Telangana Udyama Gamanam

However, in the last decade or so, it seems that the demand for dignity and self respect has gradually been divorced from the complex question of resource use and resource control and has gotten reduced to a politics of votes and seats. And during this one decade we have seen so much erosion in our control over land, water, minerals and now we are even losing granite, hills, and hillocks, sand and gravel as well.

Yes, of course it is true that all this began in 1950. Yes, it is true that for everyday life to move, we need basic amenities and so some erosion of resources is inevitable. But let us not be blind to the geography and sociology of this history. The inescapable truth is that if our local representatives had taken their responsibilities seriously, then we would not have seen such failures of implementation – whether in the case of GO 610 (jobs for local people) or in the case of water or land. Barring one or two political parties who would make a hue and cry about poor implementation of laws when it suits them, we have never seen any effort that was committed to effective implementation.

Today Telangana is going through labour pains. (At least for a temporary satisfaction, we have to believe that). So what now? Yes we will get Telangana. Tomorrow, if not today. But is there any possibility that today’s public representatives are going to be transformed tomorrow? Are they in any condition where they can give confidence to our farmer brothers, weaver brothers, daily wage earning brothers? Are they in any position to comfort our sisters who are burning in the furnace of suffering? Are they capable of holding hands with my kith and kin who have been alienated in the name of religion? To my people whose very existence depends on their claims to forests?

We have lost the small parcels of lands for the convenience of outsiders –from Andhra and elsewhere. We have lost thousands of acres to luxury seekers and business magntates. We are still losing them. We have mortgaged Hyderabad and Ranga Reddi districts to SEZs. Today nearly 300 tribal hamlets are going to disappear in the name of Polavaram. Today, Pranahita Chevella project which according to water experts cannot deliver irrigation, will take away lands from people and will result in desertification of Adilabad and Karimnagar districts, is being touted as the largest project in the country, Thousands of crores is being allocated to the project. Yes, we have mineral deposits. But everywhere people are not being paid any compensation, the environment is being destroyed. Hills and hillocks are being razed to the ground for coal, iron ore, limestone. Our political leaders do not want to talk about any of these things. Sirf Telangana, aur ek dhakka is all they say. We can be charitable and say let us leave them to their devices and their politics. But they don’t let us be. They actually pursue us and attack us for speaking this truth.

I tremble when I think of the transformations that we will see in Telangana tomorrow. Let me give an example. I have moved to Karimnagar about an year ago to take a job in the university. Soon after I came here, the local Telangana leaders (Mallareddi and others) invited me and Professor Revathi to a meeting. The local women elected me unanimously as convenor of Telangana Women’s Joint Action Committee. I can imagine only one reason for this: I have previous association with various movements and I have never been a member of any political party. One or two people from a political party objected to this election. They said that I should not take on any leadership role since I am not from this district. However, others did not agree with that and the election went through. So, that is where our journey with the local activists on granite mining began.

As a first step we transformed the Bhoonirvasita Aikya Sangam, a statewide organizationwhich brought displaced people from Kakinada , vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Nellore to a meeting organised here with Balagopal as chief guest, to Telangana Land Protection Committee ( తెలంగాణా భూమి రక్షణ సంగం). We decided to focus on rights to natural resources. Local friends were there in this effort right from the beginning. We worked for one year and were effective in creating awareness among the people. We took the issues to the notice of government officials, filed legal petitions. Distributed thousands of pamphlets in the villages. Finally a struggle has taken shape. But the other associations here started doing a misinformation campaign.

Their first allegation was that we had undermined their existence. That we were distracting members of their associations and taking them away to work on only my agendas. For the record, we conducted all meetings publicly. We sent out hundreds of messages, made phone calls, issued press releases, and we even created a blog and placed all information on it. We ignored the campaign against us and went forward.

