Greater Hyderabad Opinions

Reporting from Hyderabad - Dec 13th, 2009
Last 15 days have been historical ..on Nov 30th, 2009 the announcement of fast unto death by KCR was initially treated as another gimmick and was riddled with false starts like drinking juice by KCR on 2nd day itself ..Students who took out mock funeral processions of CM Rosiah and Sonia Gandhi, suddenly took KCR's mock funeral after they heard he broke the fast.

KCR soon became lead character "Raju" of RK Narayan's classic novel "The Guide" where villagers forced Raju to take up fast for rains and eventually see him die making him a martyr. Well this is history and not a novel .. the second time KCR took his fast seriously and this time he was willing to give his life for Telangana..all prior allegations like he took 100 crores from TeluguDesam for being part of "MahaKutami" slowly fizzled and replaced by his near death visuals from NIMS..it is grave mistake if someone says it is acting ..man with several ailments did not listening to doctors to break his fast..

NIMS visuals slowly transformed "canny and articulate" politician into a "Mahatma" and "Potti Sreeramulu"..another couple of days would have driven frail KCR into coma or other health situation where we could have lost KCR to the cause.

Congress was very quick and impressive in averting the tense situation in Hyderabad on Dec 10th, 2009 by announcing "process to separate the state has been intiated" statement by P Chidambaram. Protest Rallies turned into Victory rallies.. Everyone in AP was dissecting words like "process" and "resolution" and started interpreting them to their own advantage ..

Again like another unpredictable turn, there was huge uproar from Andhra and Rayalseema regions on the "Telangana" announcement.

Though parties have expressed support for Telangana formation including TeluguDesam, apparently no one saw it coming..In fact there was the assumption that there will be somehow status quo and they can continue to express support for Telangana without any consequences..

But KCR's fast has changed everything..Political leaders were changing tones like there should have been prior consensus from public..In all party meeting by CM Shri Rosiah everyone expressed support to abide by the decision from High Command.

After the decision, they have started questioning powers of Sonia, asking what she knows about AP history ..Naturally Sonia Gandhi will look at her party's future interests and doesn't have time and energy to learn about AP history.

Then started the Samikhya Andhra rallies followed by resignations from 130 MLAs from 190 Andhra and Rayalseema MLAs..22 ministers are planning to resign today including possibly CM also ..

Noone saw this coming ..such a huge response to keep our state in tact and as one Rashtram..I am thinking that there are compelling reasons for these reactions ..

> contributes about of total AP employment. IT sector alone is Rs 8000 crs ($1.8 Billion) which is predominantly based in Hyderabad

>Out of 63 lakhs Hyd population, 40% are Muslims, 10% are Andhrites and rest from "core" Telangana. Telangana people are the most affectionate ones and go about themselves with their grand "Daawats" and "Mandu parties" for even small milestones like "Vollelu or "Dhootulu" ceremony with thousands of guests. They are never divisive in nature and always accommodating of any culture whether it is Marwadi or Gujarathis or Andhras.

They make special efforts to change their slang like "cheppandi, vachaaru" before an Andhrite and turn to "cheppe and vachindu" as soon as he leaves.

There is no region in the world where locals modify own slang just to please an outsider..that is the greatness of Telangana people.

That's why Samikhya movement is gaining traction because Hyderabad has quickly become more than hometown for most settlers ..we are all used to see "rallies" to seperate regions..nowhere in history there were "protests" for uniting 2 regions of people .. ..that's the greatness of Andhra Pradesh.

Looking at students in Vizag and Vijayawada, their expression is very genuine to keep the AP united.

> There are several proposals flying around like "Dual Capital", "Union Territory" to retain status quo on today's Hyderabad.

Change always is harsh and it is naive to imagine that there won't be any change. As KCR says we can't reverse a released arrow.

Now time only will decide how much of a deviation KCR and people of Telangana can make to separate state announcement to appease all groups.

2 weeks back no one imagined president's rule in AP and destabilized Central Govt due to one man's fast in a remote town of Telangana.

I am sure there will be deviations to the proposals specially looking at nation's and state's interests.

My proposal
We should look into making Hyderabad as "dual capital". The only objection from KCR last night was geographical nature of Hyderabad not allowing Chandigarh like capital where is it accessible from Punjab and Haryana.

Along the Hayathnagar Highway to Kodada of present Nalgonda, declare 20 kms on each side highway as extension of Greater Hyderabad and develop a new capital for Andhra near Kodada.

New Investments shoud be made in the new capital for Andhra, which will also develop backward region of Nalgonda

Hyderabad will serve as dual capital and cater to all Telugus as before.

One should look at history before embarking on defining boundaries.

East Germany was like Telangana of Europe and after Berlin wall construction became one of the most ignored and backward region in Europe. Only in 1989 and after merger of East and West Germanies, East Germans seeing growth prospects and even elected Merkel, The first lady Chancellor from East Germany.


Regds,
Venkat Aekka
vaekka@yahoo.com
http://vaekka.blogspot.com

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