From: vprasad@uoft02.utoledo.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.indian.telugu
Subject: Re: On the birth of Andhra Pradesh (was Re: I HATE TAMILS)
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:46:41 EST
Organization: University of Toledo, Computer Services

In article <9208240523.AA10404@ha06.eng.ua.edu>, bkannan@ha06.eng.ua.edu
(Balaji Kannan) writes:
> vprasad@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:
>>    Sorry if I offended your feelings Balaji. I have no intention of doing
>>    anything about Madras on part of Andhra Pradesh. As I have written in
>
>            Hey, Raveena Tandon still has an eye on Madras. Maybe you
>            should convince him. I'm afraid he might be upto something
>            already. :-)

	I'd rather have Seetamraju speak up for himself, than to assume that 
	I am qualified to speak for others.

>            The Telugu people, like most other minorities today, have
							  ~~~~~~  ~~~~~
>            energised the economy of the adopted land/city. Should it make
>            them any less prouder that they are not doing this to the land
>            of their origin. I feel the same of all Indians settled here.
>            [That rather echoes Abid Hussain's speech at the University here]

	I tried to make my point clearer, but it seems you missed it again.
	Let me repeat it one more time. I AM NOT SPEAKING ABOUT THOSE TELUGUS 
	WHO SETTLED IN MADRAS *TODAY*. [Since you are using the words "today"
	and "have" (present tense), I assume that you are (speaking about
	present Telugu settlers of Madras).] But yes I am, about Telugus who 
	did settle in Madras *in the early 50's*. During that period,

	1) I assumed that Telugus were a majority in the city of Madras.
		[This was shown to be false, thanks to Gopal and Sreenivas Rao]
	2) IF AND ONLY IF (1) was true, then Madras should have gone to Andhra
	   Pradesh, by the logic of linguistic division.

	Since (1) was shown to be false, I withdrew my statement. If you care
	to notice, even in my original statement, I made it clear that I don't
	know if (1) was true and requested correction from those who know 
	more. I wasn't even born at that time and considering that very little
	information of that era was properly documented, I had to rely on
	whatever info. I gathered from my grandpa (and who had no reason to
	lie to me). Remember, you yourself admitted in another post that the
	discrimination of Telugus in erstwhile Madras presidency was *news* 
	to you.

	Secondly, no, I never advocated any Jihad to wrest Madras back from 
	TN (which is what you are implicitly accusing me of). I am not even
	trying to incite any hatred towards Tamils; rest assured, that was
	never my intention. If anybody does propose anything of that sort in
	the future, I shall oppose it tooth and nail. Nobody here is even
	remotely trying to reset the historical clock. No one is blaming the
	present Tamilians for the mistakes of a *few politicians* of a bygone
	generation. 
                    
	[I don't know if this counts towards proving my goodwill towards 
	Tamilians, but I have lived in Madras for 4 years myself. In USA, in 
	the past 3 years, I had so far *9* Tamilians, *1* Telugu and *1* 
	Kannadigar as roommates. And, *all* my present roomies are Tamilians, 
	all from Madras, with whom I have excellent friendship. It pains me 
	very deeply to be accused of harboring hatred towards Tamilians.]

	If you ask why should Telugus ever take any interest in Madras, then
	remember that Telugus of that generation, irrespective of whether they 
	lived within the boundaries of present day TN or AP, have *heavily* 
	invested in the city of Madras. {I have provided one example already
	- that of cine-industry.} So, you can see that they have quite a big 
	stake in the eventual border demarcations.

>            Indians, despite all the interstate movements, woefully lag
>            behind when it comes to looking beyond their own cultural/
>	     linguistic backgrounds, while at the same time, paying lipservice 
>	     to the one-nation theory. This doesn't portend well for a nation 
>	     that by and large wants to stick together despite the occasional 
>            flare-ups.

	You seem to think that Telugus demanded a separate state, *just for
	the sake of asserting our Teluguness*, judging by the above statements.
	[What else would have prompted you to comment "looking beyond their 
	own cultural or linguistic backgrounds"?] Which is exactly what we 
	are taking so much effort to negate and disprove.

	You glibly dismiss the feeling of Telugus "if they feel discriminated,
	they should seek redress from the govt./whatever" (paraphrase), which
	shows a severe lack of understanding of the discrimination that was
	perpetrated on our folks at that time. Don't you consider experiences
	of our relatives (which Sreenivasa Rao and I posted on this bboard
	previously) authentic enough? Or do you think that those are quite
	exceptional cases and should not be generalised? Can you give us a
	satisfactory explanation for the fact that at that time, there was
	only *one* engineering college in the entire coastal Andhra?

>            ups. [The problem in Yugoslovia *today* is characterized as a
>            massive land-grab operation. The parallel is too striking to be
>            ignored here. The Serbs-Croats-Bosnians have so much in common
>            to be fighting over which strain they belong to and what language
>            they speak and "how much of this pie should I eat" as our friend

	I resent your drawing parallel between separate-andhra movement and
	the Yugoslav situation of today. In case you do not know, our struggle
	for a separate state was *always* peaceful and non-violent, in the
	*true* Gandhian fashion (peaceful Satyagrahas, hunger strikes etc.)
	Never in the blood hungry fashion and with so much carnage as in YugoS.
	[Well, except for the very brief riots that ensued after the death of 
	"amarajeevi" Potti Sriramulu (May God bless his soul). Which is akin
	to LA riots; while the action itself is condemnable, the circumstances,
	the anger, the immense sense of alienation and loss which drove these 
	people to riot are quite understandable. The govt. of Nehru dithered 
	on this issue, while Potti was fasting, no food for *50+ days*, and 
	which ultimately cost him his life.]

	Second, Serbs-Croats-Bosnians are agitating to form separate political
	entities (countries) and want to have nothing to do with each other.
	Contrast it with our wish to be a only a separate state, but still
	remain in the same country and never advocating secession. Heck, ever
	since the formation of separate states, AP and TN have had excellent
	relations with each other, as you yourself put it. I see no reason
	why such a feeling should immediately evaporate to form a Balkan-like
	situation, when all is being asked for is a proper examination of the
	*facts* of that era. We are providing our side of the story; if you
	have info. to the contrary of any of our claims, please share it with 
	us. You will be more than welcome. You have just made a fundamental 
	mistake in logic - that of, "superficial similarities *never* make an 
	exact parallel". 

>>    Hope that helps clarify some of my intentions and apologies to you and
> 
>            You shame me.

	Now what was that insult for? If you must insist on getting personal
	and calling me names, I am afraid that I cannot continue this debate
	with you. Hopefully, you will retract this.

        Siva Prasad                             vprasad@uoft02.utoledo.edu

	P.S: We have started receiving soc.culture.indian.telugu at Toledo,
	from today onwards. I have included even SCIT in the followup, since
	after all, we are discussing the formation of AP.