castes like the kayasths, khatris, jats etc had to fight for a place in those top ten. and colonialism helped them, through building more democratic public institutions and providing them employment in the bureaucracy and the army. after independence, a few more upper obc castes joined the empty spots in the top ten, and are still trying to consolidate their position. though they've managed to increase their presence in houses of legislature, they haven't been able to make much strides in other fields. meaning: they're under-represented in all other fields associated with wealth and power and hence still sound very subaltern. the continuing hold of the yadavs and nitish kumar on large sections of people in those states is proof of this.

outside the north, or u.p-bihar specifically, the top three varnas are sparsely distributed, so it's the shudras who form a overwhelming majority of the top ten. the three states where the british had presidency towns, witnessed a quicker spread of education among the shudras which led to the first major non-brahmin assertion movements. the top ten spots were quickly filled in tamil nadu by the time the dmk first assumed power, the marathas, kunbis and other associated peasant castes who form more than one third of the population in maharashtra also managed to fill all spots in that state.

this process was as fast in some princely states like mysore and baroda etc, but much slower in hyderabad state. so slow that it is happening only now in telangana, one century late. almost.

the rise of all those shudra castes-- from jats to gounders to nadars to ezhavas to kammas to vokkaligas to yadavs -- were revolutionary movements too. but they failed to fulfill their promises because the pyramid democratized itself a little at the top, partly in response to their struggles, co-opted them, and managed to retain its character. moreover, it had managed to increase the number of loyal defenders guarding it, more sentries to pour hot oil on those wishing to ascend to the top, or even bring down the pyramid.

now this process of efforts to expand the top layer of the pyramid, to create the top ten spots, is happening in telangana. the elite in telangana, which was only brahmins, reddies and velamas for too long (the muslims having been dislodged by 'independence'), wants to consolidate its own position, expand its influence outside politics, agriculture and government. even in those three fields it feels severely constrained by the stronger position of the much advanced andhra elite. so it's come around to  making a little space for a new set of aspirants among the obcs-- the goudas, munnuru kapus, yadavs especially-- who had risen since the emergence of the telugu desam, so that they could help in its struggle with the andhra elite.

more than a year ago, someone had asked me: why do you oppose this process? if it accommodates a new set of players, even if very few, at the top, doesn't it mean one more progressive step towards democratization of society?

that's the problem with the pyramid. it seems to be expanding its top layer a little, but that's always an illusion. it's only responding to changes in population growth, which has been higher in the last one century than any other time in history.

one reason why i want andhra pradesh to remain united: it'll keep the elites of all regions, and new aspirants,  always engaged in a struggle with each other. that would open up more cracks in the pyramid.

but the major reason is that the assertion movements of ambitious shudra castes until now have only meant the rise of those castes, a strengthening of the elite and the caste order. caste assertion movements have been anti-caste only in initial stages and have inevitably become caste-reinforcing movements.

and the expansion of the elite club has also, inevitably, meant more atrocities on the dalits, adivasis and the religious minorities.

paramakudi has strengthened my convictions.     

mEmavudaam

wrote some mad verse in telugu:

నీకూ నాకూ
మధ్య అడ్డుగోడై
ప్రేమా దోమా
యేదైనా వుంటే
కూల్చేద్దాం!
మనం మేమవుదాం
చేతనైనంత వెలమవుదాం
వాడికి మేతవుదాం
దేవ్డిల వెట్టవుదాం
రెచ్చిపోయి రెడ్డవదాం
అదందాం ఇదందాం
అదవదాం ఇదవదాం
అడ్డంగా నరికేద్దాం
యెవడూ దొరక్క పోతే
పోనీ పోతే
యీ ఫోరడి ప్రాణం
యింకో పోరడి ప్రాణం
ఆత్మహత్యై
ఊదుబత్తై
ఉద్యమ పద్దై
గల్లా యెగిరేసుకొని
చెప్పుకొనే గొప్పై
నీ గుడిసెల నిప్పై
వాడి భవన్లో నోట్ల కుప్పై
నోటికొచ్చిన తత్వమై

అమ్మ కడుపును తన్నిన
అయోమయమై
నిన్ను చంపిన వాడి
అమరత్వమై...

అమరత్వం ఆధ్యాత్మ్యం
అల్లమెల్లిగడ్డ
వాడవసరం
మన ధర్మం..
అంతా యెనకట్లాగనె
సనాతనంగా
తలొంచుకుని పాటిద్దాం
మెడలిద్దాం యేళ్ళిద్దాం
పాలిద్దాం చేళ్ళిద్దాం
వాడింట్ల కాకి
పక్కోడు కొడితే
మనం గాయపడదాం
వాళ్ళిద్దరి నదులు వాళ్ళకు
పంచుకుందాం
మన నోట్ల మట్టంతా మనదే కదా?
పెంచుకుందాం..
వంచుకుందాం
వాళ్ళిద్దరి పగలూ
పోటీలూ
మన కుండళ్ళోకి
గొంతుళ్ళోకి గుండెళ్ళోకి
బేగాని షాదిల..
అంతా అప్పట్లెక్కనే
బుద్ధున్ని కూల్చి
శివున్ని
జైనుల్ని కొట్టి
విష్ణువుకి పెడదాం
మనం వండిన ప్రసాదం
మనం అడుక్కుందాం.

manoj mitta's lathi-wielding logic

If a woman who was forcibly married asks for a divorce on grounds of cruelty, can a court rule against it? Can a court rule that she cannot be liberated from her marriage, however bad, without her husband's consent? That's the kind of dubious logic the Sri Krishna Committee employed when suggesting, as its "second best option", that the Telangana region (the erstwhile Hyderabad state) cannot be divorced from the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions (the erstwhile Andhra state) unless the latter agree.

when an issue involves more than 80-100 million people, you can rest assured that there'd be more than 80-100 million opinions. and when some experts are called into apply their minds to the issue, you can be doubly sure that they'd produce several hundred pages of observations and analysis on the issue. then the woman, whose case mr.mitta so passionately (and patronizingly) makes, becomes the women of telangana, andhra and rayalaseema. she also becomes the adivasis, the dalits and the muslims of the the three regions. and the obcs and all the varieties within them. and she splits further into sub-castes: and into dominant and marginalised communities, into urban and rural women, men and children. and into the various segments and divisions of views within all those fragments. mitta finds it hard to digest all that democracy, i suppose. so he squashes it to down an easily chewable one voice: a woman whose case needs to be made (because she can't make it herself, you see).

mitta should understand the difference between two people and a hundred million people. a recent article by ram puniyani on the ideology of the rss says:

According to this ideology a Hindu industrialist and the Hindu beggar are supposed to have similar interests! A Muslim entrepreneur and a Muslim sweeper or beggar is supposed to have similar interests. So a Hindu king in History and poor Hindu farmer-Shudra are on the same page. It looks at history as unified Hindu community standing against others and so on, as if all Hindu Kings were hunky dory with each other and supping with the Shudras and poor peasants of society. The communal ideology, irrespective of any religions in whose name it operates, changes the horizontal social differences into vertical ones’. The society has divisions according the rich and poor, privileged and deprived. According to this ideology what matters is the vertical divisions according to one’s religion. This ideology as such focuses on issues of identity and undermines the real worldly problems. It is an attempt to undermine and sweep under the carpet the unjust social system, where the major contradiction is social and economic. It is a way to hide one’s birth based privileges under the guise of religion. Religion is a potent instrument as faith is its central component. Abuse of faith for political goals generates blind social hysteria, which is used to promote the political and social agenda of communal organizations. This pattern applies to all the faith-religion based politics. 

