PROF. K. Jayashankar, a former Vice-Chancellor of Kakatiya University, is recognised as a leading Telangana ideologue and is known to be the political mentor of Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K. Chandrasekhara Rao. In a conversation with Frontline, he expressed the hope that the Central government would not procrastinate on the creation of a separate Telangana state.
There is pressure from leaders of the coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, but the Centre knows that the backlash from the Telangana region will be more severe this time if it does so, he said. Jayashankar said it was now the responsibility of the Congress leaders from Telangana to ensure that their central leadership did not renege on its promise. They are aware that Telangana will drift towards further crisis if the promise is not kept.
He claimed that the people of Andhra and Rayalaseema were the least bothered about a separate Telangana. He argued that the ones who were worried were the political leaders who had accumulated enormous properties in Telangana, investors, real estate sharks and some media barons. Despite being a microscopic minority, they dictate the policies of the State with their money and influence, he said.
According to him, the argument that Hyderabad be declared a joint capital or a Union Territory was untenable and absurd. He remarked: Joint capital? For whose convenience? Is it for the people or for the political leaders? What is the use of a capital that is not accessible to the people? Similar demands for a common capital were made during the bifurcation of Bombay State into Maharashtra and Gujarat in the past, but Dr B.R. Ambedkar put an end to them.
Jayashankar categorically asserted that the demand for a separate state was to protect the self-respect of the people of Telangana. Although we respect the culture and dialect of other regions, our dialect and culture is being ridiculed, particularly in the mass media. We can preserve it only through self-governance, he said.
He sought to allay apprehensions that the people of other regions living in Telangana would be asked to leave once the state was formed. Who is asking them to leave? Do your business here, live with us and allow us to live with you. He said the people of Telangana would not usurp the properties of the settlers who had been here for decades nor were they going to deny them any rights. We are only against such people whose intentions are to rule and govern us, not allowing us to live with them.
Jayashankar is not ready to buy the argument that the development of Hyderabad happened only because of the participation of non-locals. Hyderabad was a ready-made capital with requisite infrastructure at the time of the formation of Andhra Pradesh, and the development over the years was nothing abnormal, he said. The city, in fact, ranked fifth in the country at the time of State formation and it continues to be so even now, he pointed out.
M. Rajeev in HyderabadCOMMents
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