Telangana People’s Movement: the Unfolding Political Culture – Prof. G. Haragopal

 Prof. G. Haragopal

Abstract:The Telangana people’s movement is rooted in a historical context and a developmental model that the Indian rulers have been pursuing. The regional disparities-economic, social, cultural -are a part of this process. After formation of the linguistic State, every economic or developmental mode-be it green revolution or neo-liberal globalization-ended up with sharpening of the differences and widening of the disparities. Added to it is the reckless Urbanization leading to imbalanced and unplanned growth of the city of Hyderabad. This city is geographically in backward Telangana region but attracted a lot of capital investment giving rise to endemic claims and counter claims on the city. This entire direction of development sharpened multi layered contradictions. The ongoing movement is a search for some resolution of the contradictions without the necessary political creativity or capacity in responding to the challenge. This is the dialectic of development one discerns in one of the ongoing movements in a backward region of India.

I feel it a privilege to deliver Prof. B. Janardhan Rao memorial lecture for varied reasons, firstly, I had the privilege of being a teacher of Janardhan; secondly, Janardhan has grown into a scholar in his own right; thirdly, Janardhan combined in his approach of studying the society a conceptual framework and painstaking field based research. Above all he had a passionate involvement in the upliftment of the marginalized sections,                                    tribals being the most neglected segment of the society. Janardhan was also an activist concerned and engaged with politics of transformation. At the time he passed away, he was deeply involved in Telangana statehood movement. He persuasively argued with me and did all that was possible to convince me when I had some reservations about the desirability and the final outcome of such a movement. His life has been cut short and the immense potential and promise he held remained unexpressed. It is not only a personal loss to some of us but a social loss. It is also sad and unusual that a teacher should be delivering the memorial lecture of a younger colleague. The topic chosen for the memorial lecture is the Telangana People’s Movement: The Unfolding Political Culture. This is an area that is close to Janardhan’s heart, an area that I would have liked to discuss with him, if he were alive.
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