As we reached a point where the struggle was beginning to shape up, we learnt that the police had arrested everyone from Malyal village on charges that the women from there had attacked a quarry. So we went to all the leaders and lobbied and tried to make sure that there would be no charges. Despite our effort, 34 persons were jailed. When we investigated, we found that a prominent politician of the ruling party, who is a minister now, was part of the conspiracy to put these people behind the bars. So we thought we should work with rights organizations and condemn this and express solidarity with the village. However, even before we could do this, the local police took ‘preemptive measures’. They told the villagers that if anyone from ‘outside’ came to the village, they along with the villagers would be branded as Naxalites and thrown in jails. The local people informed us about this secretly and hid themselves in their houses.

So we thought that we could at least speak with the local officials and persuade them to release the people in the jails and provide them legal assistance. But the quarry owners took ‘preemptive measures’ at this point. They got the jailed people released on bail and started spreading rumours that we had taken crores of rupees from quarry workers and agreed to leave the people high and dry. Even this information came to us from the local people. Even with all this, we are continuing to work in the area without backing off.

These sorts of tactics are not new to us. But it hurts when we find that some of our closest friends and leaders of the movement are believing and actually propagating these lies. Don’t they at least have to ask us for an explanation? How should we explain this to ourselves ? Some say that I have come here from somewhere else. Some say that I am doing all this because I want to become an MLA or an MP. As if I would go through all this if all I wanted was to become an MP or an MLA. We have carried out the work without raising any kind of external funding or contributions and mostly drawing on personal savings and borrowings. The only occasion when we asked for a contribution was when we could not put up the money to pay for the pamphlets. We made this request openly and directly.

So all this leaves us with one question. Why would anyone genuinely involved in a movement subject other activists to such humiliation ? Why wouldn’t they directly ask us for clarifications when they have doubts or questions ? Is it because people who are dishonest presume that the others are also dishonest ? Perhaps yes. But such rationalization does not help because it still hurts to witness people being reduced to mere pawns. When there are allegations, one has to prove them. Then we can talk. But this is not about the truth. This is about saying that the whole world is like our own dishonest selves.

Most recently, in the public hearing around Pranahita Chevella project, we went to all the villages, we gathered people’s opinions, we worked with engineers, learnt technicalities. Kumaraswami here is like our chief engineer. He is a member in our association. Jaganmohan is the grand old man Bhishma pitaji. We sit down everyday for many hours and discuss all these details. Our Marwari Sudarshan is like a disciplined soldier. Durvasa Reddy brings everyone to a consensus. Pentaiah sir is a gentleman to the core. All these people are locals. I am only the convener. We decided to work on this issue because of the encouragement from Kumar? Kumaraswami?. We do not believe that any of the party leaders knows all these details. Everyone responded positively to what we said. But one MLA, just because we asked him a question, in the public hearing began to abuse me personally. Then he sent his followers to attack me and created a scene. He did all this in full public view. All the other leaders of the district just sat there and watched it as if it was a public performance. The next day, under public pressure one or two leaders condemned it.

Not just me, but nobody seems to know what my offense was. Isn’t a public hearing a place where people are supposed to speak and ask questions? The MLA’s first objection was that I do not belong to this district. Second objection was that I am not a farmer. He told me in his own way that I should just stick to teaching. But he did not tell us who should be doing all this work. The media which was watching all this did not bother to report any of this. One or two reporters wrote a little bit. On the second day, in the face of condemnation from people’s associations, even newspapers were forced to write something. So we have to ask whether the media, the elected representatives, the parties, have any perspective on justice or gender ? .

In the last few days so many people have appealed to me saying that I should back off because the MLA is a dalit. I should not be challenging him and nobody should be challenging him. But my question is how can a man who does not stand for truth and justice be any kind of leader? Caste, religion, region aren’t all these means of achieving truth, justice and equality?

