The last thing that I want to do is make this blog too personal but under some unavoidable circumstances I am having to make it. My father and some friends of mine who have read the blog are of the opinion that I must spell out a few things. So here goes.
So far I have been discussing the issue of a separate Telangana among many things with my father but never have I specifically mentioned to him as to what my stand on the issue was. My father has only just had a look at my blog and has revealed a detail which I did not know about thus far. He tells me that during the first separate Telangana agitation he was the leader of the Telangana Gazetted Officers Association and later when a formal organization was created he became the President of the association. He later on went on to become the President of the Andhra Pradesh Gazetted Officers Association. He tells me that at that time he supported the idea of a separate Telangana and even now believes in it but his passion is reduced because of his advanced age. He says that the ideal should have been the original Nizam State but in its absence he thinks Telangana is alright. He believes the dislike to Andhra people came out of many factors and most of them boiled down to a superiority complex that the Andhra people had vis a vis the Telangana people. He says that this could be seen even in officers from the Andhra region who treated Telangana people with huge contempt and lost no opportunity to poke fun at them, even if issues were personal. He narrated an incident to me where his superior officer commented on my fathers clothes (which I believe were a little expensive) by saying that he (my father) and many other Telangana people were nicely 'fattened' by the Nizam when in reality they were worthless. He clarified that his position on Telangana was not based on just this one incident but on many. He also says that most of the Andhra officers when they first came to Telangana took the blazer cloth that was used to cover tables and made coats out of them!!! That apart I too am aware of the jibes at Telangana people made by Andhra film makers who cast comedians and villains as Telangana people speaking the Telangana dialect. In fact, they only stopped this after a threat was issued by the naxals who asked them to desist from such fun making. For those of you who are wondering as to why I am narrating this bit, here is the clarification. I have been saying that though I belong to Telangana but I stand for a united Andhra Pradesh. It would be a tad hypocritical on my part to not reveal the fact that my own father does not subscribe to this point of view. I have not revealed it earlier since I did not know about it. I would like to point out that I still stand by my view that in the larger interests of the country there should be no more divisions. I believe that even the separation of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively should not have been carried out. This is not to deny that they had problems then and Telangana has problems now. I believe that if one reads the Indian constitution the concerns of the founding fathers of the nation was the possibility of the nation fragmenting itself again. And I believe parochialism only contributes to this. To me arguments based in sons of soil or people saying 'we want to govern ourselves' are not valid in the context of the larger Indian nation. I believe there can be power devolutions and other remedies but to accede to something which tries to treat an Indian as a foreigner in any part of the country is down right fraught with all kinds of dangers. There is never only one solution to a problem and all possibilities will have to be properly explored. To me everything should be subordinated to conditions that create a spirit of unity and oneness. Beyond this I will not say much else since I am not a person of consequence in decision making.
My second clarification pertains to an observation made by my father and some friends that I have been politically and socially incorrect in naming castes while talking about power relations in Andhra Pradesh. I would like to clarify here that naming of the castes was not for vilifying any caste or person but simply an academic exercise that saw the roles that various castes played in the creating the nature of society and politics in this region. I would like to point out that I have friends and well wishers from all castes and when I say all I mean all, and it is not my intention to derogate anyone or their history. My request to all is to kindly treat this exercise as perspective building not aimed at anyone or anything for any personal gain.
My many thanks to all people reading my blog and encouraging me. I only wish to clarify that the purpose of this blog is soul searching and opening a possibility of dialogue (not argument) among all the stake holders in our politics with the view to promote larger integration of society so as to keep the nation, the Indian nation intact. I shall continue with my posts not just about this issue but others in politics as well and thank you all for tolerating this rather personal interlude.
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