PEOPLE’S
REPUBLIC OF TELANGANA
T. Vijayendra
ABSTRACT
This
article does not take a stand, pro or anti Telangana agitation. It
identifies Telangana as a bio-geographical and linguistic region and
the aspirations of its people to live a peaceful life while ensuring
their regional identity. It discusses the unfolding of the tragedy of
its people in terms of the struggle of different stake holders in the
region. Finally it explores the possibility of an alternative vision
and a programme to achieve it.
The
Telangana Region-Biogeography and Language
Telangana
is a biogeographic region. A biogeographic region defines its flora,
fauna and human society. Thus Telangana defines a people or a speech
community. They are defined in terms of the food they grow and eat,
the kind of houses they live in, kind of dresses they wear, kind of
religious/local deity festivals they have and the language they
speak. There are even festivals across religion such as pir
panduga where the ancestors are brought alive and carried around
to a common worship ground, fed and appeased with dances and songs!
All communities take part in it.
Telangana
as a biogeographic region existed before the present agitation,
before the Indian Constitution, before the Nizam’s rule etc.
Without going to ancient history, the Telangana people as we them
know today have existed at least for 500 year. By this we mean its
agriculture, society, particularly its composite culture of different
religions. They will continue to exist in coming decades if not
centuries.
The
agitation for a separate Telangana state is only 30-40 year old, a
mere drop in its long history as a region. It is entirely possible
that in future we may have a world without borders and ‘a separate
Telangana’ may become meaningless, although Telangana as a
biogeographic region will remain, the name Telangana will remain and
hopefully a peaceful and happy Telangana region will be there.
Nevertheless, as the Greek film ‘One Day, Eternity’ shows a
struggle for a short period may encompass a large canvas and a large
stretch of history.
People’s
History of Struggle
Here
again we limit ourselves to recent history of Nizam’s rule. As is
well known it was a feudal society and the Nizam himself was under
the British imperialist rule. So the people’s struggle was against
the Nizam’s rule, against feudal oppression and against
imperialism. This is the root of the famous Telangana struggle with a
few victories and many defeats. Most of the issues continue although
times and methods of oppression, exploitation and resistance too have
changed. New political parties have come and the Communist party
itself has seen transition from CPI-CPI (M)-CPI(ML)-PWG to
CPI(Maoist). The older issues and older organisations like land
reform and organisations of peasantry and other working class
organisations continue to have relevance. We are saying this so that
we do not forget them during the present agitation for a separate
state. Newer and not so new issues of caste, gender, ecology,
economic crisis and the crisis of capitalism itself influence the
present situation.
The
Separate Telangana Movement
Like
any big event in history different classes/stake holders have
different interests. For the sake of convenience they are termed as
‘project of the people’ and ‘the project of the ruling class’
. Here the term ‘people’ includes all the working people and
oppressed groups and communities. Similarly the term ‘ruling class’
includes all the ruling classes-feudal, local, national,
multinational capitalism and imperialism. We do this because in
practice the ruling classes and the oppressed classes tend to unite
among themselves when the struggle intensifies and issues become
clear. Alternatively, by looking the issue in this light it helps to
clarify the issues and hopefully help the oppressed to unite and
succeed.
The
Project of the Ruling Classes
The
ruling class talk on Telangana is about uneven development of
different regions and Telangana being treated as an internal colony.
Hence demand for a separate Telangana. Any development of capitalism
requires exploitation of local people and resources and colonial
exploitation of regions outside at super exploitation rate. Telangana
was part of Nizam’s rule, remained ‘backward’ and was ready to
become an internal colony’ in the Unified Visala Andhra to the
region which was part of the ‘advanced’ British Madras
Presidency.
The
ruling class project in the separate Telangana agitation is to loot
the Telangana people and resources with the help of multinationals as
they have done in Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh. Today with people’s
awareness it means a civil war. They are prepared for it and as soon
the new state will be formed they will unleash this war. BJP has
already declared Chhatisgarh as a model for the new Telangana state.
They will of course have populist measures, like creating a
university for the Telangana language, primary education in local
language and hate campaign against outsiders etc. We have seen it in
Jharkhand and in Chhatisgarh. They will treat any protest as Maoist
and new avatars of ‘strategic hamlets’ and ‘Salwa Judam’ will
emerge.