mitta too reduces all horizontal differences into a vertical divide between telangana on the one hand and rayalaseema-andhra on the other. and further vulgarizes it by reducing it into a marital issue between one woman and one man. and mitta's choice of the figure of a woman to represent telangana in his folksy, khap-like, analogy: please note that there's no vertical division between mitta and the woman. he's her natural spokesperson, of course. in mitta's worldview, as all horizontal divisions between vast millions of people should naturally collapse into one coherent vertical schism, it's also very 'democratic' that all women (read: all those segments, divisions and fragments i talked about earlier) of telangana..and elsewhere should bow down, collectively, to men like mitta. or the hindu/patriarchal/upper caste 'majority'.

trust the times of india to never rise above its pimply-faced market.

the price of magical solutions

he's mostly been moonlighting as a politician, and not even for a very long period. until one year or so ago, he was a full-time businessman, or robber baron (as some critics would call him). look what he has to say to the 125 year old congress:

Jagan openly mocked at the Congress and the state government in Andhra Pradesh. “I am doing Congress a favour by asking my supporters (MLAs) not to resign. Had I wanted, I could have done it a long time ago. I am a gentleman. So I am doing a favour to the Congress party.” He did not mince any words in making his intentions clear.

for the first time in its long history, the congress must be feeling very sorry that it is in power in andhra pradesh. i don't think such a situation had ever risen in any other state, for that matter, in the past. given a chance, it'd rather be in the opposition benches again, i think, stoke wild aspirations and make vague promises about a new state, and win elections as it did in 2004. yes, given a chance, it'd definitely like to go back to 2004. given a chance, i think, it'd prefer to roll over and die now. but it seems like jagan and many others wouldn't give it even that chance.

dangling 'magical solutions' before the masses could ensure some temporary successes -- you tell jobseekers telangana would give you jobs, you tell farmers telangana would give you water, you tell the poor telangana would bring you wealth, you tell everyone telangana would bring you everything-- like an election or two. but when the masses come to collect, you can't tell them that there are no magical solutions. that you'd been fooling them all along.

the congress can't choose the srikrishna committee's best option, united andhra pradesh, and garner winning votes in telangana for some time. it can't choose the second best option, bifurcation, and hope to survive in coastal andhra and rayalaseema. but how did the congress manage to so dexterously antagonise people of all regions? even now, it's not the anger of the people it's worried about, it's the displeasure of the dominant caste groups in the state that worries it. 

i am not predicting that the congress would die in andhra pradesh. only that congressmen would disappear in droves into jagan's mob, or the trs for a while or... the survival of the congress until now has always depended on how happy it could keep the dominant castes in the state, distributing power and pelf evenly between regions, more or less. so the dominant castes in andhra were okay with telangana as long as it remained an election promise, but when the dominant castes in telangana saw in this promise an opportunity to corner all power over the economic 'engine' of the state, hyderabad, the entente between both groups started getting weaker. but i think the weakening of the alliance between the dominant groups in the state is temporary: they've many common social and economic interests. but what has suffered more grievous damage is the congress's reputation as an arbiter, a keeper of peace and balance, among these groups. the telugu desam, 25 years ago, had won the confidence of at least one group among these castes and managed to also groom leaders from among a sizeable section of the backward castes. the tdp too would suffer now because, as the srikrishna committee has observed, 3-4 large backward castes are also seeking a firmer place among the dominant groups. 

what was the telangana movement all about? it was, like i always said, about power-sharing. not about neglect, or poverty, or discrimination or colonization. certainly not about the people.

terrorists in telangana

everyone says india is a land of a billion hindus. but why do we see such a massively scaled down version of hindu india in this list of hindutva terrorists?

there are nearly 80 million hindus in andhra pradesh-- but why is none of the prominent conspirators in the mecca masjid bomb blast case from hyderabad or andhra pradesh? the cbi has just filed a chargesheet against them, against lokesh sharma, devendra gupta, sandeep dange, swami asimanand etc why is there no lokesh goud or devendra mudiraj or sandeep madiga among them?

it's not like the gouds, or the mudirajs or the madigas are not willing to die for any larger 'ideal'.. hundreds of them, some only bare schoolkids, have committed suicide for telangana. much older people reportedly drank poison when rajasekhar reddy died, and even when jaganmohan reddy resigned from the congress a few days ago. no, it's not that the other 'hindus' do not have the 'courage', or the passion. so why aren't they in the list? 

because the head, heart and soul of hindutva has always been the top three varnas. the shudras have always been useful only as the muscle, the lathi arm. which means, nearly 70 years after savarkar, over 70% of so-called hindus remain hardly hindu. and the dalits were never used as even lathi arms. rather, they bore the brunt of the dance of the swords and lathis mostly.

telangana in the last few years has been the battleground for two different kinds of hindutva politics:  while one frustrated faction of the hindutvavaadis planted bombs, the other aligned with the dominant upper castes and a few ambitious obc groups to demand a separate state. while the first kind of politics claimed a few muslim lives and led to the illegal detention and harassment of hundreds of young muslims, the second kind is steadily proving to be more dangerous. it not only targets muslims who oppose the creation of a separate state but it also bullies other dissenting groups from among the dalits and adivasis. i've always maintained that telangana is a majoritarian cause, and the parivar, one of its oldest supporters, has much to gain from it.  

while swami asimanand's gang of terrorists was planting bombs in the mecca masjid, his other pals from the parivar, bjp leaders in the region, were touring all the districts of telangana with the leaders of the trs and assorted other political groups, including many ex-ultra left radicals, promoting the cause of telangana.

it's sad that many bahujans are still willing to be used as the lathi arms of the hindutva gangs. it makes me very angry that the people from the parivar that planted the bombs in the mecca masjid are now lionised as one of the staunchest supporters of telangana.

whose interest does telangana serve?

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.

reddy charitra

from here:

 One Karunakar Reddy from Anantapur district filed the petition in the SHRC, demanding that the commission order film director Ram Gopal Varma to remove certain scenes from the film which allegedly project the Reddy community of Anantapur district in a poor manner.

Accepting the petition, the interim Chairman Justice K Peda Peri Reddy adjourned hearing on the petition for Monday.

reminds me of the rajput indignation over 'jodhaa akbar' that i'd talked about in this post. and of some recent reddy charitra i'd discussed in this post. would mr.reddy have been satisfied if all the reddies in the film were portrayed just as the madigas, boyas, erukulas and others in the film were? as nameless, mindless, amoral killing hordes? i don't think so.

telangana development forum? or reddy-velama development forum?

from amitabh bachchan to pratap bhanu mehta, we've seen how strongly the brahminized classes hate the idea of a caste census. now, here's a telangani intellectual (a label anyone who has spent a few months abroad might be anointed with in telugu land) who's been at the very forefront of the 'people's struggle' for telangana (mostly, from the strategic position of his home in the united states) speaking his mind on how a caste census will turn india into afghanistan:

