Telanganites

Hi AC,

Firstly there was no Andhra under British Rule. Madras presidency comprised of Tamil, Malyalam, Telugu, Kannada & Oriya speaking areas and in 1947 Tamil & Telugu speakers made over 78% of the presidency’s population. Poti Sreeramlulu’s fast unto death forced Nehru finally in 1953 to concede the linguistic basis for the formation of the states. At that time Rayalseema & coastal areas had staked claims to Madras as the capital of their new Andhra State but lost out to Tamil speaking folks. It was in 1956 that Telangana with Hyderabad was amalgamated into Andhra. Hyderabad was one of the top cities  in the south or India even under Nizam’s rule until it lost out in eminence to Madras under British.

Since Telanganites were late comers, they lost out to people from other regions of the AP in the  politics and eventually in economics. Like in Maharashtra; Vidarbha,  Marathwada (part of Nizam state) lost out to Western Maharashtra region. British were a maritime colonial power and therefore there interest in developing coastal areas was obvious. Coasts provided exit and entry points for cheap raw materials siphoned out of India and for finished goods forced on to people here. The terms of trade were decided by the colonial rulers and of course these favoured not the colonies.

The globalization that is now being touted as the gift(?) of late 20th or early 21st century, actually began with the forays of Vasco Da Gama & Christopher Columbus in the late 15th century (http://searchlight-is-on.blogspot.com/2010/01/end-of-poverty-by-philippe-diaz.html). That is what made the first world filthy rich, and third world desperately poor. There were those in the third world who profited then by allying and helping their colonial masters and are profiting now by allying with global capital. Unfortunately, vast majority is not so lucky. They couldn’t and wouldn’t profit even if they want by allying with markets. Markets are structured in such a way as to make some rich at the cost of others. There is no -‘everybody is a winner’ - game in town if it is to be played out according to current rules. It is possible only if the rules of the game are changed for sharing resources equitably.


Until that happens people will continue to play suckers  to identity politics by believing that their problems are because of the others. Others may be construed as Regions, Religions, Creed, Language, gender, or any such inflammatory identity suited to the circumstances.


Let the Devil stand up and accept its true due.


Sada