Tuesday, September 20, 2011

T- Agitation : Who Is Losing ?

Hello every one,

I want to focus on a contemporary topic of relevance and put forth my views and invite your thoughts on the same.

This has become a norm in Telangana of late
The Agitation

The movement for Telangana - a separate state that comprises of 10 districts in Andhra Pradesh is not a recent phenomenon. The movement has it's roots that date back to the time when the Hyderabad state was merged into Andhra state to form Andhra Pradesh in 1956. The "Gentle men's Agreement" had the Supreme Court sanctity was the corner-stone on which the new state was formed. The tenets in the agreement which were for a fair share of Administrative power and Natural Resources between all the regions in the state was completely ignored by the governments of the time.

Godavari flows through Telangana but no major projects built



Over the course of the last 50 years, Telangana region has been repeatedly ignored and remains till date under-developed and neglected. There are still places in the region that are not connected by Rail or Road, it does not have any major irrigation projects that can store water and can encourage farming in a big way though all the rivers pass through the region. The natural resources of the region are moved to the other parts of the state which have progressed at a fair pace as a result.

These and many more factors that are also cultural in nature ( some people ridiculing the language used etc.) have caused the people in the region to feel that they are wronged and consistently exploited.

The Politicians

The politicians belonging to all the parties over the half century from Telangana have failed collectively to do anything for the people who elected them. Like their counterparts in the other regions in the state, they focused primarily on looking after themselves.

When the time was ripe for some unemployed politicians in 2004, they ignited the sentiment of being neglected and under-developed that existed in the people. Like Hitler and others before who could incite people to believe that all their misery is caused by some one else ( here, it is people from the other regions ), they brainwashed the gullible people.

Outside of telling the people that they need a separate state and promising "millions of jobs" , the politicians of all parties have really no plan for the welfare of the people in Telangana. All they are looking for is a state that means more jobs and more opportunities to make more money for themselves !

People

As always, WE THE PEOPLE are the last spoken here and are the ones who are losing it all. We lose each time any one breaks a bus, stops a train, stops mining, play kabbadi on National Highways and a politician tells us that we need to continue this madness for more time !

The pity is people from here are not logically thinking through that we have lost a lot in investment for some time now, losing the next generation of children ( saw a 8 year old kid in our street breaking a glass and shouting "Jai Telangana" ) to violence and who think it is fashionable to break buses, rain stones on policemen, break statues on Tankbund and attack people (JP in Assembly ) who talk sense !

Vandalized Statues - Tell A Sad Story

Each day, the "Strike" continues, we are the ones who stand to lose - a day wage laborer sleeps without money, small time vendor can't repay loans, people in emergency situations cannot travel due to lack of transportation, each day we pay thrice the amount of money to Autowallahs who make the most of RTC strike etc. etc.

The time has really come for us to tell the politicians that "Enough IS ENOUGH" and start debating about the possible solutions to the dead-end we are approaching.

We do not need any more committees that gave us options that every one knew and not recommended any single approach that could make us go forward.

My Solution

I believe we can look at strongly the possibility of  De-Centralizing the administration and giving more autonomy and power to the Local District/Village level elected councils. That way the peoples' grievances are more directly resolved without having the need to draw boundaries and create more states. Creating a state is really not what is the solution - the solution should be well rounded development, education and fair opportunities to every one in all the regions of the state. The natural resources in Telangana should be put to use for the development in the region and not be allowed to be diverted elsewhere.

Decentralization - A Model To Think About



As with any problem, we need an immediate short term solution that accommodates more people in the Telangana in government jobs - may be a quota for locals for about 10 years to bring some parity in growth.

I have still not given up my hope that this would be solved peacefully as recently we had Gurkhaland issue resolved in an amicable manner.

So, keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for a better sense to prevail on all of us !

- Pavan


2 comments:

  1. Pavan,
    I completely agree that creating a separate state is not at all the solution as it won't do any good to the people in the region other than let the politicians add more scams to the list...
    The kind of arguments we hear are people from other regions are taking way the jobs...and I would think it could be happening with govt jobs alone as Private companies in hyd do not ask which region u belong to before hiring ..They look at ur talent and skillset but not race/caste/region. I would say even the government should re consider alloting any quotas for local people and purely hire on Merit and talent irrespective of region...
    We all would definitely like to have a peaceful resolution one way or the other and not keep on dragging it over the years.

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  2. Well written. Decentralization is already there .. We call them gram and mandal panchayats. But thats not the issue here. I bet there are more backward areas in the country than 'forward' areas. You just cant divide every backward region/population and make it a separate state. Whats next? Women of India demanding a separate country because they are not represented at any level of government :-) ... A politician without a burning issue at hand is like a barber without scissors. It's all about politics of convenience and survival. -- Prasad

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