Xenophobia of a different variety

I have been falling behind with my posts and I am very sorry about that. Sometimes the situation concerning the things that are of interest seems so hopeless that I feel what is the point in going on about those things. But recently I have yet again seen incidents which make me feel that it is my social responsibility to express my disgust at some of the things that are happening in the name of Telangana. Yes it is time to revisit the issue. For sometime now I have been noticing some unbelievable things both in the Osmania University and in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Let me start with what I have seen in the Osmania University. After the conducting of entrance examinations for various post-graduate courses and announcing of results and filling of seats it was found that a "non-local" had topped the entrance examination in Political Science. It was impossible to deny him admission since he was the topper and had no one above him. When his "status" of "non-local" was discovered he was first confronted by colleagues in my department (I work in and for the dept of Political Science) who gently tried to ask him as to how and why he landed up in Osmania University. The man says he did so because he wanted to be in Hyderabad and the Osmania University since they would offer him the best possible opportunity to learn things and further a career. Slowly the "teachers" in the dept started to "counsel" the chappie about the dangers of being in OU at a time when the separate Telangana agitation was on. If this is not xenophobia what is? People from within the country and state have now become outsiders or aliens. Quite an unparalleled situation.

Another instance for your consideration. A few days ago the Dean of the faculty of Eduction had invited examiners from various parts of Andhra Pradesh to examine scripts of the Bachelor of Education examination. One morning a group of students lands up at the building where the evaluations were being conducted, identifies teachers from the Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra (combinedly called Seem-Andhra) areas, asks them to stop evaluating papers since the outsiders were deliberately giving less marks to students from the Telangana region. In the process some of them were man handled and mildly beaten. Amazing is it not? But to make things even more intriguing is the fact that "Prof" Kodandram (Reddy), I put the Reddy in brackets because he has dropped that from his name, instead of chiding the students for beating up teachers, supports them and talks about the ills that the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema people have perpetrated on the people of Telangana. There is no condemnation of the incident either from his side. I can only say that this thing amazes me.

The media plays a tremendous role in the furtherance of all this. Yesterday there was a call for celebration of Telangana Vimochana (liberation) day. There were all kinds of problems with that. The Muslim leaders such as Asaduddin Owaisi have warned that such a celebration would alienate the Muslims and project them in the wrong light while the ABVP which is the student wing of BJP insisted on calling it a liberation day for obvious reasons. Then the moderates, read that as people from TRS, have decided to call it the Telangana Vileena (merger) day. But they were categorical that the merger was into the Indian Union but not into Andhra Pradesh. Then the caste forums of BC, SC and ST have called this the Telangana Vidrohana (betrayel) day because on this day the oppressed people of Telangana were betrayed by merging of the region into Andhra Pradesh. The caste and the religion basis of the movement is clear that it is not all about region but other issues. The media (read that as TV crews) picked up the best spots and sat in front of the Arts College in Osmania University waiting for some trouble to brew so that they can get free software which they will run and re-run for hours and hours.

The sad part is the politics of this whole thing. The second point of this post talks about how students attacked teachers from the non-Telangana areas. How did they come to know of the existence of these people on the Osmania campus? They were informed by the teachers of the Osmania University who found an opportunity to settle scores with a colleague of theirs, who happens to be the Dean of the faculty of Education. It was found that he had his roots in Rayalaseema and apparently since they had a difference of opinion with him they tried to teach him a lesson by getting students to attack the non-local teachers who had come to the university at the invitation of the Dean. When the students who had perpetrated this crime were identified, the Don of TRS, K. Chandrashekhar Rao admonishes that if the students were arrested, then there would be blood bath in Telangana. These days KCR talks about blood baths at the drop of a hat. I wonder what kind of people staying in the USA are funding his political campaign? I want to ask them if they were comfortable funding this kind of activity?

Telangana today represents a peculiar xenophobia. Neo-Nazis, Skinhead, Dot Busters etc have targetted people who have come from far flung areas of the world but not people who lived in their country. I am not supporting them too by the way. I draw the parallel to show how parochial thinking, casteism and sectarianism are creating a new kind of xenophobia where a person living less than a few hundred kilometres from Telangana is considered a foreigner who comes to Telangana to colonise it. Sad, but that seems to be the way this country is moving.

P.S. I have not had the time to proof read what I have written so errors of spelling and grammar which will be plentiful maybe excused. Thank you.