The Telangana Joint Action Committee has decided to make the Hussain Sagar (Tank Bund for Hyderabadis) region the centre for the convergence of the million march to Hyderabad. The intent is to replicate the festivities of the Telangana region and the fervour that accompanies them by recreating the carnival like atmosphere on the 10th of March, 2011. The festivals and the festivities that have been cited are the Ganesh Utsav and the Bathkamma festival. The idea apparently is to have the carnival all along the way of the Ganesh procession that culminates at the Hussain Sagar uses and the routes used for Bathkamma as well. To me this is very unfortunate. I live in the area adjoining the lake and every year the Ganesh procession is a veritable nuisance that we have to put up with. Not only do we have to be house bound for the day, but also put up with filth and muck for the next two to three days. The amount of garbage all around us is unbelievable. Foul smell (not the one from the lake) lingers for days. Public urination and defecation is an embarrassment for us all. To keep away from such sights residents are driven indoors. Plastic packets used for food are strewn all over the lanes and by lanes that abut the main arterial roads that are used for the procession. A similar thing but on a very small scale happens with the Bathkamma procession as well.
I for one cannot understand the idea that the Ganesh festival is a Telangana festival. I am under the impression that it is a festival celebrated all over the country with the public placement of idols and the procession for immersion being unique originally to Pune and Mumbai. Apparently Bal Gangadhar Tilak the freedom fighter found Ganesh in the pantheon of deities of both the upper and the lower sections of the Hindu order and decided to use the Ganesh Chaturthi festival as an occasion to bring people from both the sections together by erecting public pandals and by having a procession that culminated in the immersion of the idols at one place. The message was of oneness. This was a reformist at work. He was trying to reform Hindu society and inculcate a spirit of Indian Nationalism among the people. Unfortunately for the people of Hyderabad this effort of reformism provided a tool for the evoking of reactionary sentiments. A few decades ago the Ganesh procession was brought to Hyderabad by reactionary groups to consolidate the Hindus against the Muslims. So the first big Ganesh procession had people shouting Hindu-Hindu bhai bhai, instead of the Gandhian slogan Hindu-Muslim bhai bhai. Over the years the procession has acquired various hues of nuisance ranging from communal riots to polluting the city and the Hussain Sagar lake. Growing egos have seen growing size of Ganesh idols and the procession now runs for nearly two days as opposed to the one day that it started off with. Not only that the pandals erected during Ganesh pooja are now left untouched till Durga pooja and every year the number of Durga and Kali idols being put up and immersed in the Hussain Sagar is growing. It is must a matter of two or three years more for the Durga procession also to reach the proportions of the Ganesh procession.
My problem here is that why do we have to use the Ganesh Utsav as a rallying point for Telangana especially when it was a reactionary thing alienating at least one community if not more? It is not a Telangana thing since some political parties have successfully taken it to most parts of the state now. Why do we have to complicate problems of nativity and region by linking them up with religion and creating a whole new ground of controversy? The stress on ethnicities and sons of soil arguments which are bolstered by this approach will prove to be fatal for the country is a point that I have been raising again and again. The sense of the local and the entitlement sentiment that comes with it is potentially fraught with dangers of discrimination and these will only add to the complexities of Indian society which is very divided as it is. During the days of the National Movement, attempts were made to bridge the divides that existed and thereby bring down on discriminations in society. At the academic level curricula are being formulated with idea of "inclusion" at the centre of things but politics are operating with the idea of "exclusion". The entire vocabulary of society is now based in "Us and Them". The iterations of the Us and Them are many and sadly in some cases they are also becoming Us vs Them, as it is in the case of Telangana vs Coastal Andhra and Rayalseema. The iterations are Hindu and Muslim (in many instances it is Hindu vs Muslim), Upper Caste and Lower Caste, North Indian and South Indian and the ubiquitous Rich and Poor, the extension of which is Empowered and Unempowered. In each of the above instances the word and can be replaced with versus and you get a picture of a society at war with itself. How I hope and pray that we get over polarities and polarisations and not create new ones.
In my previous post about Kavuri Sambasiva Rao's utterances I did not mention one point. He on being surrounded by separate Telangana activists went on record that he did not invest anything in Telangana, except in Hyderabad and abroad. This is shows the dubious nature of the politicians who are supporting a United Andhra Pradesh. They don't want it for reasons of nationalism, unity and integrity of the country. While I do not want to be bifurcated, I certainly don't want to identify myself with the politicians who are talking about leaving Andhra Pradesh as it is. For them at the centre of everything is the city of Hyderabad. Nobody cares two hoots about the rest of Telangana (including many asking for a separate Telangana), all people want is control over Hyderabad, for the power and the money that accrue with it. The people in the hinterland of Telangana, Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra are not even in the peripheral vision of the politicians.
I guess it was black humour at its best when the Telangana leaders of the Telugu Desam party and the Coastal Andhra-Rayalseema leaders of the same party went into separate rooms of the same party office building for confabulations about what strategies to adopt. The same is the case with the Congress party. This is a national shame. Why don't all people seeking the same objective come together on the same platform? Simple because when the objective is realized they want to be the ones to take power and its perks into their hands. I was told by a friend that today's Telugu daily newspapers have reported about the BJP wanting to table a resolution asking for a debate on separate statehood for Telangana, Gorkhaland and Ladakh. They seem to have left out Vidarbha since their friend and electoral partner the Shiv Sena will not take too kindly to that. But a couple of days ago, an old leader (I cannot remember his name, so please forgive me) had already linked the question of separate Telangana to separate Vidarbha. I am not being an alarmist but I see the seeds of potential disintegration being sowed and they will only grow roots if there is further procrastination without action. The more these movements fester the greater the antagonisms between people on either sides of the many divides.
The Union Home Minister has said that no meeting over the issue of Telangana will be convened until all parties agree to attend the meeting. The TRS and the TDP are adamant that they will not attend. So the process will continue. Even legally the Union Government has refused to divulge details of Chapter 8 of the Sri Krishna Committee report, paving the way for a protracted legal battle there as well. While all this will happen, there will be bandhs, million people marches etc to inconvenience the common public. To come back to where I started, the choice of location of Hussain Sagar and the Tank Bund means that a number of hospitals in the area will become inaccessible and most of the well known and good hospitals are around this region or one will have to pass through these regions to get to them (the good and well known hospitals). In the last few years, I have had to rush my father to hospital twice (the last time being last year around this time) and it was only the availability of doctors and emergency care that kept him alive. I am sure my case is not unique, everyday there are many such. What of all these people who may require emergency care? I guess they can go to heaven or hell. Politicians fight by targetting their weapons not at their political adversaries but at common people who have nothing to do with most of these things. The greed and avarice of politicians seems to ensure that we will never learn our lessons from the past. So be it, all said and done we are a country that places great faith in fate. Maybe we are fated to be like this only.
P.S. I have not proof read this post so there will be plenty of errors of different kinds. For the time being please bear with me. I will rectify the mistakes soon.
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