Losing clout in Telangana

While there has been sustained involvement of university students in the demand for a separate Telangana, their contribution to the cause is measured mostly by the number of suicides over the issue. Conservative estimates put this figure at 400, with students committing suicide ever since the Congress promised a favourable decision on the issue of separate statehood in 2009, and then hemmed and hawed about it.

After their violent reaction to the arrest of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K Chandrasekhara Rao in 2010, the students of Osmania University in Hyderabad and their leaders have mostly been confined to the campus by the police during times of unrest. As a result, the student activities around the Telangana issue remained fragmented and are bereft of sustained patronage by any political party. They now participate in protests called by Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) or TRS.

TJAC, headed by Pidamarthi Ravi and Rajaram Nayak, has also failed to extend its influence beyond the Osmania University campus. The attempts of people like Ravi to seek a larger role for themselves did not work either as Rao never considered students to be a serious force. Separate statehood, he believes, can be achieved by employing relevant political strategies rather than by agitations alone. People sympathetic to Rao say he had kept students away from the party in the beginning because of his fears that their entry would see the movement becoming violent, which would have given the then chief minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, another reason to suppress the movement.

"Students can never lead a movement such as this one. In January, they will say they are ready for agitations and in March, they struggle with examinations. Unlike in the past, their careers have become important to them," says Mallepalli Laxmaiah, an important functionary of TJAC.