The decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh has not been welcomed by everyone. Last week’s rally was the beginning of a counter movement. On 7 September, over 40,000 people from all over Andhra Pradesh, mostly professionals, gathered at Hyderabad’s LB Stadium under the banner of the Samaikyandhra Parirakshana Vedika to protest the bifurcation of the state. Spearheaded by the Andhra Pradesh Non-Gazetted Officers’ Association (APNGOA), the rally marked the first big event in the movement for a united Andhra Pradesh. Proponents of Telangana, however, believe that the meeting has set the two movements on a collision course.
After the high court’s go ahead, the APNGOA organised the 7 September rally of employees with Hyderabad identification cards. Almost as if in retaliation, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) called a Telangana bandh on the same day, whereas the Osmania University Joint Action Committee (JAC) called for a rally from the Nizam College, right next to the LB Stadium. A face-off was on the cards and the city was tense.
The administration went out of its way to ensure that everything went off peacefully. However, while forcefully taking student leaders — JAC leader Manne Krishank and Telangana Rashtra Samithi Vidyarthi Vibhagam (TRSV) president Suman — into preventive custody, students pelted stones at Samaikyandhra supporters holding provocative posters. The police had to resort to lathicharge to control the situation.
To anyone watching, the Samaikyandhra meet was a successful show of strength, even as Hyderabad observed a bandh and sporadic incidents of violence, stone-pelting and burning of buses were reported from all over the city and neighbouring districts. “We are completely opposed to bifurcation for two reasons,” says Ashok Babu, president of APNGOA. “One is the economic impact on Hyderabad and the other is water-sharing. The Andhra region will lose out on both fronts.”
INN spoke to others at the rally, who cited everything from Andhra’s contribution to Hyderabad’s riches, to water sharing, to a very real fear of xenophobia, as among the reasons why they were fighting for a united Andhra. Not surprisingly, those with business interests in Hyderabad were the most vocal.
“I always employ young and fresh graduates and have never discriminated on the grounds of whether they are from Andhra or Telangana,” says Vijay Prakash, an entrepreneur who runs a software company in Hyderabad that employs over 100 people. “My partner is from Telangana. We need more such collaborations in the future and it hurts me to see how divisive politics is stoking hatred.”
Pramod, a real-estate magnate from Medak district in Telangana, who participated in the agitation, sees the bifurcation causing havoc. “Ninety percent of my business focusses on people who are from Andhra region,” he explains. “Real estate is going to take a massive hit as the pricing patterns will go haywire.”
Interestingly, no politician has spoken about the Samaikyandhra movement yet. The organisers of the rally concede that unlike Telangana, their movement has neither the momentum nor the buoyancy to elicit political interest. However, professionals like Siddharth, 32, an engineer with a private firm, feel that politicians will take up the issue once they know that people have taken up the cause. “You cannot ignore that people will fight for a united Andhra,” he says.
Others like Venugopal, 36, a software engineer with IBM, are part of the movement due to personal fears. “I’m here because I’m scared for my children,” he says. “Today, they are saying everybody will be treated equally in Hyderabad, but K Chandrasekhar Rao has already asked people from Andhra to leave Hyderabad. Student leaders too have given threats. I don’t want a city where my child lives in fear.”
It is this fear of escalating violence that has driven most of these people into coming out in support of a united Andhra Pradesh. “If you divide the state, the inevitable will happen,” says a bank employee. “If you cut a vein, there will be blood.”
The other side, however, sees it differently. Two days after the agitation, at his office in Secunderabad, Manne Krishank, the 25-year-old president of the JAC, shows the scars on his body — the result of a police beating while he was in preventive custody.
“They say we provoke,” says Krishank, talking about the agitators, “but they don’t understand that it offends us and belittles the sacrifices of those young boys who killed themselves for Telangana.”
Krishank also alleges that the Samaikyandhra supporters were the first to resort to violence. “We wanted to take out a rally too,” he says, “but were denied permission. The first provocation — a threatening sign to cut our throats — came from one of them. By all means, have a Jai Andhra rally, not one for Samaikyandhra.”
Krishank points out two instances from the 7 September rally. A Telangana constable was badly beaten by his colleagues, when he shouted Jai Telangana near the LB Stadium. In another incident, a young Telangana protester was thrashed by a mob of Samaikyandhra supporters outside the LB Stadium till he lost consciousness.
Though relatively small, these incidents point to a much more dangerous phenomenon threatening to grow into a trend. As a Telangana supporter who has participated in stone-peltings puts it: “They have to realise it’s a bad marriage. To come to Hyderabad, threaten us and undermine our struggle once is okay. If they do it again, we won’t be as docile.”
The fissures have deepened among the people, and the signs are visible even in the ruling Congress. Even though senior Congressmen from Andhra Pradesh claim that they have made peace with the decision, several of their MPs and ministers are far from reconciliation. In the just-concluded Parliament session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath moved a historic motion, urging the floor to suspend seven of the Congress’ own MPs, who were against the formation of Telangana. Moreover, no one is clear about how to handle those MPs and ministers who are demanding union territory status for Hyderabad.
In the state, the grapevine has it that cm Kiran Kumar Reddy has shown a personal interest in the Samaikyandhra protests. Reddy was unavailable for comment, but PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana dismissed it as a rumour.
Meanwhile, Samaikyandhra supporters are planning for another rally in Hyderabad and the police is on its toes anticipating violence. “We are not giving permissions to any more rallies or meetings apart from religious ones,” says Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma.
The movement for a separate Telangana state and its aftermath has probably seen the most and the least of media attention. With cameras now trained northwards in Uttar Pradesh, where another fire is raging, the embers in the southern state only continue to be stoked.
