Pangs of Partition

Mallikarjuna Nagar in Malkajgiri, a labyrinth of winding alleys and narrow, roughly clustered houses, is where one of Hyderabad’s majority Andhraite population lives. In this concrete jungle, the well groomed Vulimiri Kameshwar Rao, an Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) employee, a bus conductor stands out, but for the last few days he is having sleepless nights. “I have a single bedroom flat. My son is doing CA and my wife teaches Carnatic music to about 50 students. We are well settled here, I do not want to go back to Andhra now,” he says.

Born in Vijayanagaram, and appointed in APSRTC in 1993, he took a transfer to Hyderabad in 1997 and ever since he has made Hyderabad his home. He has been living on the edge right from the onset of T- agitations and his worst fears have come true with the TRS leader K Chandrasekhar Rao upping the ante on driving non-T workers out of Telangana.

The ‘us’ versus ‘them’ feeling is bound to escalate, feel residents who have come to be popularly identified as ‘settlers’. From Kukatpally to Malkajgiri, Dilsukhnagar to Jubilee Hills, people from coastal belt and Rayalaseema are an anxious lot. Sarala, (name changed on request) who works in the secretariat says all these years we worked together and now there are barriers being built. “As far as I am concerned, I have very good relations with the people of Telangana. After all we speak the same language and have worked for 18 years together.” With five years of service left, she plans to take voluntary retirement. The reason: “I’d rather retire before working in another separate block.”

While some employees decided to take voluntary retirement, others who have several years of service are busy trying to figure out the government orders such as GO 610 that spells out the details on local status. Many in desperation have also resorted to producing fake nativity certificates. Sambasiva Rao, a native of Nellore isn’t willing to move, he says, “We have contributed to the rise and growth of Hyderabad and we will not run away.”

Out of the 88,232 state level employees, 36,775 would be part of Telangana. The inevitability of moving out has brought jitters to people who have made Hyderabad their home. At the secretariat, 1,060 people have been allotted to Andhra Pradesh and 805 for Telangana.

If there was ever a cascading effect in the annals of the state it is now. The bifurcation of assets in departments has not only divided the physical assets but has divided the psyche of the people of Andhra Pradesh feels Akhil, a secretariat employee. There is not a single department that is not facing bifurcation blues. Senior officials are grappling with the issues pertaining to revenue sharing, tax issues and opening of new accounts.

V Srinivas, DCP, Balanagar says even the police personnel are anxious. It is inevitable that many would have to go.

While liquor merchants in both AP and Telangana are stocking liquor as the A P Beverages Corporation Limited (APBCL) would remain closed from May 27 to June 6 on account of opening separate accounts for two states, students (whose parents hail from Seemandhra region) who have passed SSC from Hyderabad are mulling over taking admission in Vijayawada and Guntur.

A senior official of Narayana Group of Institutions said that the corporate colleges may take a severe beating in terms of admissions as thousands of students are expected to move over to Seemandhra region.

The repercussions are also felt in the film industry; the AP film industry boasts of the second largest producer base of films in the country has already rechristened the AP Film Chambers of Commerce to Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce. A well known source from the film fraternity says, “The changing of the name has been done so that the interests of both states can be represented.” The Telugu film industry is worth Rs 1,000 cr.

The pain of partition has run deeper to the extent that heritage activists have been asking to bring back all the artifacts, sculptures and paintings from the erstwhile Nizam state that are housed in different museums and public places outside Hyderabad. “There is no modality on cultural assets. The residual state of AP has right only over the records brought in after 1956. There are 50 million documents at the AP State Archives and Research Institute (SARI) and Oriental Manuscript Library (OML). There are rare records pertaining to the administration of various parts of Deccan and the people of Deccan have the sole right to its custody,” says Sajjad Shahid, a heritage activist.

P Anuradha Reddy, convenor, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Hyderabad chapter says, “There are many historically important artifacts from the Nizam’s era that are in bad condition in Seemandhra, they need to be brought back. One such historical asset is the Albion bus of 1932 of Nizam State Railway-Road Transport Department which is kept outside the Central Bus Stand in Vijayawada.”

90 per cent of the roadside snack vendors in the city are from Seemandhra region. Come evenings people from all walks make a beeline to savour the bajjis and punugulu. A vendor at Kukatpally says, “There is an air of insecurity and we would always feel out of place whenever youngsters make rounds in colonies chanting ‘Jai Telangana’ slogans. We are not being threatened as yet but there is a sense of uneasiness.”

Even a slight provocation may escalate into a huge problem and the roadside vendors fear a backlash similar to the one Bihari population had to face in Mumbai.

Raghuram, a social scientist, says,“A separate statehood has been seen as a panacea for everything. The issue has reached such levels that all aspirations of the people are linked to the statehood.

Today, however, the question is not if, but how. We have gone too far ahead and the partition of the state is only a matter of time. In another eight days the state would be divided.

The late Khushwant Singh who authored “Train to Pakistan” had said that ‘the wounds of partition have healed but the poison is still in our system. The people of Andhra Pradesh would have to deal with the pain of partition and only hope that wounds heal faster and the poison never gets into their system.

Arun, a software engineer and a native of Visakhapatnam says, after all our culture is same, we speak the same language. But would he go if he gets a good job in Vishakhapatnam? “Definitely! It’s home after all, he says.