Critic
of the Project of the Ruling Classes
The
project of the ruling classes are short term and even if they succeed
they are doomed, although they will cause much damage, violence and
hardship to the people and the land. Why? Mainly because capitalism
is going through a deep crisis triggered by peak oil, that is
production of petroleum has reached a peak and will keep on
declining. The material basis for capitalism is concentrated source
of energy in increasing quantity. That era is over. Coal is the only
alternative left, particularly in China and India. Hence there is a
surge in coal mining and coal based thermal power plants. But these
projects take away land from the people and are the dirtiest sources
of pollution. Hence the people’s struggle against them is also
picking up momentum all over the country. In fact the rapacious
policies in Chhatisgarh and some of the ‘ugly’ energy even in the
Telangana agitation reflects this crisis.
There
are already signs of decline of capitalism Although the government
granted SEZs in large numbers all over the country, many of them are
not able to start and many have been cancelled. They are being
cancelled because either they are not able to raise resources or the
opposition to them from people is very strong. As oil production
falls many projects will fail to take off the ground.
The
Project of the People
There
are several trends in the project of the people. We can broadly
classify them in two trends: Social Democratic and Revolutionary.
The term Social Democratic is used to distinguish it from mere
‘Democratic’ which is used by the ruling class for its project.
Social
Democratic
They
believe that Telangana is a distinct entity with its own distinct
economy and culture. They claim to represent people’s issues such
as issues of class, caste, gender and ethnicity. However they believe
that the struggle for separate Telangana state can encompass all
these issues under one umbrella.
They
believe mainly in ‘democratic’ methods of struggle and seek a
solution within the Indian Constitution. They maintain that if
the democratic process are strengthened and significant gains for
the people can be achieved, as has been done in Kerala and West
Bengal, then it is possible to avoid Telangana going the Jharkhand or
the Chhatisgarh way.
Some
believe that a new party may have to formed like ‘Dalit Bahujan
Party’ to achieve these aims and to distinguish these class/caste
interests from the TRS party.
A
Critic of the Social Democracy Model
The
general understanding is that the era of bourgeois democratic
revolution ended by 1871. Hence democratic agenda of the social
change/revolution will have to have a socialist content. So India
never had a chance of ‘the bourgeois democratic revolution’. The
Indian Constitution has tried to incorporate many aspects of social
democracy in it, basically in terms of a welfare state. However the
performance of the Indian welfare state has been dismal. It has
failed in obtaining basic securities of food, water, sanitation,
secondary education, health and livelihood for the majority of our
people. Ambedkar made a prophetic statement saying that the
Constitution is raising a lot of aspirations among the poor and if
they are not fulfilled we will have a revolution on our hands.
Social
democracy has been relatively viable mainly where
bourgeois/capitalist transformation has already occurred; where the
proletariat is already formed. Within India Kerala and West Bengal
had seen major social transformation in the 19th century. Parts of
coastal Karnataka and Goa also have seen such developments. So in
these regions and a section of the urban middle classes, there indeed
have been some gains for the people. Also in some sectors of
organised industry, particularly in the public sector, the working
class too has got some rights and securities. But the vast majority
of the Indian people have not had any gains except, as Ramchandra
Guha puts it, they got Bollywood, cricket and elections!
Specifically,
1984 is the cut off year for India where any significant pro people
measures have successfully been taken by the Indian government. The
significance of the year 1984 is that during the Bhopal gas incident
none of the parliamentary parties came to the side of the people.
After 1990, the LPG (Liberalisation, privatisation and
globalisation) counter revolution, all the parliamentary parties took
large amounts of money from the bourgeoisie to win the election.
Today the figures appear to be Rs. 10 crores for a winning in
parliament and corresponding figures for other elections.
In
Bengal and Kerala too some progress occurred mainly before these
dates. But today even there things are getting worse. As far as
Telangana is concerned, or for that matter Andhra Pradesh and rest
of India, it has missed the bus of social democracy long time back.
Specifically,
in Telangana, while everyone is ready to agree to a socialist/social
democratic agenda, what will happen when the state is actually
formed and elections are held? Why will it not go the Jharkhand way?
