VENKY'S blog - City states

2006-Aug-27

City states

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti's decision to quit the UPA over the Centre's refusal to agree to its demand for a Telangana state may not have much impact.

In the absence of a political consensus on the issue, the UPA government has preferred to go slow on the TRS demand for bifurcating Andhra Pradesh.

However, the demand for a Telangana state is legitimate. Smaller states lend themselves to better governance. One of the contentious issues that could come up if Andhra is divided will be the status of Hyderabad, the state capital.

There is a suggestion that Hyderabad should be made a Union territory and host the governments of Telangana and Andhra. There is the precedent of Chandigarh, which is a UT and the capital of Punjab and Haryana.

However, it is time to ask if we should burden metropolises like Hyderabad with administrative duties related to the provinces.

Cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai are state capitals but have long ceased to be merely provincial headquarters. They are home to a new globalising India.

These cities are incubators for new generation firms in IT, biotech and pharma and nurture a cosmopolitan labour force that has to keep up with global standards.

This new persona is often at odds with the provincial character of its ruling elite, a contradiction which has led to accusations that metros are promoted at the expense of the provinces. Bangalore and Hyderabad have suffered greatly because of this.

The way ahead is to liberate the metros from the provinces which can develop new capitals. Cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai should become UTs or adopt the Delhi model and constitute themselves as city states.

This obviously calls for a refiguration of our notion of states. Linguistic and ethnic identities have so far been the basis on which states were formed. That is no more the case.

When new identities shaped by economic forces and urbanisation are formed, old forms of linguistic and ethnic bonding may start to recede.

That apart, city states can act as catalysts for economic and social change. The new state capitals will in the long run evolve into metros and hopefully take the pressure off existing ones.

The US has successfully followed a similar model of state and city building.

Cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco have evolved as great urban centres without being capital cities of the provinces in which they are located.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...16,curpg-1.cms

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2006-Sep-18 - Hyderabad based munsif and sisast editors grab lands illegal

Posted by Anonymous

HYDERABAD BASED MUNSIF AND SIASAT URDU DAILY EDITORS GRAB WAQF LANDS
Urdu Media War and the Wakf properties tussle in Hyd ; MiM Leader Akbaruddin Owaisi
(Friday, Dec 09, 2005 - 09:00 pm) TeamMedia war among Urdu dailies was taken to Assembly in Hyderabad, when MIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi accused Siasat and Munsif Urdu daily owners of grabbing Wakf properties and demanded stern action against them.Mr Owaisi armed with statistics and details of all Waqf Lands which are being encroached upon said govt is going soft on these editors as they are trying to threaten the govt through there newspapers .In the same breath he also alleged that no action was taken against grabbers of Wakf properties in city and outside including Viceroy Hotel, Shaam and Sensation theatres, local reports inform. Turning his ire on owners of rival Urdu dailies, Siasat and Musif, he said, “Mr Zahid Ali Khan has illegally encroached Wakf property. He is a white collar land grabber. Why is the government keeping quite? You should put them behind bars.” Shifting his heat on another Urdu daily Munsif owner, he remarked, “Mr Khan Lateef Khan…the double Khan.. too has encroached Wakf properties housing Santosh and Sapna theatres, yet no action has been taken. The government should take stringent action against encroachers of Wakf properties,” he alleged. Reacting to Mr Owaisi’s demand, minister for minorities welfare Mohd Fareeduddin assured that the government would enquire into the matter and would not “spare anyone however big he might be.” Referring to allotment of land to one Tajuddin, he said the land was given on a lease for three years for agricultural purposes and the renewal would depend on the government He also accused them of trying to cover there illegal grabbing of land by bribing some high officals in the govt .

