Telangana’s gigantic movement
Formation of the Telangana Praja Samithi political party in 1969 intensified the movement
Published Date - 15 October 2022, 11:37 PM
Hyderabad: This article is in continuation to the last article focusing on the Jai Telangana Movement (1969-70), which is one of the important topics for the government recruitment examinations.
The Telangana Praja Samithi and other struggle committees went ahead with the agitation and observed ‘Struggle Day’ on April 15. There were police firings in Nizamabad and Mahabubnagar and street fights in many places in Hyderabad. The Telangana Non-Gazetted Employees started indefinite strike on the same day. After many twists and turns, internal bickering among leadership, the movement was temporarily withdrawn by the TPS president on November 27, 1969. The decision of Chenna Reddy was opposed by other leaders like Sadalaxmi and she expelled him and became the president of rival TPS.
After Chenna Reddy merged the TPS within the Congress party, another organisation called the ‘Sampurna Telangana Praja Samithi’ was formed. The prominent persons of the new body were Dr. M Sridhar Reddy, Eashwari Bai, T Purushothama Rao, Pratap Kishore, Santhapuri Raghuveera Rao and others. Although the Congress faced some dissension within its ranks, its leadership stood against additional linguistic States. As a result, defectors from the Congress, led by M Chenna Reddy, founded the Telangana Praja Samithi political party in 1969 which intensified the movement.
In June, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came to Hyderabad to discuss the issue with Telangana leaders. Telangana employee unions started strike on June 10 supporting the Telangana movement. Major leaders of the movement were jailed in July and released in August upon court’s intervention. With the success of by-elections, TPS became a full-fledged political party.
Due to Congress party’s refusal of formation of Telangana State, TPS decided to contest parliamentary election alone even though Congress party tried to become an electoral ally. In May 1971 parliamentary elections, Telangana Praja Samithi won 10 out the 14 Parliament seats in Telangana. Despite these electoral successes, some of the new party leaders gave up their agitation in September 1971 after realising that the Prime Minister was not inclined towards a separate State of Telangana, and rejoined the safer political haven of the Congress ranks.
The historic 1969 Telangana agitation for separate Statehood continued for a full one year. Schools and colleges were closed. They became hunger strike camps. Employees went on strike. Firings, lathi charge, teargas shells, and arrests became a routine matter. Government suppressed the information of all details of martyrs. All-India news bulletins and a few newspapers carried the details. They simply reported that one person was killed and several others were seriously injured. No follow-up news was available.
It was estimated that nearly 370 people were killed — but there were no names, no details. This state of affairs regarding 1969 martyrs continues till today. A memorial called Gun Park was built near Public Gardens, Hyderabad, to commemorate students who lost their lives in the struggles of 1969.
A total of 369 people died during this agitation; most of them were students and were killed in police firing. Jai Telangana agitation was a gigantic movement. It was mainly started by student community with pure heart and sacred intentions after having total comprehension of the situation around them in those times, the then existing discrimination, variation and violations of the Gentlemen’s Agreement.
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