T stalemate

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Congress led UPA has been in power for almost 4 years now. And how many times did Sonia, the UPA chairperson, utter the word "Telangana" in all these years? ZERO

They did constitute a 3 member commission which met like 2.5 times including once for a meet and greet to know the other 2 members. 4 years later the 3 guys don't even seem to be on the same page on the existence of this commission. Atleast one of them thinks its dissolved, one thinks its working and both, along with the rest of the nation, forgot who the 3rd member was.

Present day Congressmen are by definition impotent. Telangana has been fortunate enough to have some of the finest breed of these men. They have over the past 4 years made several arbitrary, irresponsible, nonsensical statements (not that there is much sense in politics otherwise) about Telangana. Sometimes completely rubbishing the need for it, sometimes asking for a second SRC, sometimes demanding a separate state. But always trying to fall in the good looks of the higher powers and earn some brownie points. 57 people were bored to death when Digvijay Singh said "Madam is considering it and will fulfill the wishes of Telangana" for the nth time. Another 87 succumbed to boredom when he added that "YSR is doing an excellent job at developing the region".

In the good old days when the original Gandhi was leading the Congress they did indeed have some principles which most of them believed in and lived by. However historically they never had any action going on. The present day Congressmen are doing a superb job of keeping this spirit of inaction alive and took it to a whole new level by getting rid of the noble Gandhistic principles of truth, simple living etc which needed some proactive action on their part. They have an amazingly versatle framework that can solve any problem within the confines of the principle of inaction. The framework has 5 steps

1. First Identify the problem.
2. Then ignore it completely.
3. It either disappears or gets magnified
4. If problem Disappears go to 1. and find another problem to solve
5. else goto 2

This framework was successfully employed in the case of Telangana. They identified the problem successfully around 1969 and then ignored it. Then they thought it disappeared. But BJP bowled a googly at them and passed a resolution for seperate Telangana which brought it back to life. Congress continued to diligently ignore it. TRS took birth with the slogan of a separate state and made some inroads in the political space. BJP tied up with TDP and suffered a memory loss on Telangana. Congress stuck to their faith of inaction. Come election time and they again accepted the existence of the problem. TRS which had a bigger enemity with TDP joind hands with Congress. Congress surprisingly themselves pleasantly win in the centre and state and continue with their framework of ignoring. TRS born and brought up on reslessness cant digest the inaction and tries to infuse some action but soon finds itself out of the UPA. Congress continues to ignore Telangana religiously.They even go to the extent of prohibiting their partymen from speaking on the issue. Nothing can get more undemocratic than that. Free speech is a founding pillar of democracy and the elected representatives are supposed to "represent" their voters and be their voice. So when the Congress asks its elected leaders to "shut up" on Telangana, its not just the leaders they want to shut up.

Then suddenly out of this infinite sea of inaction, some idiot utters "second SRC" and all hell breaks loose. The Prime Ministers Office instantly denies having anything to do with it at the first available opportunity and avoids it like plague. The left parties who are the oxygen supply for the UPA are super pissed off. Random people from different parts of the country find it a very opportune time to ask for a separate state. TRS growls, though it has a good reason to be happy. This stupid utterance has given them a new life and a reason to fight for. With rejuvenated enthusiasm they threaten to resign from all public offices unless the government starts the process of carving out a new state.

Then the grand old men of Telangana Congress finally wake up. Historically whenever a congressmen had to choose between their leaders who could put them in good public offices and the people who elected them, the people got ditched. So you would expect that the Congressmen would live upto their expectations and come out in full support of 2nd SRC and even claim it as their victory and ditch their electorate who wanted a separate state. But in what seems to be a finely orchestrated drama, the impotent old men suddenly found their voice and raised it in support of a separate state and against the 2nd SRC. They even realized that they have actually uttered Telangana before anybody else was born, back in 1969 and claim complete copyrights to it. 1969....well 39 years is too fresh by Congress standards, they typically take 62 years to achieve anything significant. Congress existed for 62 years before India got her independence. 62 years from independence , 2009 is about the right time for another achievement.

Meanwhile the Social engineer from UP, Mayawati sees a wonderful window of opportunity in Telangana and comes sprinting down in support of the statehood for the region. Telangana has a high proportion of backward classes who have not had had proportionate political representation and are looking for parity rather than charity from the dominating classes in the existing parties. She has a good chance of repeating her highly successful experiment from UP down here. Atleast I thought she did until the tollywood fired their bhrahmastram..

The Gult Film Industry decides to send their Mega star into the arena, realizing that the politics have been giving a tough fight in the world of entertainment. Chiru is by far the biggest hero in telugu, several careers have been launched by mere association with his name and some unfortunately destroyed for being improperly associated. His chief contributions to the film industry include over 100 movies, great dance sequences( including world famous girly man), one senile brother who couldn't pass high school and the concept of "Time Capsule". Chiru the demigod of gult land who must be in the top .00000001% of rich people in the state suddenly realized that he actually belongs to a backward caste and decides to put it to good use. This, ofcourse, bothers some established politicians whose only source of income is politics and the accessory businesses. All of a sudden poor Chiru finds himself in soup more often than he ever was. First his brother's failed marriage is pulled out and digged into thoroughly, then his daughter elopes with a dubious fellow with the help of some mysterious guardian angels, and then people who claim to be his fans attack another gult hero who coincidentally makes use of the media attention and comes out in total support of statehood for Telangana.

Chiru himself has spoken about as much as Sonia did on Telangana, but it is widely speculated that he would come out in favor of a separate state too. I find it surprising because I would have expected him to want to rule over a big state and have more power. Atleast thats what YSR or CB Naidu wants. Naidu for his part seems to have started hedging his bets on Telangana. He has been desperately trying to put together a third front(UNPA) which currently only seems to amuse regional parties which are out of power. He probably wants to make use of this UNPA to garner more power at the center when he loses control over Telangana and gets restricted to a smaller state.

With the TRS deadline of March 6, getting closer, the upcoming parliament budget sessions could be important in the history of Telangana. BJP is planning to introduce a bill in the house and expose Congress. Telangana Congress leaders are trying to build up the pressure and have not stopped speaking out on the issue inspite of the orders of high command. These guys are making a serious claim to the credit for creation of a new state. Congress never wanted wanted TRS to fly away with all the credit for the new state. And that seems to remain their biggest challenge right now, How to carve out the new state and get all the credit for it? And if they lose out on the opportunity to grant statehood, BJP will latch on to it and make a state when they get into power. That way the T-state has an additional benefit of getting rid of the impotent congressmen who have slept for 4 long years when they were needed the most.