Who are Telanganites? ==== By Gautam Pingle

Naturally, every settler will work harder than the locals and try and achieve all the ambitions which he could not in his own land. No one leaves his native land unless he has faced insuperable difficulties, or has ambitions which cannot be fulfilled there

Telangana and Telanganites have been affected and transformed by the 400-year-old Muslim rule that succeeded the Hindu Kakatiya kingdom of Warangal. The borders of Nizam’s Hyderabad State contained other populations whose native language was Marathi, Kannada, Telugu or Urdu. The Telangana people were ruled by a dynasty that claimed lineage from not only outside the State but also outside the country.

That the State of Hyderabad managed to exist and flourish for 400 years with this combination of subjects and rulers is something to ponder over and draw lessons from for the present and future conduct of our affairs.

Not much is known about the demography of Hyderabad City till the Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 published figures of the population of City and State.

Even in a hundred years, the balance between Hindus and Muslims did not change very much though proportionally other communities increased dramatically. Manzoor Alam and Waheeduddin Khan, in “Metropolitan Hyderabad and its Region”, estimate that between 1951 and 61, 126,000 to 177,000 Muslims migrated to Pakistan (p.286).

The same period saw an equal increase of migrant coming into Hyderabad (p.67) as under:Of the immigrants, Hindus constituted 81% and Muslims 18.9%. This predominantly Hindu immigration and the mass emigration of Muslims resulted in the Muslim proportion in Hyderabad falling from 44% in 1951 to 36% in 1961.

But there was little migration from the rest of Andhra Pradesh and nearly 44% came from Telangana itself. In fact, the numbers from other Indian States was much larger than those from Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema combined. This regional migration was small despite their capital being shifted to Hyderabad in 1956, and showed no evidence of Andhra entrepreneurship or interest in “developing” Hyderabad.

Figures are also available for later periods but these include all migrants whether from within the region, State or country

Thus, by 2001 there were 6.8 lakh migrants into the Hyderabad Urban Authority. The Sri Krishna Committee Report (SKC) indicated, using the same Census 2001 data, that only about 533,198 (7.2%) out of a total of 7.4 million living in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy were born in the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema (p. 327).

This decries the theory that there has been mass migration to Telangana and Hyderabad from Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. Most of the migrants to Hyderabad seem to come from outside the State.

This is substantiated by NSSO data for 1999-2000; there were 11.07 lakh persons who migrated to Andhra Pradesh while another 11.59 lakh migrated out of the State. NSSO says: “The migration into Andhra Pradesh is from the States of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh and it is to districts like Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Medak, Visakhapatnam, etc”.

(http://www.prlog.org/10693100-aide-et-action-south-asia-launches-indias-largest-mapping-exercise-of-migrant-population-in-ap.html). Except for Visakhapatnam most migration seems to be to Telangana

The idea of a Telugu linguistic State naturally had its limitations, especially in Telangana. The 1991 Census data (add about 40% to estimate the 2011 figures) indicates that there were large linguistic groups in the Telangana districts:

It will be seen that in Telangana there are 31 lakh Urdu speakers (12% of the total population) concentrated in Hyderabad district (39% of the total) but spread across all the other Telangana districts. Another 16 lakh Hindi speakers (6% of the total) are also spread more or less evenly across the Telangana districts.

Thus for 18% of the total population of Telangana, Telugu is not their mother tongue – yet they all live in peace and prosper with the rest of the population. This migration seems to continue without any protest from the locals.

The data above indicates the liberal and easygoing attitude of Telengana people to migrants from other cultures and their tolerance for them in large numbers in every Telangana district despite the fact that they are not born Telugu speakers.

Naturally every settler will work harder than the locals and try and achieve all the ambitions which he could not in his own land. No one leaves his native land unless he has faced insuperable difficulties, or has ambitions which cannot be fulfilled there.

At the same time, the energy and ambition of migrants, whether in Telangana, Mumbai, Delhi or the UK or USA does result in a higher level of achievement than the local population given the same opportunities as the rest.

The special problem of Andhra migrants in Telangana is, first that despite their linguistic similarity, the common language divides more than unites due to dialect differences! The second factor seems to be the ability and willingness of the Andhra settlers to manipulate the State Government machinery to secure assets and jobs for which they are not legally entitled.

They are also seen to manifest a cultural arrogance towards their host population and, fourthly, that they assert that the State Government is “their” government rather than “our” government.

This is not an attitude Telangana people face from the other Urdu, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, or Tamil-speaking residents of Telangana. The contrast makes for conflict with the Andhra settlers. This conflict will only end with the formation of Telangana State - for after that all who live and work harmoniously with the natives will be Telanganites.

Source: The Hans India English News paper