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2006-Sep-18 - Majlis ittehadul Muslimeen Party of Hyderabads History

Posted by Anonymous

pavan reddy on September 8th, 2006
DOWN BUT NOT OUT CAN BE SAID RIGHTLY
The grip of the Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen on the community remains strong, despite minor dents.
WITH A Member representing Hyderabad in the Lok Sabha, five members in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, 40 corporators in Hyderabad and 95-plus members elected to various municipal bodies in Andhra Pradesh, the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen is one of the foremost representatives of the city’s Muslims and the most powerful Muslim party in India and one can see the partys strenghth if it goes to Hyderabads Old city everywhere u look u can see MIM written on walls ,lightpoles and buildings leaving aside flags and posters of its Leadership. The Majlis has brought lot of development to the Old part of the city even after it is said it hasnt done anything by its opponents who are mostly Ex Majlis workers.
The Majlis was formed in 1927 “for educational and social uplift of Muslims”. But it articulated the position that “the ruler and throne (Nizam) are symbols of the political and cultural rights of the Muslim community… (and) this status must continue forever”.
The Majlis pitted itself against the Andhra Mahasabha and the communists who questioned the feudal order that sustained the Nizam’s rule. It also bitterly opposed the Arya Samaj, which gave social and cultural expression to the aspirations of the urban Hindu population in the Hyderabad State of those days.
By the mid-1940s, the Majlis had come to represent a remarkably aggressive and violent face of Muslim communal politics as it organised the razakars (volunteers) to defend the “independence” of this “Muslim” State from merger with the Indian Union.
According to historians, over 1,50,000 such `volunteers’ were organised by the Majlis for the Nizam State’s defence but they are remembered for unleashing unparalleled violence against Hindu populations, the communists and all those who opposed the Nizam’s “go it alone” policy. It is estimated that during the height of the razakar `agitation’, over 30,000 people had taken shelter in the Secunderabad cantonment alone to protect themselves from these `volunteers’.
But the razakars could do little against the Indian Army and did not even put up a fight. Kasim Rizvi, the Majlis leader, was imprisoned and the organisation banned in 1948. Rizvi was released in 1957 on the undertaking that he would leave for Pakistan in 48 hours. Before he left though, Rizvi met some of the erstwhile activists of the Majlis and passed on the presidentship to Abdul Wahed Owaisi, a famous lawyer and an Islamic scholar who also was jailed for nearly 10 months after he took over the Majlis leadership as the then govt wanted to abolish the Majlis party but Owaisi refused to do so and was seen as a person who had financially supported the party when it was a bankrupt and weak one after the Police Action in Hyderabad State.
Owaisi is credited with having “re-written” the Majlis constitution according to the provisions of the Indian Constitution and “the realities of Muslim minority in independent India”, according to a former journalist, Chander Srivastava. For the first decade-and-a-half after this “reinvention”, the Majlis remained, at best, a marginal player in Hyderabad politics and even though every election saw a rise in its vote share, it could not win more than one Assembly seat.
The 1970s saw an upswing in Majlis’ political fortunes. In 1969, it won back its party headquarters, Dar-us-Salaam — a sprawling 4.5-acre compound in the heart of the New City. It also won compensation which was used to set up an ITI on the premises and a women’s degree college in Nizamabad town. In 1976, Salahuddin Owaisi took over the presidentship of the Majlis after his father’s demise.
