Help spread the truth about Telangana region of India.
Since 1956, when Andhra and Telangana merged, Telangana has gotten the short end of the stick in terms of natural resources, funding and representation in government. Though two major rivers have their sources in Telangana, irrigation projects divert the precious water to other areas. The feelings have often spilled over into violence, and in 1969, 400 people died in Telangana-related violence.
Riding high on a strong regional sentiment, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), and its lone electoral ally, the BJP, headed for a clean sweep of all the 12 seats in the Assembly by-elections on Friday and inflicted crushing defeats on the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
Results were officially declared in seven constituencies but, going by their surging majorities, TRS candidates are firmly on course to win the remaining five.
The BJP won the only seat it contested when Y. Lakshminarayana, justified his ‘giant-killer' sobriquet by defeating for the second consecutive time APCC president D. Srinivas from Nizamabad Urban by a comfortable margin of 11,983 votes. TDP candidate A. Narsa Reddy was routed polling just 1,793 votes.
Till late in the night, the election authorities could declare the results of only those seats where electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used. Counting in the rest was a painstaking process as the Election Commission was forced to use newspaper-sized ballot papers after the TRS fielded dozens of candidates as independents to express its opposition to EVMs.
Voters comprehensively rejected the TDP which failed to poll even one-sixth of the valid votes needed to retain the security deposit in at least seven constituencies whereas the Congress candidates lost their deposits in two places. Both parties tried to draw solace by saying that TRS candidates had merely retained the Assembly seats they won in May 2009. These MLAs had resigned in February this year to protest against the terms of reference of the Justice Srikrishna Committee constituted to hold consultations on the situation in Andhra Pradesh.
Chief Minister K. Rosaiah and TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu did not campaign in the by-elections, the latter on the plea that he was preoccupied with the more important issue of opposing the ‘illegal' Babli project built by Maharashtra. In contrast, TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao steadfastly focussed on electioneering without allowing himself to be distracted by the Babli row even though it threatens to adversely affect five districts in Telangana.
For the Congress, its problems in what is its strongest State, Andhra Pradesh, are only growing. On Friday, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) swept the by-elections in the State's Telangana region, winning 11 of the 12 constituencies that were being contested, thereby strengthening the case for a separate Telangana and reminding the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre of the assurance that it had given on the issue, and then backtracked on.
Congress general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh and Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily was very guarded in his response to the results of the by-elections, where the Congress has fared poorly: “These are the people who volunteered to resign [on the Telangana issue]. The people wave chosen to vote for them,” he told The Hindu, adding, “We put up a good fight.” Asked whether the results did not put pressure on the Central government to push for the creation of a separate Telangana State, Mr. Moily said, “The matter is before the Srikrishna Commission. Let the report come.”
But a senior party functionary admitted that these results “had strengthened the case for a separate Telangana” and that from now on, “there would be greater pressure on the Centre” to act on the assurance made by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on December 9, 2009, when he had publicly declared the Centre's support for a new State. “We will now have to think of a new strategy,” he said.
What is worrying the Congress here, party sources said, was the fact that these results are a confirmation of the fact that it has lost the “goodwill” it had won in Telangana after the December 9 announcement: at that time, TRS supporters had celebrated the occasion, holding aloft Congress president Sonia Gandhi's portrait. The first signs of this loss of goodwill came when the Congress did a rethink on the issue, after the rest of the State exploded with party MP and former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajsekhara Reddy's son, Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, leading those opposed to the division of Andhra Pradesh. In a bid to check the violence across the State, the Centre quickly set up the Srikrishna Commission to “examine the situation in Andhra Pradesh with reference to the demand for a separate Telangana State as well as the demand for maintaining the present status of united Andhra Pradesh,” and asked it to submit its recommendations by December 31, 2010.
Congress MP Madhu Goud Yashki, whose constituency falls in the Telangana region, pointed out that the Bharatiya Janata Party's Lakshminarayana had retained the twelfth seat, defeating Congress State unit president D. Srinivas in Nizamabad urban segment, with the help of the TRS. “The TRS is our naturally ally,” Mr. Yashki said, adding, “and we need to reach out to them – we can't afford a BJP-TRS tie-up in Telangana.” Currently, the Congress holds 56 of the 119 assembly segments and 12 of the17 Lok Sabha seats in the Telangana region.
So, while the Congress was not holding any of the seats that went to the polls on July 27, the results are a reminder of how much the party stands to lose if it does not get its Telangana strategy right before the next elections. The by-elections for 12 Assembly seats were called after 10 TRS MLAs and one MLA each of the Opposition BJP and the regional Telugu Desam Party resigned to register their demand for a separate State of Telangana earlier this year.
HYDERABAD, India — Sai Kumar Meegada, a 20-year-old straight-A chemical engineering student at a prestigious university here, came home from breakfast one morning early this month, slipped a length of clothesline around his neck, tied it to the ceiling fan in his dorm room and hanged himself.
