The story doing the rounds over the weekend suggests that when Union minister Pallam Raju called on Sonia Gandhi, she asked whether the protests in the Seemandhra region were spontaneous or orchestrated. Pallam Raju said that they were spontaneous and the sentiments against bifurcation had struck deep roots in the region.
But what he did not tell her was that the sentiments had spread because the Kiran led state government did nothing to defuse the agitations by calling the joint action committees of employees- who have been on strike for the last two months- to the negotiating table. “This has deepened the sentiments and has spread from cities down to the villages,” says a Congress leader from Nellore– who would rather remain unnamed. “For the last few days we had been opening our shops only in the evening.
But now we are not opening at all,” says K S Narayana, a retailer in Vizag. “It is voluntary. Nobody is forcing us to keep our shutters down. We are incensed at the bifurcation.” Not only big retailers but even small establishments are closed across Seemandhra from Nellore to Anantapur and from Vijayawada to Srikakulam. “Educational institutions are closed and strangely parents don’t mind that prolonged closure will lead to loss of a year for their wards.
They think that the cause of united AP is more important,” says analyst Anant Maringanti. Ironically, Rahul Gandhi’s riposte -that led the government to scurry and withdraw the ordinance and bill to allow convicted politicians to be legislators- has come as a morale booster for people of the region. “If the government can go back on this bill, so can it on the intent to create Telangana. We have to apply the right pressure,” optimistically pipes in BVN Murthy, a post graduate student from Vijayawada.
But nobody is relying on the netas to further this cause. As a result politicians in the area are conspicuous by their absence. This is especially true of Congressmen who are virtually on the run. “We will be wiped off totally from Seemandhra. No second opinion about this,” a Congress minister admits.
Right now save in Vizianagaram and a few other areas, there is no violence. “We are peace loving people and we will fight this injustice peacefully,”says A R Rao from Rajahmundry. But police sources aver that the danger is that right now the agitations are leaderless. “What form it will take we do not know nor in whose hand it will fall,”says a senior police officer. He says that intelligence reports suggest that plans are afoot to pump in money into the agitations as also mobilize people.
“Up till now there has been no organized mobilization,” the officer confides. Other analysts point out that a million mutinies are waiting to break out. “In such a situation of angst, the anger of people will erupt and people will articulate their grievances and settle them in the way they think is best,” an analyst says.
The attack on Pradesh Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana’s house is seen as a manifestation of this sentiment. People are angry because of the vice like grip of Botsa on the district and its economic activities.
“There is a collective sense of disempowerment. Everybody feels that they have something to lose. Farmers in the Godavari districts feel that they won’t have water, students aver they will lose access to engineering colleges in Hyderabad, businessmen feel they have to wind up from the state capital, the retired feel they will lose access to healthcare facilities in Hyderabad etc,” says a Congress leader.
“Much of this may not be true but nobody has tried to allay these apprehensions,” he adds. “Right now many of us feel that the entire country has ganged up to break up the Telugu nation. That’s why this angst,” says Narayana, the retailer from Vizag.
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