Battleground Telangana: Chronicle of an Agitation – Book Review

Battleground Telangana: Chronicle of an Agitation by Kingshuk Nag, Resident editor of TOI Hyderabad, is an honest attempt to write Issue of Telangana as dispassionately as possible. At times he was very critical of Telangana movement and other places he was very appreciative of the fact that this agitation is genuine people movement.

Author starts with history of Andhra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He took lot of pain to explain Telugus history, “First freedom struggle of Telangana -1969” and economic reasons behind the Telangana cause - in the subsequent chapters, and then he enters contemporary history of Telangana where covers -ups and downs of TRS and “second freedom struggle”. Title”Chronicle of Agitation” bests suits for these few chapters as he did nothing but documenting the recent events in chronological order. As an editor of newpaper, certainly he must be privy to so much of off the record information. He should have spiced few chapters here with that insight. Though contemporary history he covered most dispassionately, he did not offer anything new to the reader who is well versant with recent incidents. As somebody said contemporary history is prone to criticism-everybody has his own version; Nag tried accommodating all view points with finesse.

No agitation or incident of historical importance can go without it being seen through caste prism. He labored a lot to explain the caste web of Andhra Pradesh. This chapter his close to my heart as he did splendid job to explain the caste politics of Andhra Pradesh  in no sense manner.  How Telangana when formed disturbs whole cast equations he meticulously explained.

This book did not go without its minor factual errors. As author claims this was proof read by editor from New Delhi, who was not conversant with politics of Andhra Pradesh, that editor deservers all accolades. There are some factual errors like YSR died on the way to village in Nellore in place of Chittor. Incident related to KCR arrest in Karimnagar were not documented to the details and accuracy.

Though, I appreciate the fact that this book revolves mostly around the issue of Telangana for all right reasons. However, he should have documented kind of leadership that this agitation has thrown from villages to towns to cities. He also failed to capture the kind Cultural Revolution that this agitation fathered and as a result innumerable songs that common people have written and how many cultural entities propped up across Telangana.

I suggest this book to all who want to know about Telangana movement and also for those non Telangana friends who naively asks on office dinner tables Why Telangana? .

P.S: I must thank FlipKart for delivering this book in less than 24 hours and my wife for letting me read the same in 5 hours uninterruptedly:)