India has a large population with limited resources and it is important to elect the brightest leaders. Sixty-three years after Independence we have no dearth of leaders in all segments of our society. Just look at the NRIs who have come to America from many backgrounds. We all will suffer if we elect leaders with no integrity and vision. India needs lots of reform to bring accountability. We have to demand the legislator family must reside in the constituency, and their children attend the local schools, treated in local hospitals. This will bring a dramatic change in rural development. We should also introduce Primary elections to select the party candidate to chop off the Political Boss power. We need many more reforms like this. But if we follow Prof. Kancha Illaiah’s approach, our country will become like Afghanistan where instead of war-lords, we will be ruled by caste-lords. [emphasis mine]

that was part of a comment by madhu k. reddy, long time president and leader of the telangana development forum, on an article written by kancha ilaiah (Who's afraid of caste census') on the caste census, saying: 'Let all castes — not just OBCs — be counted for strengthening our democratic system.' there are more comments, and much more of mr.reddy's wisdom on how a caste census would divide india on display there (also check another reader's comment: 'If Madhu is a Non-Reddy, was there any scope he would have become president of the organisation?').

most separatists have often found kancha ilaiah's articles annoying (one commenter on one of my previous posts had remarked on, something like, how eccentric or unstable ilaiah had become). but why doesn't madhu k.reddy tell the dalitbahujan supporters of separation what he actually thinks about the caste census, the caste system etc? and especially his views on who should be considered the 'brightest leaders'? a little honesty on his part would help a lot of obc and dalit youngsters committing suicide in droves to stop and think a little before they take the extreme step.

not just madhu k.reddy, but i think it'd be a great idea if another reddy, prof.kodandaram reddy of the telangana political joint action committee, and the most visible face of separatist politicians and foremost velama leader in telangana today, k.chandrashekhar rao of the telangana rashtra samiti, explained to the countless dalitbahujan groups involved in the movement their real views on such issues as the caste census, the women's reservations bill etc etc..

lastly, here's a video in which mr.reddy exhorts young telanganis to participate in the separatist movement by joining the tdf-india units in every district, mandal etc:

mr.reddy had, according to an nri friend, inspired many youngsters to join the tdf movement. but sadly, my friend didn't think mr.reddy's own children were inspired enough.

p.s. i'd written a mail expressing my views on the separatist movement to mr.reddy nearly four years ago. he didn't respond, but you can read more about it here.

back to the stone age

back. my apologies to everyone who's commented and looked around here. have been a little tied up and could only focus on the shared mirror, a site that shall feature the creative work of both established and new dalitbahujan writers. please take a look.

-----------------------------------
a couple of events that caught my eye in the recent past:

* an honour killing. reportedly the first in the south..but where are the separatists? why don't you hear someone shout in pride: jai telangana? more banda* culture than sabbanda culture.

* and some more sabbanda culture was also displayed at mahbubabad where y.s. jaganmohan reddy, y.s. rajasekhar reddy's son, was supposed to visit families of people who'd died of 'shock' etc when ysr died. democracy, in the separatist stone throwers' view, would get vitiated if anyone exercised their freedom of speech against the 'people's view', even indirectly, that a separate state is a holy cause. and jaganmohan reddy, as heir to ysr's fiefdom, apparently believes feudalistic loyalties are the lifeblood of democracy.

talking of feudalistic loyalties: a commenter/s ( i think it's a single individual) has been stalking my earlier posts with some strange comments. one says, something like: kodandaram reddy, leader of the telangana 'joint action committee' had legally dropped the caste-suffix 'reddy' from his name after the karamchedu incident.. my question is: should we be grateful to him for doing that?

a dalit when he adds the name of his caste to his given name, like manda krishna 'madiga', is trying to tell you he is proud of his lineage.. proud of all the heredity of honest sweat and pure toil the name signifies. on the other hand, i've always looked at the flaunting of upper caste surnames as a kind of an assault on the rest of humanity. an open declaration of faith in a racialist ideology. reddies and kammas and rajputs and brahmins etc would do themselves a favour by dropping those crutches and learnt to live without them, in my view. i believe it isn't nice to call yourself rajput. or reddy. or whatever.

like i said earlier, the telangana movement doesn't have any social content. it uses all the emancipatory jargon, airs all the right theories of exploitation, but.. the primary instincts of the separatists are very status-quoist. and their respect for debate and therefore democracy sometimes descends to the level of discourse in the stone age.

* banDa: telugu for rock/stone.

'jai andhra' movement: does it have a social agenda?

self impression

wherever sound loses
silence wins
after digging for many days
your hands may become sore
but your eyes moisten
soon as you see a little water.

returning from cutting ribbons at all doors
i realized i had not opened the door to my own room
someone's calling me, repeatedly,
i thought i was being called
i realized later that they were calling themselves.
whenever i climbed up
they invited me with applause
but when i started for the next step
i heard someone asking me to step down.

i roamed all over the garden
a jasmine creeper caught my eye
it had its own personality
whatever it clung to was covered
it could look at the world on its own.
i will win the whole world
some victor
would arrive and win me,
it's useless

therefore
first, i will
win myself
then
i'll run the world.

that's my translation of katti padma rao's sweeya mudra ( from his collection of poetry bhoomi bhasha). padma rao is a dalit poet, telugu and sanskrit scholar, and activist-theorist whose hands have grown immensely sore with years and years of digging in and fighting caste from countless trenches across coastal andhra and the rest of the state. so, why is he fighting for a narrow, sub-regional cause now? the 'jai andhra' movement wants a separate state comprising coastal andhra and...? it's not clear whether they want north coastal andhra (3 districts) and rayalaseema (4 districts) to go along with them. or whether people of those regions want to go along with the 'jai andhra' agitators. many political leaders of rayalaseema want andhra pradesh to remain united, and if it's divided, they want a separate rayalaseema too, or even tag along with telangana. and as padma rao himself has admits in this interview, most of the political leadership and public opinion in coastal andhra (including north coastal andhra) and rayalaseema are in favour of 'samaikyandhra' or a united andhra pradesh:

What do the people of Coastal Andhra want?
Many are supporting Samaikyandhra due to several apprehensions. They need clear answers to certain questions - Will the new state be bound by Bachawath award on river waters? Will the Telangana doras let river water to flow towards the people in Coastal Andhra? There are 30 lakh middle class people from Andhra in Hyderabad. Only a hundred among them are exploiters. Every Telangana MP, including KCR has good connections with them. Telangana leaders say that these exploiters will be welcomed whole heartedly to invest here. Selfish people exist on both sides. KCR and Lagadapati are good friends. We want separate Andhra, irrespective of the formation of Telangana state.

does he have to fight for a separate andhra? if telangana is separated from andhra pradesh, what would remain is the old andhra state, comprising coastal andhra, north coastal andhra and rayalaseema. so, why does anyone need a separate agitation to fight for a separate andhra when they could as well join or support the separate telangana movement? one can think of a few reasons:

* because the overwhelming majority of the people in coastal andhra, rayalaseema and north coastal andhra support a united andhra pradesh and hence need to be convinced of the merits of bifurcation, as the jai andhra agitators see them?
* because the 'jai andhra' activists feel coastal andhra ( excluding rayalaseema, which was a part of the old andhra state) would develop faster in a separate state of its own?
* because the 'jai andhra' activists feel a particular region in coastal andhra ( excluding north coastal andhra, and comprising east and west godavari, krishna, guntur, prakasam and nellore districts) would develop faster in a separate state of its own?

