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BIRTH OF TELANGANA RAISES EXPECTATIONS
TELANGANA ON THE CUSP OF CHANGE; MUSLIMS HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE By Muhammad Firasat Ali
T
elangana, the child of the Nizams, has a rich and hoary past. Thanks to the idiosyncrasies of the politicians. Telangana was declared a 29th state of the Indian Union recently. Telangana has been a hotbed of political activity to wrest it from the control of the Andhra region, which have dominated the political, industrial and cultural scene for decades. The CPI started the first agitation for a separate Telangana in the 1950s. Off and on, the issue of a separate state of Telangana has hung fire for several decades with politicians of various stripes promising voters that they would create the new state but the promises to the people remained unfulfilled. This act of separation turns the wheel full circle, for the deprived regions of Telangana. Not only the Hindus, but the minority community had suffered a lot after the police action of Hyderabad in 1948, when the erstwhile Nizam state was merged with the Indian union. As a backlash to their support for a separate Nizam state, thousands of Muslims were made to retire prematurely and were thrown out of government jobs. Their intense suffering heightened during the Telengana protests in 1967-68 when the students launched an intense agitation for a separate state of Telengana.
15 EASTERN CRESCENT | APRIL 2014
Voices of protest were raised time and again by various groups from Telangana, when the merger with Andhra brought them nothing but misery. The more prosperous and thriving community from the Andhra region cornered most of the business, political and educational opportunities in the state. The resentment among the Hindus
Telangana was declared a 29th state of the Indian Union recently.
and the minority community resulted in fitful agitations right from 1968 to 2004. In 2004, the Congress promised to look into their demands for a separate state. Only after the protest spearheaded by TSR Chandrasekhar that the Congress saw a political opportunity in the bifurcation of Andhra into Telengana and Seemandra and took steps to bring about the change. It is a fact that the more prosperous Andhrans have monopolised the political and cultural levers of the state, with resentment fast building up among the poverty-stricken and
neglected regions of Andhra. Here we will try to give, in brief, the topography, culture and developmental issues of the state and their impact on the growth of the new state. TELANGANA GEOGRAPHY: Telangana a strip of land measuring 1.14 lakh square kilometres on the Deccan plateau. It is surrounded by Karnataka, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh and now Rayalseema and coastal Andhra. Telangana comprises of ten districts viz., Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Medak, Nalgonda, Mehboob Nagar, Warangal, Kareem Nagar, Adilabad and Khamam. HISTORY: The territory of Telangana was ruled independently by Satavahana and Kakatiya Kingdoms from 221 B.C. to 1500 A.D. This was followed by the Qutub Shahi dynasty of Golconda from 1520 to 1687 followed by Nizams from 1724 to 1948. CULTURE: The culture of Telangana, its language and traditions survived despite the Muslim culture and linguistic domination. This was because of secular nature of the Muslim rulers. Those who monopolised cinema, expressions and media industry under Andhra rule ignored historical heroes such as Komaram Bheem and the great devotional poet Pothana.