JAI TELANGANA
This is a historic time. The 50 year struggle for a separate Telangana has come to a climax. The process for granting it a separate status has begun.
But what went before that? What was the rhetoric that marked the movement, the agitation, the struggle for self-determination? Situated at EFL University, inside Osmania University campus which is the heart of the struggle, I have been witness to the performance of the demand for a separate nationhood on our campus. This performance included visuals- banners/posters, song and dance, slogans and celebration/procession.
The visual representations – the banners- are not very different from earlier nationalisms like Tamil or Kannada or Indian nationalism. The discourse is gendered. The map of Telangana, an empty space, is embodied by a woman- a goddess. The rhetoric of the men rallying around the figure of the mother/desirable woman has been played out in most nationalisms, it is part of the erotics of nationalism. Though women took part in the student struggle in Osmania, the rallies which I witnessed on campus mainly comprised men. All banners also carried a map: the visual representation of the land, the rhetoric of the nation imagined and inscribed onto a map- a physical visual space.
The other visual markers on campus were the posters of newspaper cuttings pasted on the walls. They ‘spoke’ of all the atrocities that the police perpetrated- the lathi charge, the martyrs, those who died. Pamphlets which were handed out also carried photos of students who died- gory images of bloody faces, mutilated bodies. The history of the movement was traced; there was also the justification that the movement was not separatist but demanded only a land which had existed 60 years before. The other justification granted in the banners was a quote from Nehru in Hindi which stated that Telangana was a bride given in marriage to Andhra Pradesh and if there was a discord, she could be granted divorce: Telangana could then demand for a separate state. This quote also has a gendered discourse.
Song and dance also played an integral role in the performance for the demand of a separate state. Any rally which demanded that the university close down or a candle light vigil for the martyrs who died in the lathi charge was marked by a song which spoke of the struggles of the people, their demand for a land, their mourning for those who had died fighting for it. The songs’ rhetoric was all connected to the land- the demand for water, the crops, the failure of rains, the appeal to the mother earth. There was anger too- that they were suppressed, that the dams and reservoirs- in short the development projects- all went to Andhra, that they did not get employment, that their jobs were going to Adhraiites. Andhra Pradesh was the other in determining the self of Telangana. Most important were the rally slogans: “Jai Telangana, we want Telangana, Jai Telangana, Jai Jai Telangana”.
When Chidambaram announced the separate state there was jubilation at the campus door after midnight. Thousands of students gathered to shout Jai Telangana, burst crackers, congratulated each other, jumped on the road, got drunk, stopped cars and vehicles to wish them Jai Telangana, and wave the TRS flag. It was a jubilation for all those years of effort, a jubilation that they would get jobs in the future, that they would have a land of their own, that they would be able to channel the development to their area. How far this would be fulfilled is another matter. The police who had blocked the roads, pitched tents, put a barbed wire (it looked like a war zone), stood by watching the whole show, waiting for orders to move out. The performance was in full swing- flags, crackers, slogans- all these constituting the basics of any nationalism- and in that this agitation was no different.
The state has been announced now. But the fight is not yet over. With ministers resigning, the bill to be passed at various stages and the process of state formation, there remains a lot to be done. Let us wait and watch what happens.
p.s. it is always interesting to watch history unfold in front of yours eyes, esp when you have seen nothing on this scale before. This stay in hyderabad is indeed pedagogic!