If you’re an Indian I’m sure you have been reading and seeing what’s happening around the country, specifically, a region called Telangana. K. Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS Chief, apparently went on a ‘fast’ unto (an illuding) death and his rowdy supporters disguised as OU students wreaked havoc across Hyderabad, breaking and damaging several public and private property – buses, cars, malls, not sparing hapless commuters getting a fill at a petrol bunk. For several days, the very powerful (not) Rosaiah, AP’s CM apparently seemed to have the situation under control, by arresting TRS members and other potential protestors in advance. However, nothing was done to stop the ridiculuous amount of damage being done by crazy agitators across Hyderabad. Finally, the army was called in, ready to get into action from the next day, when another weakling named P.Chidambaram and his co-weaklings – Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, our PM, gave in to the demands of a separate state of Telangana on 9th December (09) night-fall.
So, there we have it. A separate state of Telangana in 11 days of indefinite fasting at the NIMS hospital! We all know how the mighty get away from arrests by staging heart attacks and such at NIMS, and I’m 200% sure this was no different a case. After the death of our ex-CM Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy, time was ripe for KCR to raise this issue, since it was evident that K.Rosiah did not have what it took to be CM. Will power. With yesterday’s events however, the atmosphere in AP has gone haywire. Politicians opposed to the idea have been resignating left, right and center. TRS and his rowdy janta are having a gala time celebrating its ‘victory’ (and how they can start robbing this region’s coffers soon). On the online front, communities on websites like Orkut are seriously divided over this issue, with some shouting (not really) Jai Telangana! and some mourning the separation like losing a brother just because he spoke differently. Twitter has seen massive amount of responses in relation to this issue and there have been thousands of Tweets every hour. Many polls online, like those in the Orkut – Andhra Pradesh community show that the majority of citizens still prefer a united Andhra Pradesh. Some of us have also been signing a petition at- http://petol.org/1andhra for a Unified AP and has almost 22,000 votes as of the time of this writing.
This is not going to be the end of the pain and agitation, yet. The Congress government is infamous for making very slow decisions (as evident from their Common Minimum Plan, or their ridiculous budget in 2008) and any delay in regards to this issue will fuel and spark more agitations across the state. This separation is going to have a serious implication across AP and India. A domino effect is in waiting, wanting to make more bits of India. Now, politicians from the Rayalseema region demand a separate statehood for Greater Rayalseema, if Telangana becomes a reality. Hyderabadis demand a Union Territory status and do not want to be part of any state. It is a wise demand, as including Hyderabad into any of these new states will mean a resentment among citizens of other states, because Hyderabad is a very high-revenue generating city and having it as your state’s capital will mean lots of global attention to your state. However, if Hyderabad is not declared a UT, it would be wise to predict violent agitations and bloodshed over who gets to have the city, and will turn into a dog-fight over a bone. These apart, it is heard that Gorkhas in the state of West Bengal have taken a cue from TRS chief. KCR’s fast and 21 activists are planning to start an indefinite hunger strike for a separate Gorkhaland. What we’ll be seeing in the coming months will be an increase in agitations like these, and the dilution of the Indian state into infinite bits and pieces. Our Union minister of Home affairs, hon’able (not) P. Chidambaram has these words to say ‘The US has one-third of our population still it has 50 states.’ Incredible. I had respect for PC before this. India is one-third the size of the US and has 29 states and soon 30-31 states while the US has 48. His statistics, are also wrong, because US has a population of 304 million people as against 1.2billion people in India. With the passing of every year, the words of the British, in this case Winston Churchil’s seem to make sense : “Independence for India!! They cannot rule themselves, they are destined to be ruled”. Sad.
