http://www.deccanchronicle.com/dc-comment/dear-capitalists-call-telangana-bluff-940Dear capitalists, call the Telangana bluff
June 25th, 2010
Kancha Ilaiah
Dear Hyderabad capitalists,
The city is as much your home as it is mine. I have been living here
ever since I came to write my MA entrance examination in 1974 with a
broken suitcase, bought from a local Sunday market of Narsampet by my
late mother. Now I am a professor with status and salary.
Some of you came to this city much earlier than me and some later than
me, but by all means you are far richer than me or any average
employee, doctor or engineer.
You have made your money on the labour power of your employees and
also from the profits you accrued in the market. You have accumulated
your wealth by combining labour and capital. Yet that wealth is yours,
no doubt.
Now the movement for separate Telangana state is threatening your very
survival in Hyderabad. Your response has been to pump money to the
leaders of the Telangana agitation since they have been issuing
threats to your economic interests.
"We will not allow your business in Hyderabad", they say. "We will not
allow your cinema industry to run; we will not allow even your cricket
match to take place".
You have pacified them by bribing them. Of course, you have also aided
and abetted a united Andhra movement alongside.
What worries me most is the way the leaders growing around such
movements have become richer day by day.
Thanks to this, your economic activity has been going on without
hurdles. After each such threat, it is the threat giver's wealth and
health that is increasing. But the general health of Telangana — the
economic health of its aam aadmi — has been deteriorating.
In the late 60s and early 70s the Telangana movement was conducted
mostly on legs and bicycles. The bigger leaders of the movement were
moving in jeeps, and even the biggest ones could only boast Ambassador
cars.
Yet they conducted agitations that shook the Centre, inspired the
youth to brave bullets and also won elections — 11 out of 14
parliamentary seats were in the pocket of Praja Samithi.
Of course, that movement also caused loss of lives and disrupted
education. Lot of public property that Telangana people would have
used for their advancement was damaged. The agitations also pushed the
region backwards in the field of education. And no great moral leader
or intellectual emerged from the movement. And most importantly,
Telangana did not become a separate state.
But the fact remains that no leader made money out of that movement.
Only Mr Chenna Reddy made political capital.
Now look at the present Telangana movement and its drivers. All you
see is money, money and more money. Where is it coming from? Obviously
much of it is coming from you. You see this movement as an inevitable
evil and want to handle it as carefully as possible.
There is a saying that Capitalists like corrupt Communists. Not only
can the corrupt Communist be bribed, his presence also gives a bigger
moral licence to the capitalist to exploit workers more and more.
Similarly you capitalists do not like the Telangana movement. But
since it is a reality, you would rather deal with a corrupt leader,
who asks money for everything.
Whatever money you pay him you get from the sweat of the aam aadmi of
the region. And as the wealth of the leader grows the resources of the
aam aadmi dwindles in the same proportion. This is bad capitalist
morality, to say the least.
Now you have a Telangana tiger that needs red blood every day and a
group of paper tigers who need some "white water" every day. The
relationship is perfect.
But where does that leave the ordinary people of Telangana? They are
not given drought relief and their children do not get English
education. For all the demands there is one answer — wait till
Telangana comes.
Meanwhile, Telangana's brand ambassadors are moving around in brand
new Innovas and Maruti Swifts. Should this be the quality of the
movement? We are scratching our heads for an answer.
Assume that you had spent the same kind of money to give English
education to the children of the poor people of Telangana after the
1969 movement, perhaps by forming charity trusts or by establishing at
least 10 schools in the villages.
Do you know what would have happened? You would have produced a world
class intellectual from this region. The whole region would have
appreciated your culture of charity. Many of you praise Mahatma Gandhi
but hate his trusteeship theory. Where did we get this capitalist
culture from?
That is the difference between Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and you. So
long as you do not change your culture, any number of leaders and
professional agitators will be squeezing money out of you. India
cannot survive with this culture of capitalism and politics. It is
time to start thinking.
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