A welcome addition

Indian political history has been a fascinating one but we as Indians have not taken enough efforts to document and archive it for posterity. If it has been true, by and large, for the eras gone by, modern accounts of events and happenings too have been scanty.

As one of the separate statehood movements, Telangana has held its own in India, when it comes to listing similar such movements across the length and breadth of our nation. Yet, from 2001, over a decade and more that the movement had continued to hog attention in the media, it had strangely not excited authors/historians to that extent to make it a central point of reference and study.

From the beginning of the new millennium, there have hardly been dozen-odd seriously analysed and researched English books on this topic, which changed the course of politics in both the Telugu speaking states as they were demerged in 2014.

Bhangya Bhukya, Associate Professor of History at the University of Hyderabad endeavours to fill the breach with his latest book. Not surprisingly, Bhukya’s specialisation too, (as his Wikipedia account says) ‘has been modern Indian history from the undergraduate to the master's level, and has in the process developed a strong interest in the history of subaltern and marginalised groups whose history is largely neglected in mainstream history’.

No surprises then, the book attempts and succeeds in ‘offering a critical, comprehensive understanding of the modern history of Telangana.’ With the diligence of an academic, Bhukya, (who has another book to his credit, published in 2010 on the status of Lambadas, a prominent tribe in Telangana) mentions the various references, chapter after chapter, 15 in all.

Positing it for graduate students who would be keen on the historical background of India’s newest state as also those who would be interested in its affairs, Bhukya maintains a scholarly tone and gives a sweeping historical account of the state, from its Islamic era to the modern one.

The sepia-tinted cover and a picture of the Afzal Mahal, one of the four palaces of the Chowmohalla Palace adds to the mood and historical value of the data that is seen over the 215 pages. The author gratefully acknowledges the support he received from Osmania University, where the recent statehood movement had gained traction among students and also the University of Hyderabad for enabling clarity in concepts and understanding.