the jai andhra movement doesn't seem to have decided on a region, or society, it should fight for. does it have a social agenda? katti padma rao had been one of the main architects of the dalit movement in andhra pradesh, had set its tone and tenor in the 80s, its agenda. but the agenda, if any, of the jai andhra movement hasn't been set by padma rao, but by certain upper caste politicians from the krishna-godavari region in coastal andhra: vasantha nageshwara rao and harirama jogaiah, senior politicians who have moved through so many political parties and factions in the last thirty years that the general public doesn't attribute any particular political agenda to them anymore. nor can they win from any constituencies in their home districts on the strength of their past performance as legislators or ministers. while fighting caste has been katti padma rao's lifelong mission, harirama jogaiah and nageshwara rao believe strongly in fighting for castes, or their own individual castes. harirama jogaiah has only talked about the kapus, for several years now, and had played a pivotal role in persuading chiranjeevi to enter politics and lead the kapu nation, or kapu nadu. the kapus, a large collection of peasant sub-castes, have long nursed the 'grievance' that no politician from their caste has ever occupied the chief minister's chair since the formation of andhra pradesh. there have been chief ministers from the reddies, kammas, and velamas: why should the kapus be denied? so dragging chiranjeevi into politics was part of that project. that's jogaiah's social agenda.

what's vasantha nageshwara rao's social agenda? a revival of kamma fortunes? it's even less inspiring. so, again, what's katti padma rao doing in the jai andhra camp, among people closer to the perpetrators of karamchedu and chunduru than the victims of both tragedies?

it was katti padma rao, and a few others, who'd been the driving force behind the protest movements of karamchedu and chunduru, in bringing together dalit leaders, activists and ordinary people from across andhra pradesh to take the voices of the victims to delhi, and to the rest of the country.

balagopal, in the august 15, 1987 issue of the economic and political weekly writes (in the article 'Karamchedu: Second Anniversary') :

The movement was fortunate in having from the start two leaders who were well known and respected in their own Tight for many years before Karamchedu. They are Katti Padma Rao and Bojja Tarakam, currently general secretary and president of the Mahasabha, respectively. Padma Rao belongs to the tradition of organised rationalism that has long been a signifi- cant movement in South India. Rationa- list and atheist associations-for all their dissensions and splits-have a sizeable membership and a larger audience, especially in the coastal Andhra districts. Padma Rao, who teaches Sanskrit (a peculiarly appropriate vocation for a dalit and a rationalist) in a college in Guntur district, is a leading rationalist, and within the rationalist movement has been a spokesman for the Marxist approach to the criticism of religion. Tarakam was even closer to the Communist movement, and was for some time an activist of Virasam, the Revolutionary Writers' Association of A P. As a lawyer, he was active in the civil liberties movement in the state, until he accepted a government pleader's job in 1983 and quit active association with the democratic movement.

Karamchedu brought these two men into the streets. Tarakam resigned his government pleader's job and Padma Rao more or less suspended teaching to settle down at Chirala and organise the victims of the assault, who have refused to go back to the village and have built a colony for themselves at Chirala. Slowly, the protest against a particular assault built itself into the Dalit Mahasabha, whose formation on September 1, was attended by about three lakh dalits and sympathisers. [emphasis mine].

K.Y.Ratnam also notes at some length, in the paper 'The Dalit Movement and Democratization in Andhra Pradesh' (you'll find the paper here), how katti padma rao had filled a crucial theoretical and leadership gap in the dalit movement in andhra pradesh in the aftermath of karamchedu, when widespread anger combined with despair was spreading across the community in general and the protesters in particular. he had helped the movement gain a new direction and much needed vigour, to put it very mildly.

so, what is he doing in the 'jai andhra movement' now? a movement without any identifiable social agenda? perhaps, you could say, padma rao's presence is the movement's only social agenda. has katti padma rao allowed himself to be 'won' by some passing 'victors'? does he plan to 'win himself' and 'run the world' ever?

more later.

'they're asking for a separate state, not a separate country'

despite having a 'distinct' culture, as you're told in almost all the op-ed columns you'd read on the subject? why?

have been reading another article, by kalpana kannabiran and others ('On the Telangana Trail'), which tries to produce a sickeningly sweet account of how homogeneous telangana is, across social and religious divides, and how unitedly every telangani heart beats for telangana. yes, you'll also find lots of references to telangana's 'distinct' and 'composite' culture in the article. how can a culture remain 'distinct' and 'composite' at the same time? and what is it 'distinct' from? from other cultures in the neighbourhood? like the kannadiga, marathi cultures or only from rayalaseema and andhra cultures? or from the one 'national' culture the rest of india is supposed to harbour?

one of the telangana theorists, uppunoothala purushottam reddy of the congress, proposes this formulation: 'localisation is a cure for globalization'.

now, too many supporters of the telangana agitation, like ms.kannabiran, support it on the grounds that it is a 'democratic' movement, that it challenges the onslaught of liberalization and globalization etc. it's another matter that most of the political forces, the agitating students and intellectuals now spearheading the movement had long ago abandoned a demand for a 'democratic' telangana. all they want is a geographic telangana, which would yield not an inch of adivasi land to the adivasis, or upper caste benami landholdings to the dalits. nor concede any extra legislative representation to the obcs or the muslims.

is 'localisation is a cure for globalization'? globalization is a policy-philosophy of the ruling classes of india, cutting across political party lines. a telangani state can't change federal policy. don't these theorists know that? they do, of course.

from a certain perspective, it seems very clear to me that the problem is indianization or hinduization, not globalization. liberals like kalpana kannabiran and the sangh parivar, both supporters of telangana, share a vision of india that is upper caste hindu. for them, india is a readymade nation. for people like dr.ambedkar, it was a nation that had to be made.

how is hinduization a problem? this latest article by kancha ilaiah offers some clues:

I was shocked when one activist quoted a United Nations report stating that the average lifespan of tribals who live in those areas is just 40 years while the lifespan of people who live in the plains is 60 years. Their education levels are the lowest in the state and employment rate is also abysmally low. Their food consumption levels are worse than that of any dalit or other backward class (OBC) community of the state.

The Gond, Koya and Konda Reddy tribes were also finding it difficult to compete for their quota with the Lamabadas, who are plain tribes. They made all of us feel that 60 years of Samaikhya Andhra and democratic governance had done nothing for them. Hence, a separate statehood for them was presented as the best solution.

They are now planning to place their demand before the Srikrishna Committee and were asking our moral support.

Most of the upper caste Telangana leaders were of the view that those who live in the region should support Telangana and no other issue of caste, tribe, gender or exploitation should figure in the debate in any form. They are actually bent upon killing all other form of consciousness that exists in Telangana region and once the separate state is formed they would assume power and suppress other struggles for equality and improvement of life.