They would all have taken large amounts of money to win the elections
and will need to take keep on taking money to win future elections
too. Their hands will be tied. KCR is already supposed to have taken
very large amounts of money.
Revolutionary
Trend
Here
revolutionary trend in general is considered and not Maoist trend
alone.
Revolutionaries
start with the above critic of social democracy. They believe that
the people’s project cannot be achieved in any Indian state today
under the present Indian Constitution and ‘democracy’. The Indian
state has been at war with the Indian people almost from the very
beginning deploying its army and police forces against people in
different parts of the country. Today there is a full scale civil war
going on at scores of places under the guise of ‘problems’ and
‘menaces’ like Kashmir, Naga, Bodo etc. and last but not the
least the Naxalite/Maoist. Today any one on the side of the poor
people is likely to be called a Maoist, arrested, tortured and even
killed. The state obtains its consent to rule and carry on these
policies through elections where the ruling classes pay crores of
rupees per candidate. Any state, therefore, as a rule, will be forced
to follows the agenda of the ‘project of the ruling classes’.
The
aim of all revolutionary groups is to form a new state outside the
present Constitution with their revolutionary ‘people’s agenda’.
Almost all of them believe that it can be achieved mainly through
armed struggle. In addition they all believe in class organisations
of workers and peasants etc. Many social and cultural organisations
are also created and supported by them. Various revolutionary groups
have different strategies which includes supporting the separate
Telangana movement and helping even to strengthen the ‘social
democratic’ groups, because they do not want to give up any gains
made by the people, like freedom of press, civil liberties and
various other rights which people have won.
Critic
of the Revolutionary Trend
Both
the Russian and the Chinese revolutions were won in less than 40
years of the formation of the communist parties in their country. The
Indian communist movement is 90 year old but no revolution is yet in
sight. Indian communists have been impressed by the Chinese path from
the 50s and in 1969 Charu Majumdar declared ‘China’s path is our
path’. Forty years later, while the Maoist certainly have a
significant presence, victory does not seem to be in sight. The point
is, Indian people do not seem to have gained much from these years of
revolution. It has been a path with a few victories and many defeats.
India seems to have missed the bus of revolution as well!
Specifically
while the Maoist have a general vision of an egalitarian state, they
seem to lack a vision which can tackle all the contradiction of the
present Indian society. Secondly, they do not seem to have a vision
which can take care of resource depletion of today’s world. They
still seem to believe in the agenda of industrialisation as a part of
socialist reconstruction, or at least they do not seem to have an
articulated critic of it. There seems to be no learning from Cuba.
After
Vietnam in the mid seventies, there has not been any revolutionary
success in the world. The Maoist in Nepal agreed for elections and
promptly lost power, possibly signifying the end of social democracy
as well as revolutionary era! What has changed? Some believe it is
the ‘peaking’ of the production of petrol and many other
minerals which has heralded the end of the era of industrial
revolution whether under capitalism/social democracy/communist
revolutionary.
What
will Happen?
In
reality all trends operate. For example in Chhatisgarh not only the
ruling classes are ruling, but in the people’s struggle there are
Gandhians, CPI, Maoists, Christian groups, civil rights group, ngos
etc. Apart from the Maoists, almost all others belong to
‘democratic' trend. Although there are differences among different
trends and they criticise each other, there is also some sort of
informal understanding between different trends. This is so because
people cannot afford to lose any little right they have got, like
civil rights, freedom of speech and assembly, ration cards, NREGA
etc. Also irrespective of any trend they belong to, any one who
speaks for the tribals or opposes the projects of mining, steel or
power plants, is called a Maoist and treated as such.
In
Telangana too all the trends are there and eventually will have to
co-operate with each other. Because if today the Telangana is created
it will be under the Indian Constitution and the Telangana government
will be elected in the same way as the Jharkhand and the Chhatisgarh
government have been. It is very unlikely that the people’s trends,
‘social democratic’ parties will win the elections. Even if they
do either it will be a short lived experiment or it will change
colour very fast. How can it follow different policies? It will
immediately sign MoUs with multinationals and declare a war on the
people. Therefore, like in Chhatisgarh, eventually all the people’s
trends will have to struggle against the government and as has been
said above, they will have to co-operate.