This started an important phase in the history of the Majlis as it continued expanding its educational institutions,Hospitals,Banks, including the first Muslim minority Engineering College and Medical College. Courses in MBA, MCA ,Nursing, Pharmacy and other professional degrees followed and now a daily newspaper known as Etemaad Daily. The 1970s were also a watershed in Majlis’ history as after a long period of 31 years, Hyderabad witnessed large-scale communal rioting in 1979. The Majlis came to the forefront in “defending” Muslim life and property Majlis workers could be seen at these moments defending the properties of Muslims in the wake of riots and these workers were very hard even for the police to control them even now it is a known fact that there are nearly about 3500 units of strong members who only act if there is a seirous threat to the Owaisi family and these members are under the direct orders of the Owaisi family which leads the Majlis party leaving aside thousands of workers and informers throughout the State and even outside the country far away till America and the Gulf countries.
Salahuddin Owaisi, also known as “Salar-e-Millat” (commander of the community), has repeatedly alleged in his speeches that the Indian state has “abandoned” the Muslims to their fate. Therefore, “Muslims should stand on their own feet, rather than look to the State for help'’, he argues.
This policy has been an unambiguous success in leveraging the Majlis today to its position of being practically the “sole spokesman” of the Muslims in Hyderabad and its environs.
Voting figures show this clearly. From 58,000 votes in the 1962 Lok Sabha elections for the Hyderabad seat, Majlis votes rose to 1,12,000 in 1980. The clear articulation of this “stand on one’s feet” policy in education and `protection’ during riots doubled its vote-share by 1984. Salahuddin Owaisi won the seat for the first time, polling 2.22 lakh votes. This vote-share doubled in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections to over four lakhs.
The Majlis has since continued its hold on the Hyderabad seat winning about five-and-a-half lakh votes each time.
Despite remarkable economic prosperity and negligible communal violence in the past decade, the hold of the Majlis on the Muslims of Hyderabad remains, despite minor dents. And despite widespread allegations of Majlis leaders having “made money”, most ordinary Muslims continue to support them because, as one bank executive put it “they represent our issues clearly and unambiguously'’. An old Historian Bakhtiyar khan says the Owaisi family was a rich family even before entering Politics and he says he had seen the late Majlis leader Abdul Wahed Owaisi in an American Buick car at a time when rarely cars were seen on Hyderabad Roads and the family had strong relations with the ersthwhile Nizams of Hyderabad and the Paighs even now the family is considered to be one of the richest familes in Hyderabad.
A university teacher says that the Majlis helped Muslims live with dignity and security at a time when they were under attack and even took the fear out of them after the Police action and adds that he has seen Majlis leaders in the front at times confronting with the Police and the Govt.
Asaduddin Owaisi, the articulate UK educated barrister son of Salahuddin Owaisi and Former leader of the Majlis’ Legislature party and now an MP himself who has travelled across the globe meeting world leaders and organizatons and even in war zones compares the Majlis to the Black Power movement of America.
The Majlis that emerged after 1957 is a completely different entity from its pre-independence edition, he says adding that comparisons with that bloody past are “misleading and mischievous”. “That Majlis was fighting for state power, while we have no such ambitions or illusions”.
He stoutly defends the need for “an independent political voice” for the minorities, which is willing to defend them and project their issues “firmly”.
“How can an independent articulation of minority interests and aspirations be termed communal,” he asks and contests any definition of democracy which questions the loyalty of minorities if they assert their independent political identity. “We are a threat not only to the BJP and Hindu communalism, but also to Muslim extremism,” Asaduddin claims. “By providing a legitimate political vent for Muslims to voice their aspirations and fears, we are preventing the rise of political extremism and religious obscurantism when the community is under unprecedented attack from Hindu communalists and the state'’. He can be seen in his speeches speaking against terrorism in the Country and says if the time arises Majlis will stand side by side in defending the Nation