Many OBCs, Scheduled Castes and some Scheduled Tribes have been drawn into their fold because regional movements allow such space. But this has killed other modes of human consciousness.

for the congressi nationalists, and their marxist cousins, and the sangh parivar, linguistic identities are problems ('fissiparous tendencies' as they're often referred to in the mainstream media), that have to be 'solved'. so are caste and religion based identities. those are 'consciousnesses' which challenge the class based worldview of the liberals and the manuvaad of the parivar.

the movement for a separate telangana is neither a movement, as in a movement towards social progress, nor an agitation, a shaking up of a stratified society, but a bargaining ploy of the upper caste elites of the region. they wish to gain entry into the central elite of 'indians', or hindus. those who represent the essence of indianness, transcending language and caste (because most of them are from the upper castes, and hence above caste, and because they speak english or a sanskritised hindi, or both or a combination of both power languages) which has grown to the size of nearly half the population of urban india since independence. why do these elites, who have great contempt for lower class maharashtrians or kannadigas participating in sons-of-soil movements in mumbai or bengaluru, look upon the telangana separatists, using much more objectionable methods of harassing 'outsiders', with great respect and even affection? because all the separatists in telangana, i mean the most articulate and powerful among them, are asking for is an adjustment, an accommodation, and not anything resembling comprehensive structural change. they have neither the desire nor the courage to ask for real autonomy.

join the 'mainstream'?

maya mirchandani, of ndtv, was born in 'Niloufer Hospital in Lakdi ka Pul, bed fee Rs 2/', around forty years ago. very thought-provoking :

Why am I wasting precious time saying all this? Because here lies the root of my total confusion over what should happen to Hyderabad, the city of my birth. Like me, Hyderabad too has multiple identities, cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic. And for much of its 420-year-old history, it's an idea that has been coveted and fought over by each one of its communities. While its more recent, post independence history is chequered with communal riots, and pro-Telangana protests, its early history is inextricably tied to the Qutb Shahi dynasty. Until some years ago, driving to Gachi Bowli from Mehdipatnam on the old Bangalore road, you could still see their tombs rise above the landscape. They are now being restored with funds from Iran- the spiritual and cultural fount for the city's Shia Muslims, many of whom are more or less confined to the old city, divided from the new by the natural boundary of the Musi River. A friend once said to me Hyderabad's communal cartography is evident, the lines between Hindu and Muslim neighbourhoods absolute dividers, sometimes even referred to as "sarhad" or border. The same friend, a Hyderabadi Shia, a Left leaning management professor and itinerant poet, asked me last week what the creation of the state of Telangana would do to his identity.

The Hindus in Hyderabad are an equally motley lot. Conservative, Andhras who dominate the political landscape, and much of the big industry - Film, Pharmaceuticals, Real Estate, for example. And not to forget the Marwaris- who came in to trade in gems and jewels for the Nizams, and like the Sindhis have an entrepreneurial spirit that allows them to call anyplace home. Culturally completely different from each other, and I am not even going to get into the caste and class break ups within the different communities.

Add to this mix now, a third, even newer Hyderabad. HITEC city. Chandrababu Naidu's dream, of making it the Dubai of South India, this part of the city, spreading outwards even beyond Jubilee Hills (once the far end of town), has over the last decade become the city's showcase, with several visiting foreign dignitaries ensuring they make a pit stop at one of the symbols of India's emerging economy.

But this has only complicated Hyderabad's identity further. The massive influx of dollars during the IT, BPO boom has brought in a new transitory white collar population of foreigners, ex-pats, westernized outsiders with their swank cars, boutiques and fancy mansions right beside the old Irani hotels and crumbling bungalows of my grandparents era. They too are now an integral, inextricable part of Hyderabad's social fabric.

As the center's decision to create a new state of Telangana now focuses on the future of Hyderabad, since the city comes bang in the middle of its districts, the debate ranges from identity to economics. Hyderabad is Telangana's cash cow. The creation of a new state will ensure the wealth it generates is distributed among what are today Andhra Pradesh's poorest districts. But Hyderabad is also organically linked with the rest of Andhra Pradesh, as Andhras from Coastal Districts (like my mother's family) and Rayalseema made the inland capital their home generations ago. Are they now being told they don't belong?

Similarly, for the non-Telugu communities of Hyderabad- are they now being told they don't belong either?

one of the vilest remarks i've read recently, at one of the many separatist sites, was that muslims of hyderabad have stayed 'aloof' from the 'mainstream' (with the obvious hint that that's probably the reason why they aren't supporting separation). what is the 'mainstream'? another post from the google group which is 'tracking telangana' would give you an idea about what or who the 'mainstream' is:

Last Thursday (5th March), when Kaneez and I took an auto to go to Moghalpura near Charminar from Anveshi office, I got my first ‘class’ on Telangana from an auto-driver. In his late 20s he spoke in chaste Dakhani.

‘Madam, do you think Telangana will be given?’, he started the conversation.

‘We don’t know. What do you think?’, we asked him in turn.

chaste dakhani? there used to be a time when upper caste hindus would speak only chaste urdu with the lower classes, and also sometimes with their own womenfolk, knowing fully well that they couldn't respond in the same language, just to show them their place. dakhani, or 'unchaste' urdu if you like, evolved out of the collaborative efforts of the lower classes, hindu and muslim, to live upto their masters' standards of purity. but their masters only saw it as another illustration of their impurity. is dakhani mainstream now? you might find an answer at the end of the interrupted conversation:

“What do you think of MIM’s stand on Telangana?” (both of us assuming he is a Muslim, as he was speaking pure Dakhani, wearing surma and referred to Hindus as Telugus)

“They say, if we support Telangana, what will happen to Muslims in Andhra area? They should learn the problems of the people, talk to them, and then take a stand. Why do they go on taking the same old stand? May be they will say - give us the city and go!”

“But that will mean that they will lose power, isn’t it? If the city becomes Union territory, they won’t get anything!”

“I don’t know why they are taking that stand, madam. Probably they also don’t speak to the people, like all political parties..I talked too much. I never spoke to any passenger like this”.

Before getting off, we couldn’t resist asking his name. “Rajesh” he replied shyly.

who's 'mainstream'? the people 'tracking telangana', or the poor muslim driver who turned into an obviously 'impure' hindu? people of the second kind seem to be in a majority, broken up into many minorities like maya mirchandani. but they should join the 'mainstream', if they wish to be paid, i guess. such a foul term.

go, junk your hypocrisy

jaithirth rao asks:

The Congress, the BJP and the Left are all supporters, although the enthusiasm of all their members is suspect. The SP, the RJD and the BSP are opponents and are very vociferous and obstructive about it. The mystery remains: are the supporters pro-women and are the opponents anti-feminist? Does this simplistic analysis say it all? [emphasis mine].

the bill, in its present form, is unfair. but i doubt that matters to the hindu parties (the congress, the bjp and the communists). their twisted idea of gender justice ignores caste and creed altogether. or should i say: conveniently ignores caste and creed? if this bill is enforced, in its current form, it'd increase the already bloated upper caste over-representation in houses of legislature by a huge margin, at the costs of the lower castes and the muslims, primarily. the obcs, muslims, other religious minorities and hundreds of small castes among the dalits and adivasis are already under-represented in the state assemblies and parliament. this bill would not only take away a large portion of the current obc and muslim shares in elected houses, but also close the door on any growth in their numbers for a very long time. the ruling classes seemed to have had enough of all the insubordination from the impure since mandal and mayawati. they seem to say: enough! this shall remain a hindu nation.

and how will this hindu bill affect the fortunes of those from the impure castes who joined the telangana movement?

the separatists in telangana have a lot in common with the crusaders fighting for a hinduised form of gender justice in delhi. they have also been able to fashion a story of injustice that revolves around one single, overarching reality: geography. their sense of geographic justice too looks at caste, creed and also gender issues as reflecting only minor injustices. but a lot of aspiring district level politicians from a few obc castes had joined the separatist movement in the hope that the formation of a new state would increase their chances of getting into the state assembly. how? that's a difficult question to answer, but they seem to think that a new state would change existing political formations and pave the way for the growth of new parties. one can't imagine how that'd happen, considering the two major parties haven't suffered any change in their support bases in recent times. and the only other party which had made some progress, in spurts, in the region was the trs.

what does the trs think of those from the impure castes? not much, it'd seem. one incident, from a few months ago, which involved the brutal assault on a former party mp, an adivasi, for daring to speak up against kcr, illustrates what the doras at the helm of the party think of insubordination from those from the lower castes. this news story has more details:

A prominent rebel leader of TRS, who is among a dozen leaders who have raised the banner of revolt against party president K. Chandrasekhar Rao, after the recent election debacle, Mr. Naik, a Lambada, lodged a complaint against the TRS leadership invoking provisions of SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities Act) in the Banjara Hills police station. In retaliation, TRS leaders filed a separate complaint accusing him of abusing them by caste name. Trouble broke out in the party headquarters shortly after the emergency meeting began around noon when Mr. Naik walked in to participate in the proceedings without an invitation from the party. Though he was stopped at the gate, Mr. Naik managed to go near the meeting hall where he was cornered by a group.

