We had fakirs in their black robes, a huge steel clapper in hand, seeking alms with the cry, Jo dega, uska bhala; jo nahi dega, uska bhi bhala! (He who gives the alms, good wishes to him; he who doesn’t, to him too!) In Hyderabad, we also had saffron robed mendicants who, like the fakirs, made it a point to put back a few grains in the giver’s hand from the alms given so the generosity doesn’t wipe him clean.
There was, apart from the beggars, yet another kind.
These would tug a bull, caparisoned, nicely ornamented with cowries. They were like fortune tellers. Asked a question, they would either nod a yes or a no, unambiguously. If the head went side to side, it was a no. A vertical movement was a yes.
My five-year-old cousin, Keshav, one day asked the bull when it stopped in front of his home in Lalagudi, Secunderabad, “Kya, Telangana hog a kya?” It nodded a clear yes and the little fellow’s joy couldn’t be contained. By then, what was a set of statement by a few student leaders and politicians had become a widely expressed desire. That explains an innocent boy’s keen interest: everyone was talking about it.
That bull’s nod took nearly four decades to materialise, though, of course, from now on, given the capability of the political machinery to introduce subterfuges and plan sabotages, a slip between the cup and the lip cannot be forthrightly ruled out. The sudden decisiveness does speak of an electoral consideration in an election that could be a toss-up; no poll of the mood has painted the Congress and UPA-II in good hues so far.
It all started in 1968-69, roller-coasted for four decades and a half, and took innumerable lives. Equitable distribution of development gains, conceded when the Telangana slice of the Nizam’s Hyderabad State consented to merge with linguistic Andhra was not delivered. When surplus agricultural wealth from the deltaic regions of Andhra – the estuarine parts of Pennar, Krishna and Godavari rivers – began to arrive in Hyderabad, the differentials became visible.
It was not, however, that economics alone that started or sustained this anger at having been clubbed into the same pot with another group, which was so culturally different. Though they spoke the same language, Telugu, they were markedly different at the same time. The intonation, Urdu peppering it liberally, the festivals, the customs which had drawn from the ruler’ culture made them out to be immiscible. The economic reasons made it easy to articulate a demand for a divorce.
The hitherto docile, even laidback communities of the locals began to see the people from the coastal areas and the Rayalaseema districts as settlers, an unfortunate term. And they saw cultural invasion and economic domination. They were, as time showed however, not too far from the truth at all. But neglect of the backward regions continued despite assurances of correctives, and political control remained mostly with those the locals saw as ‘outsiders’.
Neglect and a feeling of being short-changed together can be an incendiary mixture, and politics and politicians tend to emphasise these perceptions. The students rose as one, Osmania University became the hub. As a student of one of its constituent colleges, I was a witness to the initial reluctance. G Mallikarjun, who later became a railway minister, got a cold reception when he canvassed our full participation – if need be, to take to the streets.
But like in all stirs, there is an impassioned, committed, no-holds-barred-minded core and it was true of the ‘Telangana agitation’ – that is how it is referred to by all concerned even now – but the rest who may have supported it, even silently, found the period between 1969-71 traumatic. The students were at the forefront of it, examinations were delayed, and it ended with the loss of an entire year and doubts about the quality of graduates of Osmania University.
There was the anger of the dispossessed, with memories of the feudalism that coursed through Telangana, raised and nursed during the Nizam’s rule. They feared a potentially another fiefdom. As a scholar, Mohan Guruswamy wrote elsewhere, “Jawaharlal Nehru (had) assuaged them (during merger into AP) somewhat with safeguards” but they “remained on paper and the people of Andhra gained ascendancy over Hyderabad’s and Telangana’s social and economic life.”
Telangana has been a region where a marked bloody Communist apprising against the Nizam’s feudal arrangement to the extent of being an armed rising –predating the Naxalite movement. Each time a new set of safeguards failed to achieve the purpose, the fears of further submission to Andhras gained strength. They saw then, and they do even now, how investments flowed into Hyderabad and mostly around it and the nine other districts remained stagnant.
That is a justification for the persistence of the stir which saw new politicians emerging to lead it – from Chenna Reddy then to K Chandrashekar Rao now, even though the latter is blatantly raising his own political family with a place for his son, nephew and daughter – and will be till Telangana is signed, sealed and delivered. But there will also be a lament for the lost years. The delay is the thing; the delay only strengthening the resolve.
The views of my friends and contemporaries of the late-1960, early 1970s makes are interesting: one, that like Chenna Reddy’s championing of the cause was mainly because of his craving for office, which could be seen among all current proponents of the cause; two, ‘trauma of seeing violence seeping in, loss of respect for law when buses were burnt at random, never seen earlier’; “Hyderabad is not the same; like all cities, a melange, chaotic, but thriving.”
None of those who were around at the commencement of the long-drawn agitation would want to concede that it is all over bar shouting, even when the state is formed. The expectation is that the political leadership would not be tempted into mere venal politics but work for securing the progress denied. Even today, a district headquarters in Telangana is more or less like it was four decades ago, devoid of facilities, employment, and aspirations are going to be higher than then.
Perhaps a decade is all the new state’s leadership would have to sort out imbalances. That, if done, would be satisfactory, or else, the bull may return, as it would, to the china shop. The victory should not be measured only by the statehood gained, but by getting the region where it ought to have been: if not entirely prosperous to start with, at least, less inequitable.
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