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2006-Sep-18 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Anonymous

HYDERABAD LOK SABHA MP ASADUDDIN OWAISI IS THE FIRST INDIAN DIPLOMAT TO VISIT LEBANON AFTER THE WAR ACCORDING TO THE ETEMAAD URDU DAILY MR ASADUDDIN IS ON A PRIVATE VISIT TO LEBANON AND SYRIA AND NOT REPRESENTING THE UPA GOVERNMENT OVER THERE IT IS SAID TO BE A GOODWILL VISIT AND TO SHOW SUPPORT OF INDIAN MUSLIMS IN THE WAKE OF DEATH AND MASSIVE DESTRUCTION OVER THERE ACCORDING TO THE REPORTS MR OWAISI FLEW FROM DELHI TO DAMASCUAS CAPITAL OF SYRIA AND WAS WELCOMED ON HIS ARRIVAL THERE BY INDIAN EMBASSY STAFF AND WHILE HIS STAY IN DAMASACUS FOR 3 DAYS HE VISITED HISTORIC AND ISLAMIC HOLY SHRINES AND EVEN VISITED THE GRAND UMMAYD MOSQUE AND AFTER THAT HE WENT TO BEIRUT BY ROAD AND WHILE HIS STAY HE ALONG WITH HEZBOLLAH MPS VISITED THE SOUTHEREN PART OF BEIRUT CITY WHICH WAS THE MOST BOMBED AREA IN BEIRUT WHICH WAS REPETADELY STUCK BY ISRAELI WARPLANES AND FROM THERE HE ALONG WITH VARIOUS OTHER SOCIAL AND AID ACTVISTS HE WENT TO QANA AND VISITED THE PLACE WHERE A BUILDING WAS COLLAPSED AFTER A ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE IN WHICH 57 CIVILLANNS WERE KILLED AND MR OWAISI HAS EVEN VISITED THE PORT CITY OF TYRE AN MET ITS MAYOR MR ALI MUSHARRAF .THE CITY WHICH WAS DESERTED AT THE TIME OF WAR AND BINT JEBIL AN AREA IN SOUTHERN LEBANON WHICH WAS THE MAIN BATTLEFRONT BETWEEN HEZBOLLAH FIGHTERS AND ISRAELI ARMY AND IS SAID THAT THE WHOLE VILLAGES IN THAT AREA HAVE BEEN DEVASTED BY THE FIGHTING WHICH LASTED FOR 34 DAYS AND ON HIS VISIT TO BEIRUT THE HYDERABAD MP GAVE AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW TO THE HEZBOLLAH RUN TV AL MANAR AND IS SAID THAT HE HAS CAME TO LEBANON TO SHOW HIS SOLADIRTY WITH THE LEBANESE PEOPLE AND HE SAID HOW TH INDIAN GOVT HAS CONDMENNED THE WAR IN LEBANON AND THE GOVT OF INDIA HAS ANNOUNCED HUMANITARIAN AID WORTH 10 MILLION DOLLARS TO THE LEBANESE PEOPLE HE MET WITH MANY CIVILLANS AND OLD AGE WOMEN WHOSE SONS WERE KILLED WHILE FIGHTING THE ISRAELI ARMY MR OWAISI WILL STAY IN LEBANON AND MEET LEBABNESE MPS AND EVEN WILL VISIT INDIAN EMBASSY IN BEIRUT AND MEET INDIAN EMBASSY STAFF AND AMBASSADOR . REPORTS SUGGEST THAT HE EVEN MET HEZBOLLAH LEADERS WHILE HIS STAY IN BEIRUT.HE MET HEZBOLLAH SOUTHERN COMMANDER HASAN HUBULLAH AND HEZBOLLAH CHAIRMAN FOR ECONOMIC AND RESARCH DEVELOPMENT DR ALI FAYYAD AND WHILE COMING OUT OF LEBANESE PARLIAMENT AFTER MEETING LEBANESE PARLIAMENT SPEAKER NABIL BERRI THE HYDERABAD MP SPEAKING TO REPORTERS SAID THAT PEACE CANNOT BE ACHIEVED IN THE REGION UNLESS ISRAEL WITHDRAWS FROM ALL OCCUPIED LANDS HE CRITCIZED THE ISRAELI AGGRESSION AND SAID WHAT ISRAEL HAS DONE BY KILLING INNOCENT CIVILLANS AND DAMAGING LEBANONS INFRASTRUCTURE IS A ACT OF STATE TERRORISM. AND THIS WILL NOT DESTROY THE WILL OF THE LEBANESE PEOPLE FIGHTING AGAINST OCCUPATION OF THERE LAND .HE SAID THE WEST WHICH PREACHES DEMOCRACY IN THE REGION IS ITSELF AGAINST THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVT OF HAMAS IN PALESTINE AND HE SAID IT IS NOT ONLY LEBANON WHICH HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY TERRORISM INDIA IS ALSO A VICTIM OF TERRORISM.

posted by deccannews at Tuesday, August 29, 2006

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