He took the party workers by surprise by raising pro-Telangana and pro-KCR slogans. One of them even chaired him on his shoulder. The workers tried to persuade him to return stating that his resignation had been accepted. Mr. Naik had, in an open letter, challenged KCR to reply to questions raised by the former or else treat it as his resignation letter.

As Mr. Naik insisted on attending the meeting on the ground that it was convened as a follow-up to his letter, the workers pushed him up to the gate where he took his car to proceed to the house of a former TRS Minister A. Chandrasekhar who was expelled from the party only Sunday night. Emerging from Mr. Chandrasekhar’s house with a torn shirt, Mr. Naik rubbed his nose on the floor seeking forgiveness from the people of Telangana for committing “the sin of being a part of TRS”. He threw sand in the air as he cursed Mr. Rao and his family. Accompanied by Mr. Chandrasekhar and another expelled leader J. Balakrishna Reddy, Mr. Naik drove to the police station.

but mr.naik hasn't given up on telangana, and is now trying to garner support from the bjp and its most rabid hindutvavaadi, narendra modi. as i said, there are too many wanna-be legislators, especially from a few obc communities, in telangana, and their support for the movement is fuelled by expectations of future growth in opportunities. but this bill will definitely greatly reduce opportunities for obcs among them. until now, obc representation in the andhra pradesh assembly has hovered around 15%, on an average, through the decades. now, it'd seem like even 15% would be an unachievable goal in the next assembly. after having consistently played along with their upper caste patrons in propagating vigorously a loose, insubstantial but colourful narrative of regional discrimination, and downplaying and ignoring caste and gender based injustice in the past few years in pursuit of their own narrow ambitions, what do these impure aspirants think of this new turn of events, i wonder.

hope?

hope this will at least stop female foeticide in upper caste hindu families. hope, they'll stop producing obcs and muslims and stick to girls.

politics can't be about toilets?

Hyderabad, Nov. 18: Despite targets periodically set by the government, sanitary facilities in most states in the country have improved little over the centuries.In Andhra Pradesh, 60 per cent of households in villages and 25 per cent in urban areas still do not have a toilet.

Even when toilets are built, they are not used. Some 42 lakh individual latrines were built in the state in the last one decade, but 70 per cent of them are lying unused. Official statistics show that Andhra Pradesh tops the country in having the lowest number of working toilets.

politics is about rights, not toilets.

politics is about culture. it is about how the other guy wears a lungi, while you wear a dhoti and similar irreconcilable differences. not about all those little guys working in your fields wearing gochis. politics is about water for rice paddies. even if the whole land is flooded with surplus rice, and most taps are running dry, and most villages don't have taps. politics is about government jobs. it is not about coolies' jobs or cobblers' jobs or paanwallahs' jobs. politics is about the chief minister's post. it is about speakers' posts, about vice chancellors' posts, about advocate generals' posts, about police commissioners' posts. not about manual scavengers' posts or rat catchers' posts. or the people who are thrust into those posts. and others like them who are entrusted, by tradition, with similar posts. they can form associations to take out rallies in support of telangana, so that people recognize that they'd be grateful to hold those posts in a future telangana. that they're not going to break ranks. politics is about recognizing their right to not break ranks.

i was hoping to find a toilet here, but it's completely dry. toilets are not rights. how about people who have to clean up dry toilets? shouldn't any discussion of rights begin there? one learns once again from the separatist movement that the upper caste, hindu liberal, despite all his loud talk about rights, is a strict believer in the old, ordered way of life. he can lead you into a big battle over how to divide up rivers, lands and even subterranean wealth but never talk about what's in it for everyone. that was decided long ago in his favour, so it doesn't even occur to him that his sense of priorities isn't everyone's sense of priorities.

telangana: a movement without a social agenda 4

kancha ilaiah asks an important question:

Feb.13 : The movement for Telangana has now touched a peak. It has also become a movement with unique characteristics. Masses belonging to all walks of life have come out to the streets with their cultural symbols. We can see dalit-Bahujans beating drums and dholaks, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) with their ploughshares and bullock carts, shepherds with their flock, toddy tappers with their moku (rope assembly use to climb the trees) and muttadu (is the belt they wear to keep their hatchet) and stone-breakers with their own iron artifacts.

The festive game of Bathukamma (a women’s festival celebrated mainly during Dussehra, pro-Telangana activists are performing the Bathukamma on the highways as a form of protest and to highlight their Telangana identity) was also enacted. It was being projected as a cultural symbol.

During the age of Nizam, Bathukamma used to be enacted by the Shudras — mostly OBCs. Dalits were not allowed to participate as they were seen as pollutants even by the OBCs of lower order. And the upper caste women — particularly Brahmins, Komatis, Reddys and Velamas — would not participate as it was seen as Shudra festive game. They thought it was below their dignity. Now suddenly some Dorasanlu (women of dominant castes) went to this play as a symbol of the agitation. Is it for Telangana or for power? [emphasis mine]

i don't see why ilaiah views telangana and power as two contradictory goals. telangana is power. it might not mean much change in the power equations at the village and district levels, but in hyderabad, where most power is concentrated, a new state would require a full-fledged ministry of its own, among other things. now, who gets the power is the critical question.

the involvement of certain articulate sections from a few obc, dalit communities and some adivasis like the lambadas has helped the separatists aggressively publicize the dubious claim that it is a broad-based social movement. that it is not a political movement, or a movement led by politicians, but a movement for 'self-respect', 'self-rule' etc. will this movement help the obcs, dalits and adivasis gain 'self-respect'? the answer to that question depends on the answers to a few other questions.

how many of the top leaders of the political joint action committee spearheading the agitation are obcs and dalits? very few. ilaiah himself points out their role in the current agitation:

The most interesting thing is that while the lower castes are using their cultural symbols to achieve a separate Telangana, the members of former feudal families are playing the politics of agitation. We also see a surprising unity between some Reddy and Velama political lords. The whole attempt by these two caste forces is to control the political joint action committee (JAC) that is driving the Telangana agitation. Some academicians have also been drawn in to mediate between those two otherwise politically warring castes.

