Telengana is taught here

The retreat is strategic. The students reassemble,and this time are armed with stones. The first hail of pebbles rains down where the policemen are standing,holding up fibre or cane shields to protect themselves. For the next three hours,there is not a moment’s respite as stones hit them from all sides. Just when things appear to be going out of control,the police charge in with batons,lob stun grenades and fire from pellet guns. Twelve students and eight policemen are injured. Task Force Additional Deputy Commissioner M Srinivas Rao takes a hit on his head. One more bloody session of the agitation at Osmania University has come to an end.

Everyday life runs its uninterrupted course in Hyderabad,indifferent to the raging movement to carve out the state of Telengana from Andhra Pradesh,though it is a battle in which the city itself is the prize. But at Osmania University in the heart of the city,where an imposing sandstone structure looms over a lush green campus,no other struggle is as important. When the movement gathered steam in November 2009 after the UPA government promised to start the process of state division,Osmania hostels turned into war rooms. It was here that students organised into groups,brainstormed over protest programmes and resolved not to let the fight fizzle out. Nearly 6,000 students live in the university’s hostels; 98 per cent are from Telangana. “The energy and passion of the students cannot be bridled. A lathicharge is a minor deterrent,they are willing to face bullets. They say they will sacrifice their lives for Telangana,and many already have,’’ says M Kodanda Rama Reddy,a professor of political science and the convenor of the powerful all-party Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) heading the agitation on campus.

But what drives 21-year-olds to face gunfire or douse themselves with petrol and strike a match?

The list of Osmania University alumni is illustrious: from former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao to former India cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin,filmmakers Shyam Benegal and Nagesh Kukunoor to cricket writer Harsha Bhogle. The names that university authorities don’t trumpet could hold a clue to its character: Maoist Central Committee member Sudhakar Reddy,who was killed in an encounter in Warangal in 2009,was a former student; major leaders of the Maoist insurgency such as Muppala Laxman Rao alias Ganapathi and Mallojula Koteshwar Rao alias Kishanji have old links with the university’s student leaders,and have found shelter at its hostels many times.

Students of the university have always been at the front of various social movements in the state,from peasant opposition to the zamindari system to the Naxal movement. “Student leaders,professors,thinkers and philosophers directed and gave fillip to various movements. And through all these years,the demand for Telangana remained the focal point. But violence was rare,’’ says Hyderabad-based writer and analyst I Venkat Rao. That changed in 1969,when the Centre withdrew special benefits guaranteed to Telangana when it merged with Andhra Pradesh in 1956,and the campus erupted in anger. The movement spread to the entire region of Telangana. At least 360 students were killed in police firing and violence. The flames of that agitation have not been doused.

Every year,thousands of students from remote villages and small towns of Telangana come to Osmania for a university education. They work in catering firms,serve food at weddings,and do odd jobs on film sets because their parents cannot afford to send them money for their studies. “If a student says he is from Adilabad or Nalgonda,you can be sure that his parents are farm labourers,that he walked miles to go to school,and that he struggled a lot to get here. He is determined to study hard,get a job and help his family come out of the wretchedness,’’ says B Surender Rao,an arts student from Sircilla,Karimnagar. Clad in a fading jeans and a crumpled shirt,Rao is a typical Telangana student. His parents live in Sircilla,a weaver town,and work in a textile dyeing unit. “My parents live in penury but they toil to support me and my brother who is in junior college. I want to take up a good job and help the family. I want to ensure that they do not have to work anymore,’’ he says.

It is a dream that can sour quite soon. For the thousands of Telangana students who pass out every year,even a university education is not a ticket to a better life. There are no jobs to go back to in Telengana. Except for Hyderabad and Warangal,Telangana has no other city or town that is developed. In Hyderabad,mainly the hub of IT and pharma companies,the odds are stacked against them: many of them come from Telugu-medium schools and are uncomfortable with English. They also have to compete not just with students from Andhra Pradesh,but from the rest of the country. One of their main grievances is that 80 per cent of government jobs in Telangana (nearly two lakh) have gone to people from Coastal Andhra or Rayalaseema. “The fear is that we will end up going back to villages with our degrees but continue to work in the fields or do odd jobs. All Telangana students feel that if they have their own state,things might change. And so they become politically active,’’ Rao says.

Osmania is one of the largest universities in the country,with over 3 lakh students in nearly 1,000 affiliated colleges. Around 15,000 students study at the main Hyderabad campus. There are hundreds of students from north India,Maharashtra,West Bengal,and other states. There are at least 650 foreign students from 46 countries pursuing post-graduate courses this year. All of this makes the university a multilingual and multicultural hub.

But since 2000,the profile of the campus has changed significantly. The majority of students,especially in the arts and commerce faculties,belong to Scheduled Caste,Scheduled Tribe and OBC communities — and they are the ones leading from the front. “Only the science faculty has a few students from educated and upper-class families. It is among the students from the socially and economically backward classes that passion for Telangana runs very high,’’ says P Ravi,a student of Telugu literature and member of TSJAC.

It is also,unsurprisingly,a campus divided: between Telangana students and those from other parts of the country. Especially because the agitation has affected studies and led to exams being postponed many times. “It does not concern them. So,they are not interested or bothered about the agitation. We understand their problem,’’ says leader of Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s youth wing M Suman,“but they should also respect our sentiments.” There is too much on the line to step back,the students say. “Everything is at stake for Telangana students,” says C Narasimha,a student.

For the moment,though,there is a fragile quiet on campus. The students are back in their hostels; classrooms are empty; the police wait outside tetchily. But there is no doubt that another face-off is not far away. “This generation knows that if we don’t make Telangana happen,our lives will remain the same — backward and poor. That is why we are willing to fight tooth and nail,’’ says Marri Vijay Kumar,an arts student.