COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Press Release: 5 December 2009
Separate state of Telangana is an inalienable right of the four crore people of Telangana! No force on earth can suppress the people’s democratic aspiration for separate Telangana! Let us wage a united militant mass struggle against the Congress fascist regime and the betrayers in various political garbs!
The 40 million people of Telangana region who comprise over 40% of the population of the state of Andhra Pradesh have stood up boldly and unequivocally for their long-cherished democratic demand for a separate state. The people of Telangana region not only suffer from discrimination and neglect by the state and central governments that serve the imperialists, comprador big business houses, and big landlords, but also from the oppression, exploitation and discrimination by the landlords, bourgeoisie and the neo-rich class hailing from the relatively developed Andhra region. Hence the democratic aspiration for a separate state has taken firm root in the minds of the neglected people of Telangana region.
The demand for separate Telangana was raised several times over the past few decades and had even assumed the form of a violent year-long agitation in the year 1969. But it was then brutally suppressed by the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi and betrayed by the Telanagana Praja Samiti led by Chenna Reddy. 400 people, most of them students, were killed by the fascist Congress regime in 1969 but it could not kill the democratic aspiration of the people of Telangana. Successive regimes of the Congress and TDP, which were captive to the pressures of the Andhra lobby, had opposed the demand tooth and nail. However, during the elections to the state Assembly in 2004 and again in 2009, the Congress, with an eye on the votes, promised that it would fulfill the demand for a separate state if it came to power.
But this comprador Party, known for its long history of betrayals of promises, went back on its promise of Telangana state and began to dilly-dally on the issue for over five years. The other major party of the big landlord big bourgeoisie classes of India, the BJP too, had promised Telangana state with the catchy slogan of ‘one vote—two states’ way back in the 1999 elections but betrayed the people after it came to power in the Centre. Today the opportunist parties such as the BJP and TDP, CPI and CPI(M), are claiming that they support Telangana only with the ulterior motive of gaining some mass base and convert it to their vote banks. Read the rest of this entry »