It is as if the stereotype of future Telangana is being played out — “We will play politics and you should play Dhoom Dham, Bathukamma and drums”. [emphasis mine]

so, whose 'self-respect' are the agitators talking about? there are very little chances of a new state ushering in any significant improvement in the political representation of the obcs, dalits and adivasis in the institutions of power, thereby radically enhancing their social standing or 'respect'. they're not going to get any new power. a few more members from 4-5 large obc castes (out of a hundred odd obc communities in andhra pradesh) might get elected to the state legislature, but that would only mean a slight improvement on the current low base of obc representation which stands at around 15% of all legislators.

anant maringanti makes a significant observation in a recent article in the economic and political weekly ('Telangana: Righting Historical Wrongs or Getting the Future Right?', jan23, 2010 issue; thanks, anandaswarup):

The creation of electoral democracy and revenue administration at the mandal level opened up a unique space for the backward castes in Telangana who comprised small and medium farmers with little access to irrigation facilities. The first generation of the leaders benefiting from this strategy are now important leaders in the TDP and have been, by and large, the most ambivalent about the separate state demand. However, over the last 15 years, a number of new social groups have emerged at this scale whose efforts at upward mobility have not been very successful. It is those social groups, who have hit various road blocks to social mobility, that are the ones who are the most vocal in demanding a separate state.

the obc leaders who have achieved a certain degree of power in the tdp since the party's inception in 1983, mostly come from the few, large obc communities i'd talked about earlier. now, a new generation of aspirants from the same communities are trying desperately to find their way into institutions of power in general, and the state legislature in particular. their success can only happen through the displacement of the older generation of obcs, mostly in tdp and a few in the congress, because the reddies and velamas have a strong entrenched presence in all political parties, especially in the congress. therefore, a new state would obtain very few net gains for the obcs in hyderabad, and their political presence in the countryside wouldn't change much.

both the major political parties, the congress and the tdp, made tall promises about including more obcs among their candidates' lists in the long run up to the 2009 elections, mostly to neutralize any major shift among obc voters toward chiranjeevi's praja rajyam party which had talked about fighting for 'social justice', or more representation for the obcs. but eventually, neither party stood by its promise and chiranjeevi himself fielded obc candidates in constituencies where his party had little chances of winning.

neither chiranjeevi, whose party tried to project itself as a party of the backward classes mostly, nor the current telangana agitators have evolved any theoretically sound anti-caste agenda, or a programme of 'social justice'.

the few dalit and obc leaders among the separatists who tried to raise the issue of caste at public meetings, and in other fora like the jac conferences, have been shouted down, silenced and even attacked. and even a dominant section of the students, who have supposedly made this agitation a 'people's movement' according to its propaganda artists, have aggressively opposed any discussion of the caste question by saying: 'Kulalu vaddu, mataalu vaddu, Telangana muddu' ('no castes, no religions, we want telangana', roughly) and 'all for Telangana'. doesn't that sound like the 'youth for equality' agenda?

so, who's going to get the power? the movement does not even challenge entrenched social groups on the question of political representation for the obcs or muslims. the share of the dalits and adivasis in the new state assembly shall not increase. like space bar says here, it might seem like the politicians have no control over the 'movement' now, but we also have to look at the question of who gains 'power' from this movement, whose ends does it meet, to understand who is trying hard to make it look like a 'people's movement'.

no place for cannon fodder

what happened yesterday at a public meeting organized by students of the kakatiya university gave us a brief glimpse of the inherent strong contradictions, conflicting interests, in the separatist movement:

Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi leader Manda Krishna Madiga has blamed it on Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhara Rao for the attack on him at the Kakatiya University students meeting in Warangal on Sunday.

Manda Krishna alleged that KCR had masterminded the attack, as he did not want the growth of weaker sections and dalits in the Telangana movement. “Right from the beginning, only two upper castes – Reddys and Velamas, have been hijacking the Telangana movement. They are dominating the Joint Action Committee and are not allowing the voice of Dalits being heard. Since I have been raising my voice, definitely KCR has engineering the attack on me,” he alleged.

what does krishna madiga, and other traditionally landless dalits have in common with kcr and other erstwhile velama and reddy feudal landlords who still own more half the agricultural land, and most of the holdings in the canal irrigated parts, in the region? what do the telangana ngos and officers (sarkari babus) who, in close partnership with their andhra counterparts, were negotiating a hefty pay hike from the state government just a week ago, have in common with landless agricultural workers in mahbubnagar who migrate in lakhs to mumbai and other big cities every year in search of work? what do telangani weavers in bhiwandi and goldsmiths in surat have in common with the software engineers working in new jersey and san jose? what do congressis like former home minister and naxal hunter jana reddy have in common with maoist sympathizers like gaddar and vara vara rao? what do lohiate socialists in the movement like keshav rao jadhav have in common with big businessmen-politicians from the congress and the tdp?

those and several other such contradictions can't be resolved. just as ram janmabhoomi wasn't meant to resolve mandal, only kill it, telangana will only push back krishna madiga's mission. and the aspirations of several others like him. the exhilaration of the moment might delude them into thinking that they're winning because they're being included, for the moment. but, as the last paragraph in the new story tells you, they're losing, and badly:

The fact, however, is that right from the beginning, Manda Krishna has been a nuisance in the movement. There is not a single occasion when he contributed to the movement and all that he has been trying to do is exploit the Telangana movement for his personal growth. KCR, no doubt, is an unscrupulous politician, but it is because of him that the movement has come to this stage. Where was Manda Krishna in the Telangana movement all these years? Let the Telangana activists understand.

the mouthpieces of the brahminized classes regard krishna madiga as a 'nuisance', despite the fact that it is the dalits and obc youth in hundreds and thousands who are fasting, holding dharnas and padayatras, braving lathis and jail, committing suicide in dozens every week. reminds me of what i had said earlier, a few weeks ago:

can't imagine how so many dalitbahujan activists and thinkers ever came to the view that in the current telangana movement, the obcs and dalits of telangana could play a bigger role than being mere cannon fodder.

now that the movement's upper caste leaders seem to have caught new delhi's attention a little, why do they need the cannon fodder any more? aren't they such a nuisance, kcr and other brahminized leaders and 'activists' of the movement seem to think.

telangana: a movement without a social agenda 3

kancha ilaiah in why i am not a hindu:

What further separated a Hindu from us was the nature of the consciousness of the other world, the divine and the spiritual. For children from our castes, Jeja (the concept of God) is introduced in the form of the moon. As children grow up, they also get acquainted with Pochamma, Polimeramma, Kattamaisamma, Kaatamaraju, Potaraju and other deities. Among Dalitbahujans, there is no concept of a temple in a definite place or form. Goddesses and Gods live in all shapes and in different places.

i'd written nearly an year ago:

madigas, and over fifty other dalit castes in andhra pradesh have been agitating over the last fifteen years for dividing the scheduled castes into categories (as it is done in the case of obcs) to ensure that, according to their view, not all the fruits of reservations are cornered by a couple of castes. there have also been barely covered reports of similar movements across the country. now this demand needs to be debated seriously across a wide range of fora because it involves not just madigas and other castes in andhra pradesh, but dalits, primarily, and all other classes of people across the country. from 300 million to one billion people.

no debate happened anywhere outside andhra pradesh, and in andhra pradesh too the debate on categorisation of dalits, which had been allowed to degenerate into an endless internecine war along the mala-madiga divide among the dalits (watched, egged on many times, eagerly by upper caste political bosses and various assorted kind-hearted liberals among the brahminized classes) got drowned in the debate over another synthetic divide, telangana. while the debaters took to the streets and the courts and nothing got resolved, they took the battle into their homes and their hearts. and to their divided neighbourhoods in the villages, outside the villages. the political bosses never took it to parliament, which in the supreme court's opinion is the right forum to debate the issue, and powerful parliamentarians, of course, never notice an issue that happens outside delhi on their own unless....say, a famous cricketer or film star is involved. but what would parliament have done?

