Rumbles and Fasts in Telangana

It all started a few months back. Initially I thought it was funny, entertaining. I would be sitting in class, usually the third section or fourth out of five, when a shallow rumble of voices and feet would come from one of the side corridors. Initially we ignored it, meaning me and the professor and my Iranian colleague, but the noise approached and escalated and suddenly a mass of students where in the class shouting "Jai Telangana" and shoving a paper with Telugu slogans and exclamation marks under our pens. I refused to sign, since I think it is a like heady and ridiculous for me to trumpet for the independence of a state I have lived in for only a few months.

Also, the whole protest, the slogans and the convenient timing of strikes on classes around exams just seemed so childish. In a way I understood. Getting caught up in a protest is exciting. It feels like history is shifting and in a way its because of something you are doing. Many of the students are from small villages and towns outside of Hyderabad and have been excited into a political helter skelter by politicians who need mass and volume to get there message heard.

So, I laughed about it and my classmates waved it off as something that has happened and will always be. The cry for "Telangana independence" has gone from a whisper to a shriek on a constant cycle since Indian achieved independence in '47 and the country was divided along linguistic lines in the early 50's. Furthermore, linguistically Telangana, Andhra (the coastal region) and Rayalaseema (the rocky southern district) are similar. The local language is Telugu and though there are differences in certain nouns and pronunciation (maybe a little more pronounced than the conflict between y'all and youse guys) the language is still mutually intelligible and the cultural and festivals are all similar.

Anyway, the semester ended and I went on a trip only to return to a shuttered Hyderabad. The buses weren't running, gas stations were closed, and as I shared an overpriced auto with a Hyderabadi back to my apartment I learned that student-protesters had taken over Osmania campus for the past few days, destroying buses and shops and forcing the police to enforce a city-wide curfew. Then, a few days later, spurned by the 11 day 'fast' (more about this fasting epidemic later) by a politically decrepit local politician, the federal government declared that they would give Telangana independence.

I was shocked. How did those motley hallway-crusaders manage to do this? How had a poorly printed pamphlet turned into a pan-Indian movement for mini-state independence? The local ripple has now caused a tsunami of statehood independence battles throughout India, with small groups demanding to be recognized and state bifurcation. Daily the paper is filled with stories of how this battle has been copied and pasted all over India, and it seems farcical but maybe, as with Telangana there a backdrop of serious political turmoil that I am missing.