The Sri Krishna Committee is going to submit its report at anytime now. The thing is that I have started writing this blog because of the events surrounding the separate Telangana agitation. People think that the Committee's report will now decide the issue this way or that. Before I write further, I will make it my position on the issue clear. I have said then and I am saying now that I do not stand for the division of the State of Andhra Pradesh. I have commented at length as to why I feel this way. I am from Telangana and this region is very, very dear to me. But I do not think that the kind of politics that are prevalent now will result in the realization of the aspirations of common people of Telangana. It is very clear that the issue has taken on many other dimensions and most of those are those which do not portend to the well being of either the people of this region or of India. India stands to lose with the kind of politics that this articulation of the problem will unleash on the people.
I believe I am objective and therefore let me make another thing very clear. Have the people of Telangana lost something because of being dominated by the Andhra region's people. YES. Is the solution proposed to it the answer. NO. This is a complex question that brooks no easy answers. Knee jerk reactions and jingoism will not get anyone anywhere. In fact, the mess now is the result of such practices in the past. Let me draw an analogy here. If somebody is being sucked down by quicksand the instinctive thing to do would be to thrash around. But that hastens the process of being sucked in and drowned. This situation too is similar. This is the time to sit with a level head and deliberate on the way forward. True liberal democracy is premised in the notion of deliberation and overcoming of obstacles by the use of the faculties of reason and logic. Today in all the shouting that is going on from both sides of the line dividing the people any voice of rationality and logicality is lost. Sanity is lost in the noise of posturing emanating from both sides. The whole thing is now rooted in collective egos of both the sides. Even a small step back is being considered as a defeat and therefore the issue is stalemated. A third person arbitrating in a fight between two will only be able to encourage the two sides to take another look at their positions. But the resolution will only be possible only when the two locked in the dispute want to find it. I have no hope of anything like that happening here. Even if the position is that the State of Andhra Pradesh will remain as it is (a position that is on the face of it consistent with what I want) the people of both regions have already lost a lot and none of that will be retrieved in the future. It will only accelerate the process of deteriorating relations between the two peoples who stand divided. The only solution to this is therefore opening a dialogue between the two sides. Deliberation and acceptance of wrong positions and wrong doing will only be the way forward. Any other way is a way downward and therefore not desirable.
In all this my sympathies with the students of Telangana. I do not think that the students of Andhra has lost as much as those here and therefore I am not extending my sympathies there. People have died here for the cause, lost academic opportunities and opportunities in life and all this in my opinion for nothing. They to me symbolise the character of Boxer the horse in the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell. Needless to say everyone knows who the pigs are. To sum up my feelings for the students I quote two different sets of lyrics written by Roger Waters, my favourite poet and musician. The first set of lines are from "Us and Them" a song from the Dark Side of the Moon.
Forward he cried from the rear, and the front ranks died.
The Generals sat, while the lines on the map moved from side to side (Roger Waters)
The other lyric is a bit longer but equally important
You know that I care what happens to you,
And I know that you care for me too,
So I don't feel alone, on the way to the stone,
Now that I've found somewhere safe to bury my bone,
Any fool knows a dog needs a home, a shelter from pigs on the wing. (Roger Waters)
This lyric is from "Animals" almost a continuation of the Animal Farm by Orwell. I live in hope, otherwise why live at all? I hope that all of us do what is appropriate for us to do. Deliberate and not fall prey to pigs on the wing.
P.S. Not proof read. Mistakes may be excused.
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