it'd have taken an easy way out, like a very frustrated and tired manda krishna madiga, perhaps. he, along with his organization mrps ('madiga reservation porata samiti'), joined the telangana movement formally on the day kcr started his fast, a couple of months ago. as recently as that. does that mean the dalits of telangana actively support a movement that has been almost entirely led by upper caste political leaders for the past nine years? it means they're frustrated and tired running around every kind of constitutional institution looking for just, constitutional solutions to their problems but now have given up and feel geography might help. does it mean the dalits of telangana have suddenly discovered they share a common culture with their erstwhile feudal masters? that they were never separated from the hindus, culturally, as ilaiah says? when krishna madiga shares a platform with assorted reddy, velama, kamma, kapu political leaders from the congress, bjp, various communist and other parties it doesn't mean caste barriers have suddenly crumbled to dust, it only means they've grown so strong that even dalits can't recognize each other as equals.

so, the madigas of telangana think a separated telangana would help them gain better access to reserved seats and jobs because they form the majority (among dalits) in telangana. how about the other smaller castes who would then be elbowed out of the race for reserved seats and jobs by the dominant caste among dalits, the madigas? what'd parliament do to resolve that issue? divide every region, district and village in the country into separate states so that no dalit caste would dominate another?

the telangana movement is not a dalit movement, in fact it's a movement designed to paralyse any concerted efforts by the dalits in andhra pradesh to overcome caste, to fight caste together.

the north, before you think of the south

why did dr.ambedkar favour linguistic states?

" One State, one language " is a universal feature of almost every State. Examine the constitution of Germany, examine the constitution of France, examine the constitution of Italy, examine the constitution of England, and examine the constitution of the U.S.A. " One State, one language " is the rule.

Wherever there has been a departure from this rule there has been a danger to the State. The illustration of the mixed States are to be found in the old Austrian Empire and the old Turkish Empire. They were blown up because they were multi-lingual States with all that a multi-lingual State means. India cannot escape this fate if it continues to be a congery of mixed States.

The reasons why a unilingual State is stable and a multi-lingual State unstable are quite obvious. A State is built on fellow feeling. What is this fellow-feeling ? To state briefly it is a feeling of a corporate sentiment of oneness which makes those who are charged with it feel that they are kith and kin. This feeling is a double-edged feeling. It is at once a feeling of fellowship for ones own kith and kin and anti-fellowship for those who are not one's own kith and kin. It is a feeling of " consciousness of kind " which on the one hand, binds together those who have it so strongly that it over-rides all differences arising out of economic conflicts or social gradations and, on the other, severs them from those who are not of their kind. It is a longing not to belong to any other group.

The existence of this fellow-feeling is the foundation of a stable and democratic State.

that last line brings me to andhra pradesh. could anyone say andhra pradesh hasn't been 'stable and democratic' in the last 53 years? except for two short periods of unrest in late 60s and the early 70s, one could say democracy has functioned fairly smoothly, going by indian standards, in the state. especially in the last 25 years since 1984 (when the congress monopoly over power ended) when every election produced a decisive result and no party in power failed to complete its full term in office. does that prove an existence of fellow-feeling? yes, it does. elections and popular governments are until now the only reliable yardstick to measure stability (and hence, fellow feeling) in indian democracy.

the sudden emergence of the telangana movement in the national headlines might question that assumption about the existence of fellow feeling. but i understand it basically as a movement which has appropriated the angst of several long festering discontents in the region and cleverly fashioned one strong narrative out of them. those who will gain from the movement are not those who represent the stories of the victims. there are new social forces which have emerged in the last thirty years, like a small educated middle class of obcs (from 3-4 large communities) in telangana, which find old power sharing arrangements in existing parties exclusionary. despite their numbers, their political clout has been limited by their ranking in the social/caste hierarchy in the villages, and their inadequate economic presence in the cities. the old feudal upper castes (now fairly urbanized), the reddies and the velamas, who've never really been out of power, now find an alliance with this new class of aspirants useful in strengthening their own interests. it's difficult to say how long this partyless political alliance will last, given the fact that the none of the obc castes in the state can match either, say, the kurubas in karnataka or the vanniyars in tamil nadu, forget the vokkaligas or the mudaliars, in terms of political strength. in economic and social terms, the obcs in telangana must be among the most backward in the whole south.

but would dr.ambedkar have advocated the division of andhra pradesh, on the basis of other principles like the size of the population etc? dr.ambedkar was not against the division of linguistic states, but in his notes he primarily focusses on the consolidation of the north (against the balkanisation of the south) and the need to divide the northern states into new states. he says:

The solution lies obviously in adopting some standard for determining the size of a State. It is not easy to fix such a standard. If two crores of population be adopted as a standard measure most of the Southern States will become mixed States. The enlargement of the Southern States to meet the menace of the Northern States is therefore impossible. The only remedy is to break up the Northern States of U.P., Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

How did this solution not strike the Congress Working Committee I am unable to understand. It is so obvious.

Division of the Northern States

As I have said the Commission in designing linguistic States has created a consolidation of the North and balkanisation of the South. The Commission has not I am sure done this intentionally. But intentionally or unintentionally the fact is there. Its evil consequences are also clear.

It is therefore necessary that this situation must be rectified. The only way to do this is to divide the three States of (1) Uttar Pradesh, (2) Bihar and (3) Madhya Pradesh into smaller units. In this behalf I make bold to offer certain tentative proposals.

This division does not conflict with the underlying principles of a linguistic State. For, if these States are divided in the way suggested, each resulting State will be a linguistic State.

I am happy to find Mr. Pant saying in the recent debate in Parliament on the subject that he has no objection to the cutting up of the U.P. What he said for U.P. may well be taken as applicable to Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

Division of Ultar Pradesh.—My proposal with regard to the Uttar Pradesh is to divide it into three States (See Map 2). Each of these three States should have a population of approximately two crores which should be regarded as the standard size of population for a State to administer effectively. [italics mine].

again, would dr.ambedkar have advocated the division of andhra pradesh? a stable, democratic state in the south? given the fact that the consolidation of the north is still a strong reality, would dr.ambedkar have suggested further balkanisation of the south?

even after the creation of certain small states like haryana, uttarakhand, jharkhand etc in the north, the relative strengths of the northern states hasn't changed at all. the project of the division of the north that dr.ambedkar strongly promoted hasn't begun until now, in a manner of speaking. if 2 crores, as he suggested, is to be the standard size of population for a new state, uttar pradesh still needs to be divided into eight new states, madhya pradesh into three new states, bihar into four new states and rajasthan into three new states.

in his notes, dr.ambedkar did ponder over the question of division of the northern states, and even the central states (as he categorized states like maharashtra), but didn't move to the south. in principle, i repeat, he wasn't against the division of linguistic states, but the division of the southern states was far from his mind, it'd seem. like always, he looked at the question of division and creation of new states very rationally, and seemed to have decided that the north presented a problem more than the south. perhaps, he wouldn't have approached the south at all, in my view, if one looks closely at his principles for the creation of new states.