"For the people of Telangana, this is my final salute," said a note he left, referring to the decades-old struggle to create a separate region in Andhra Pradesh, a large state in southern India. "My final and last request is take my body to the legislative assembly. Goodbye."
With that, Mr. Meegada became one of a surprising number of people — many of them young and educated, with bright futures awaiting them — to have committed suicide over the battle to carve out India's 29th state. Some estimates have attributed more than 200 suicides to the cause.
But these politically motivated deaths are just one aspect of a troubling trend. Suicide has become something of a phenomenon in India, especially in the south, which now has one of the highest suicide rates in the world — a fact that has both puzzled and alarmed public health experts.
Suicides by indebted farmers are frequently reported in the news media and pointed to as a sign that India has forgotten its rural poor. But according to Indian government statistics, bankruptcy or poverty provoke less than 5 percent of Indian suicides. A family conflict, a broken love affair or an illness is a more likely spur.
Then there are politics. The number of ideologically motivated suicides in India doubled between 2006 and 2008, the last year for which statistics were available, according to the government. While the overall number remains small, mental health experts say these deaths illustrate the increasing stress on young people in a nation where, elections notwithstanding, the masses often feel powerless.
"Young people see this as a way to give meaning to what seem like meaningless lives," said Sudhir Kakar, a prominent psychoanalyst and novelist who has written extensively about mental health in India. "It is a way to become a hero, to take a stand."
Suicide is generally considered taboo in Hinduism, the religion of most Indians, because it disrupts the cycle of reincarnation that is central to the soul's progress, Mr. Kakar said.
But the willingness to die for a cause, as exemplified by Gandhi's epic fasts during the struggle for independence, is seen as noble and worthy. Ancient warriors in Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India, would commit suicide if their commander was killed, Mr. Kakar said. And the practice of sati, or widow burning, although outlawed, remains a potent symbol of wifely devotion.
In modern, democratic India, however, such drastic measures seem like a bizarre and troubling throwback that has shattered many families.
The political causes that spur multiple suicides can seem remarkably provincial. When Andhra Pradesh's popular chief minister, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, died in a helicopter crash last year, the news media reported suicides by dozens of his supporters, though such reports are difficult to verify.
Other suicide epidemics have had nothing to do with politics. When a gangster kidnapped the Indian actor Rajkumar, one of the biggest stars of Kannada-language films, in 2000, it was reported that dozens of his fans had committed suicide out of despair for their hero's safety.
The fight for statehood for Telangana, an inland region that sees itself as marginalized by coastal elites, gained attention when a fast brought the movement's leader, K. Chandrasekhara Rao, to the brink of death in December.
Since then, confusing political brawling has left the region's statehood hopes in limbo, but dozens of young people besides Mr. Meegada, the engineering student, have succumbed to the emotional pull of the issue.
M. Sunil Kumar was a 25-year-old reporter at a local newspaper in the provincial town of Warangal. His older brother Anil had dropped out of high school to run the family's mutton shop when their father died so that Sunil could go to college.
Mr. Kumar apparently became obsessed with the statehood movement, attending every meeting of the local activist group. One day in early March, the family went to a distant temple, but Mr. Kumar stayed behind. His mother discovered him hanging from a beam, one of her shawls around his neck.
"I am sacrificing my life for Telangana, to wake up our leaders," he wrote in a suicide note.
But his family has also sacrificed, losing not only a son but also their biggest breadwinner. "I lost my son because of Telangana," his mother, Swarupa, wailed. "Don't burn your mother's womb," she shouted, imploring other statehood supporters not to commit suicide.
Nevertheless, local political leaders have exploited Mr. Kumar's death. Outside the family's two-room house hangs a banner with Mr. Kumar's photograph superimposed over his suicide note. "Those who commit suicide for Telangana, we salute you," the text on the poster says. "Wake up people and fight for Telangana."
Political leaders of the movement said that they tried to discourage young people from committing suicide. "We tell them, don't die for Telangana, live and fight for Telangana," Mr. Rao said.
But other leaders seem less wary about celebrating suicide for the cause. "They are real heroes," said Peddi Sudarshan Reddy, a member of the governing council of the main pro-statehood party. "But we are not glorifying that heroism."
Glory is perhaps what Karunakar, 20, a lower-caste eighth-grade dropout, was looking for when he doused himself in kerosene and set himself alight in January.
He instantly became an icon in his village. A poster of him in a tough, Bollywood-style pose of defiance hangs in the village square, next to a small temple to the monkey god Hanuman. In life, he was unheralded: a day laborer who grew up in a part of town notorious for prostitution. In death, he was a hero.
"He was all the time talking of Telangana, Telangana, Telangana," said his 70-year-old grandfather, Musku Hanumanthu. "I tried to persuade him not to get too involved. But he used to say, 'I will sacrifice everything for Telangana.' "
He survived for three days in the hospital, expressing no regrets despite the pain of his burns, his grandfather said.
"Even in the hospital he kept saying, 'Long live Telangana,' " Mr. Hanumanthu said.
