17 Oct A Hyderabadi says nako to roko
Roko! Please! Stop the rokos. Work hartals, educational bandhs and rail strikes are not justified, whatever the demand.
Am neither a political commentator nor a social activist. Sitting miles across in the Middle East I watch helplessly as my city is being mauled at. Brand Hyderabad is being tarnished guys. Common on! Isn’t there a saner way to accomplish political demands.
I understand the capital city is only a speck in the realm of conditions and reasons for the current upheaval, nevertheless it is the main bone of contention. Truth behold, Andhra Pradesh is on the world map today because of Hyderabad.
Telangana or Andhra or a third or fourth or nth party can take the cake and the have the icing, too. But please, don’t spoil the show. Gracefully scoop and dollop it up. Don’t smudge it all across the cake and table and leave everyone and everything around with a gooey mess.
With each additional day of protests, the demonstrators are ensuring more delay in normalcy (social, economic and cultural) to return once their demand is met with.
Scenes of the sprawling Osmania University campus inundated with protestors raises several questions equally important as the bifurcation of the state.
If bomb blasts by anti-social elements are called barbaric, I need to coin a more drastic word for spoiling the future of youngsters. KCR & Co should take moral responsibility for every single minute wasted of the next generation.
Denying students the right to education and disrupting the socio-economic fabric of the nation is not the way forward to achieve any demand. Reports claim the strike by about 45,000 coal miners of the state will leave several other parts of the country in the dark shortly as about 29 coal plants are allegedly running on precariously low coal supplies. And the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has been granted permission to import coal as an adhoc measure. Isn’t this uncalled for expenditure?
Forget the political, cultural and business dimensions that would need to be carved out from the scratch once the new borders are drawn, what guarantee Rayalaseema will not put up banners thereafter? Soon after a bifurcation, lo! a trifurcation demand!
Meanwhile, please wait before one could vouch about the skilled performances of smaller states. Mother India is still just experimenting. As of now, Jharkhand seems to be a disaster in the making. Uttarakhand is so far doing fine, minus its teething problems, and so is Chhattisgarh if we ignore the naxalite menace. But it’s a long way from comparing notes of these kiddy states’ performance indicators.
A quick mention of the hitherto lawless Bihar’s resurrection becomes mandatory here. The 12th largest state in terms of geographical size and third largest by population is getting along on the growth path today, proving only an efficient leader is all that matters – not the resources or dimensions.
Having said that, and considering the fact that if the past five decades couldn’t solve the issue, with Chief Ministers from Telangana also ruling the state, isn’t it anybody’s wild guess that inking the deal is going to be a long and arduous cry. Until then, if the current momentum of demonstrations is adhered to, imagine the loss the new states would have piled upon. Not to mention the irrevocable damage on its people!
However, in the event a Telangana does happen and the bifurcation hiccups are all sorted out by a magical wand at the earliest (let’s not count in years) nothing like it. What more can people want than efficient administration; education and quicker employment opportunities? Hope the new bureaucracy is par excellence and not tempted by the ‘currency lift’. Can KCR & Co guarantee that? Time for the Telangana sculptors to meet up with Anna Hazare.
Well, consider even that’s taken care of. We will have officials sincere to a fault and politicians for whom welfare of the people is the only mantra. And consider by all stretches of ones wildest imagination that co-operation and camaraderie will be executed to the helm and unity among the bifurcated will stand to be envied, who will undo the damage being inflicted now. Damage on students, damage on the socio-economic fabric of the state and the city (I can’t help bringing up Hyderabad).
Business heads in the capital are playing the diplomatic card. Rightly so. All are in the wait-and-watch phase. But don’t expect them to wait for forever. Political sentiments do not figure in the balance sheets of business establishments!
KCR & Co please keep your feet up, for if the business houses decide to keep their cash registers ticking, don’t blame them for pulling the rug from under your feet.
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