It
will not be possible to avoid the war that is being imposed on the
people by a dying ruling class, unless the process of formation of
Telangana is delayed by a decade or so. However it seems that every
one wants Telangana–the ruling classes, the social democratic
forces and the Maoist. The voices against Telangana are stifled
whether these voices are from the Andhra ruling classes or voices of
‘reason’. No dialogue is possible. This tragedy will have to play
itself out because no social formation changes without trying out all
the possibilities. Like in a bad marriage divorce normally occurs
after a lot of sufferings of every one involved.
Is
there a Hope?
Yes.
In much as it is a dying ruling class, it is on its way out. While
this tragedy is being played out, the pro people forces need to
co-operate and not fight emotional battles among themselves. There
should be a dialogue between the different sections of groups/parties
working for the poor people. This dialogue should result in an
alternative vision of a future and an alternative People’s agenda.
It is possible to envisage initiative to be taken today that can
prepare the people for a transition to an alternative future vision.
How
do we arrive at an agenda for future?
There
are three component of arriving at such an agenda. First is the
material basis. Second is a model of a future derived from above and
theories and experiences of other parts of the world and the third is
the energies and the direction of people’s movement.
As
has been said above, the material basis of capitalism, concentrated
form of energy in increasing quantities, like coal and petrol is a
thing of past. There is no equivalent form of energy which can
replace these. With that today’s high energy industrial society
will also become a thing of past. The alternative is scaling down the
energy requirement in an equitable fashion. The main form will be
harvesting the solar energy, of which the main form will be through
the photosynthesis route, that is through plants. That has been the
basis of all life on this planet and will remain so. The other forms
of solar energy, like direct heat (drying and solar water heaters and
cookers) and photovoltaic (solar cells) will play a minor but
significant role. Many other forms like flowing water to run water
mills and micro hydel projects will also be there.
Such
a future society will necessarily be composed of a small regions
self sufficient in food and water federally related to other similar
region. As such Telangana has a logic. Its politic will have to be
some form of a mix of socialism and anarchism and it will be arrived
through years of transition. As of today, Cuba provides a transition
model.
All
these ideas are fine, one will say, but who will flesh them out into
a full fledged programme, who will carry them out? Ideas become a
material force, as Mao said, when they are grasped by the masses. So
for that we have to look at the people’s movements and
organisations today and see if there are any takers for them.
Today
India is going through a huge turmoil. Hundreds of protests movements
are taking place against the rapacious policies and projects of this
dying capitalism. In many places it is a civil war like situation.
What is the nature of people’s energies in these struggles? First
and foremost it is a struggle for survival, for livelihood. These
projects are trying to displace millions of people from their land
and livelihood sources. And people are refusing. In many places NAPM,
Gandhians, Christian groups, CPI and Maoists are with the people
because all of them have an agenda of working with poor people. In
many other places many civil society groups, particularly
environmental groups are part of these protests. In each a coalition
is emerging.
It
is in these coalitions, networks, etc. a dialogue can emerge where
such a programme can be chalked out on a regional basis.
Chhattisghar, Jharkhand and Telangana are such regions where a large
variety of people’s forces are active. In such places a full
fledged programme can emerge. Initially some ‘thinking’ friends
of the movement can set up small groups to work out the details in
dialogue with people active in the movement. Some documents can be
prepared which may form the basis of meeting of all the groups.
Today
mankind is facing a severe crisis of food, water and livelihood
security due to the rapacious policies persued by
capitalist/industrial/development model in the last 200 years. These
policies also led to degradation of environment to a crisis level and
endangered forests, wildlife and water security. So the main aim of
any people’s programme will be to ensure food, water and livelihood
security of the people on a sustainable basis and save the
environment. This can occur only through a social revolution,
peaceful or otherwise.
These
broader goals and vision at a macro level can be achieved only when a
political environment is available, that is, a political and social
revolution has taken place. However, an important aspect of these
programmes will be the initiatives that people can take on an
individual and small group basis. At a micro level a lot of
activities can be initiated. The main aim of course will be to start
rebuilding such a future society through organising and empowering
people with such a vision of the future. These activities may in turn
contribute to a broader vision to the political trends.
April
17, 2010
Published
in: Calcutta, Frontier, October 3 -30, 2010, Autumn Number
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