Telangana movement: Views from the Left

A four-day international seminar centering around the twin words of democracy and socialism will be held in Hyderabad from March 7

Even as the process for the creation of Telangana state has reached the final stage, the Left-leaning civil society organisations on Tuesday sought to interpret the movement for Telangana statehood as part of a global fight against inequalities perpetuated by capitalism.

Towards this, an international seminar centering around the twin words of democracy and socialism is being held next month in Hyderabad by organisations and intellectuals, who have deep sympathy for the separate statehood demand and the leftist moorings.   

Apart from a host of leftist intellectuals and social activists from Latin America, Africa and Asia, homegrown leaders including Deepanker Bhattacharya of CPI(ML) Liberation, and general secretaries of CPI and CPI(M) are among the invitees to the four-day event beginning March 7.  Baburam Bhattarai, former prime minister of Nepal, who is the leader of Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), is also expected to participate, according to the organisers.

“This is going to be a historic event befitting the stature of Hyderabad as a land of strong socio political movements, including the Dalit movement that was built against the upper-caste domination. Hyderabad will also provide an opportunity for those who are fighting against exploitation and inequality across the world to learn from its experiences,” Chukka Ramaiah, an educationist and former member of state legislative council (MLC), said on Tuesday.

The separate statehood movement saw a predominant participation of young people representing Dalit and backward class in the region providing the basic premise for an alternate political agenda. Rama Melkote, former professor of Osmania University, says the separate statehood movement provides a local context for pursuing a new development paradigm for which there already exists a global context in the form of failure of a 'neo-liberal alternative' amplified by the global financial crisis.

 While leaders of Telangana had been pointing out at the alleged injustices done to the region by coastal Andhra rulers and also cornering of opportunities in jobs and other areas by them as a justification for the separate statehood demand, within the movement there were forces seeking to change the present social order dominated, as they think, by the upper castes and business interests.  

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which had been at the helm of the separate statehood movement, said it sought to rebuild Telangana  by providing equal opportunities for the development of all sections of society.

Given the history of leftist movements of this region, the organisers of the seminar expect to see the revival of a socialist agenda post bifurcation even though leftist forces of all kinds had been marginalised in the state in the recent past.  

The seminar, 'Democracy, Socialism and the vision for the 21st Century', is being organised by Telangana Vidyavanthula Vedica, Centre for Dalit Studies and the Democracy Dialogues.