Fall of statues on Tank Bund

Statues on tank bund fell. Statues are of the ones, who were stalwarts, who were never petty or parochial nor had any viciousness of Seemandhra leadership. Never should we compare them with the crony capitalists and the Andhra ruling midgets. This destruction, in a way, slights their contribution; but these statues are caught up in the cross-fire between the indolent and intransigent state/central governments and the relentless Telanganites. These are destroyed out of anger against Andhra rulers rather than anger on them per se.

But I must also say that there is another side to it as well; more about flesh, blood and life of struggling Telangana people. A civilised world should be more worried about people than the statues.

The Andhra media is shouting hoarse describing the agitators as lumpen disturbing the order. It is similar to white right winger press crying hoarse when blacks revolted in America and South Africa.

Setting the illegality of the act aside and wishing that it would not happen again, let us look at the ones who installed them on the bund. By reading installers and their minds, we get the social construct and the deeper meaning behind the rise and fall of the statues. Let us look at it as social scientists and not as advocates of one cause or the other.

There is a social agenda in erecting them in Hyderabad. When British came to India they brought English language first. When laissez-faire (free market) enters in the name of reforms, coca cola heralds it. Europeans (Spanish) took their religious icons to subjugate after conquering Latin America.

Similarly, for cultural enslavement, Andhra elite have brought in these icons as cultural weaponry to dismiss our very own identity.

Tank bund was built by Hussain, a Sufi engineer 200 hundred years ago. NTR/TDP changed the very character of the region by wholesale importation of the Andhra culture, cultural and historical icons. Historically important Husain’s tank bund was defaced. This ‘period’ structure was distorted. It is an assault on native Hyderabadi and Telangana culture, as Shilparamam is an onslaught on NUMAISH and telangana cultural ethos. Victorious roman conquerors and British conquerors put their statues on the land of the vanquished in a similar way. Jagan wants to seal his grip on the people by YSR statues, like land mines are planted so that no one moves away from him. It is not about Krishna deveraya in that statue. He was great by himself. But there is also an Andhra social and political order in it. There is thought control in it. There is suzerainty and Andhra cultural hegemony in it. NTR’s carving out of the above statue in his own image tells it all, that it is symbolic of the Andhra ruling elite power over the natives.

By submerging it in Husain-sagar waters Telanganites have symbolically washed themselves of this. It is declaring their cultural independence and with their collective unconscious they have declared that they are a separate state and culture and they have nothing in common culturally with Andhra.

If one is non judgemental, in socio psychological perspective, this is the only explanation. Commoners of Andhra should understand the dynamics of statue installations and see the things through.

August Comte, father of sociology, says that society is an organism by itself and not sum total of individuals. On the day of million march the primal force of Telangana was expressed. It would be a blessing, if the social scientists of India study this phenomenon to understand the nation and guide in its policy and planning, instead of leaving the nation in the hands of blinkered bureaucrats and petty professional self seeking politicians.

PS: For better understanding of statues read Carl Jung’s books on symbolism, Books on semiotics and symbolism and also a classic Book fore worded by jean paul satre “ The colonizer and the colonized” written by Albert Memmi