The point here is not about the MLA’s dalit caste or about me being a helpless woman. The question really is ‘who gets to speak’. One has to keep in mind how difficult it is for a woman to come forward to speak in this country. If this is what a university teacher like me is subjected to, I am horrified to imagine the condition of ordinary people. The incident here is that in Telangana, in the presence of public representatives, people from the area which will be affected by the project raised questions about resource use and resource control. And that is just not acceptable to them.

Apparently another Sir said that we criticize everyone. What can we do but criticize ? Show us something here to feel happy and cheerful about. How many instances do we have here of even one party leader speaking about lives and lands in the assembly ? How many instances do we have party leaders standing shoulder to shoulder with the people and fighting ? Telangana is the goose that lays the golden eggs. They get their way using its name. Why would they bother about it ? How many days will we keep quiet thinking — kadupu chinchukunte kaalla meeda padutundi?

Anyways, all these intellectuals who keep dividing up the world into this district and that lane, can they tell us which district their presiding deity Sonia Gandhi belongs to ? Haven’t they left the Telangana issue to her mercy? Do they know to which districts their own leaders belong ? Are not the leaders of this region in positions of power elsewhere? What if the people elsewhere challenge their legitimacy to be in positions of power there?

There are a lot of lessons here for everyone. For the politicians who are spreading so much toxic culture, for the people who ask everyone to look at the world from cramped rooms and cramped minds, and for their sidekicks who believe all this nonsense. Everyone in this world has the right to oppose injustice. One does not need a passport and visa for that. And look at the lessons that the police here have tried to teach me. They said I should not go to the people. We should resolve everything in the courts alone. They also gave me a minor warning. It gets even more bizarre. There is a contractor who came here two years ago. For the last two years, he has been taking lands and turning them into heaps of dust. And the elected representatives claim that they do not know anything about it. Can we assume that people know what is going on here ? Should we continue to be under the illusion that if they know, they will be able to raise questions ?

Surveillance over me by intelligence agencies. Investigations against me in the university and outside. They investigate me for links with naxalites. My offense is that I am speaking about people’s problems. And they say “If you do that then you have to be a maoist, an NGO or a GO and if you are not any of these then you are definitely ‘that’. Does any one remember that we/ or name fo the forum which organised the two day conference, brought land ousted people from here, Kakinada , vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Nellore all onto the same platform and organized a two day conference with Balagopal as the chief guest. Does anyone remember the tremendous amount of effort we put into it? Does anyone remember the support we received from people from across all regions?

We are happy when a famous lawyer, belonging to the Telangana party tells us that nobody in Telangana is taking as much risk as we are. We are happy when he gives us legal advice without charging us anything. It makes us feel that at least some people understand us when friends introduce Supreme Court lawyers and they help us without charging any money. We feel reassured when mining officials advice us on how to proceed, or when forest, and irrigation officials come forward to help saying that we are doing work that they are supposed to be doing. I feel safe when people in the villages treat me like their daughter. I feel energized when some journals, some institutions, all the reporters, come to us and take pamphlets and informations; when in times of despair and hurt, friends keep me company. Friends from many parts of India, and from overseas, stay in touch all the time. This is all that we have. These are our blessings. These are our assets. Without these how can there be a movement? How can one individual run a movement?

Only those who are not afraid to speak truth to power fearlessly can run movements. If we try to fix them into frameworks of caste, religion and region, then we will not see any movements in any region. It is not enough to accost the outsider-exploiter. We need to hold close to our hearts all those people who work for us. Everybody is not a pseudo activist or a self serving official. Ordinary people know these things. The people of Polepalli gave me my last name. They treated me as if I were their own child. So many organizations and individuals rose above caste, and religion and supported us.

Friends, please do remember that silence is part of the crime. Please break this silence. Please stand by in solidarity with real movements. Our friends and colleagues are already saying “get prepared, you will soon have many Vijayawadas and Gunturs in Telangana.” Yes, my friends? Are we only going to have tears in the eyes that dreamt of Telangana.
Jai Telangana

Courtesy – Sujata Surepalli, thank you for sharing.

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