<nettime> Hyderabad Blues (fwd)

["nettime's_anonymizer" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

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Hyderabad Blues/State of Killing


This is a story of a capital city in the south Indian state called Andhra
Pradesh. The city with its head who fondly calls himself the CEO of Andhra
Pradesh Inc. (his name is Chandrababu Naidu, who is the chief minister of
the state). The city has been reeling under euphoria for past two years,
with IT being given undue importance by the government. Lands were given
virtually free for MNCs to come here and set up their units, who basically
looked only at the cheap manpower.

The president of US also visited this city which has been called the
High-Tech city of India. All the things looked rosy until the last week.
Last Monday, Hyderabad a.k.a. Cyberabad (the name which our CM is very
happy to called) started receiving heavy rainfall. This started pointing
out the lacunae of the city. With three days of continuos rains, the city
was flooded with water.

There are three major canals in the city which carry the water, both fresh
as well as drain as well as industrial wastes water, from one corner of the
city to another. All these end up finally in a lake called Hussain Sagar
which is in the centre of the city. This is also major tourist attraction.
It has the world huge statue of Buddha in centre of the lake. With the
water flowing in from all directions the lake started over flowing. To
control the situation, the government authorities without announcing any
warning, in the midnight, opened the doors of the lake. This resulted in
major outflow of the water and entered into the 40 residential colonies on
the lower of the lake. Roads were torn apart, the gutters opened, houses
washed away. It is mostly the lower middle class and slums areas that were
affected. Nearly 130 people were killed in the floods.

The reason for all this havoc and 1000s of people becoming homeless is the
government policies. In the name of beautifying the government built a six
km road on the side of the main lake. This is called Necklaces road. Prior
to the construction of the road there was space for the back waters of the
lake to rest in the space. There were trees which was sucking the water and
helping to maintain the water level in the lake. These beautifying as not
stopped with the lake alone, all the canal were shortened by allowing
people to encroach upon the area. All these were done under the instruction
of the government. This made the water go helter skelter entering the
residential areas. Apart from the lake water entering the 40 residential
colonies, the canal water entered into other colonies across the city. This
lead to another 100 colonies being submerged into the rain water.

While the water havoc continues in the city, we have another major incident
that was brewing up for the past five months. The state attracted the
attention world bank by lengthy promises. They got laons from the world
bank. This was given, obviously, under some conditions. One of them being
the hike in domestic and industrial electric power tariff. The world bank
has asked the government to hike the tariff every year. So forced to do
this, the state government drastically hiked the tariff, thereby forcing
people to revolt.

Right from the day one people with the help of opposition parties were
protesting. Each time they protested the police was put into action and
lathi charges were made (canes were used to disburse the mob). As if this
wasn't enough, they started using the water canons. The women and children
were also not spared. This happened all across the state including the
capital ('most happening city') Hyderabad.

Yesterday ie August 28, the opposition parties led by Congress, Communists
led a rally and demonstration in the capital.They were given permission to
do so by the police themselves. Even as the rally was proceeding till
concerned destination, the police put barricades much before the permitted
area. This raged up anger among protesters. They demanded the police to
allow till the place that was originally agreed upon. In process the
demonstrators started breaking the barricades and going further. To stop
this, the police started using lathi charge and water canons again. But
the mob was very stringent. They didn't heed for all these. Then came the
tear gas... no even this didn't work out. Without any kind of warning or
instructions the police opened fire on the mob. This resulting in death of
four people (official record says two only). The police while doing lathi
charge are supposed to hit only on the legs, but they directly banged on
the heads of the demonstrators. These policemen were chasing people on
horsebacks and hitting them violently. One incident that has taken the
city by shock is the death of young man. He was in the demonstration
rally. After the mob stopped at the barricades, this man pushed himself
into the front and shouted at the police: "If you don't allow us, then
come ahead and kill me... shoot me." He tore his shirt and exhibited his
bare chest to the police. The ruthless police never minded anything and
directly hit the bullet on his chest. He died on the spot. There is an
historical comparison for this incident. The state freedom fighter named
Andhra Kesari (Andhra's Tiger) once showed his chest to the British rulers
and asked to shoot if you can. But the unindependent India had better
policemen in the form of Britishers. They didn't shoot but they caught
hold of the Tiger and arrested him. On the other hand the independent
India has shown that the police are not human. The government version is
that the mob provoked the police to act violently and there was no go
except to attack them (sic). Women were violently bashed up... but the mob
too gave its piece to police they attacked them with stones and bashed up
few of the policemen. But the policemen were all set to take revenge on
the protesters. Some of them dressed in mufti attacked the MLA quarters
(MLA means Members Of Legislative Assembly: elected by people), this
quarters houses all the parties' MLAs. They attacked the quarters and
bashed up few opposition MLAs. If this the fate of representatives, you
could imagine the fate of commonmen. Today: August29, the opposition has
called for state-wide bandh (non-working day) and it has got immense
response. But the saga continues. The flood victims are still come out the
shock of water while the police gave them another treatment. The city is
in big chaos and confusion... But the CEO dreams of replicating Silicon
Valley here. It can never happen... first he has to look at the basic
necessities. Stop dreaming Mr. CEO and come out your virtual world. Face
the facts and be more practical... if you can't walk out power...!!!


TITBIT: Even as all these are happening in the city. Four member gang
attacked the house of a businessman killed him and raped his two daughter
aged 15 and 11, killed them as well before leaving!

The reason: the business man lend some money to two members from the gang.
He was demanding the money back. But they were unable to repay him. So
unable to tolerate his pestering... they decided to meet him directly. The
four went to his house two days ago, at the night, they explained the
situation. But the businessman continued to demand and started shouting at
these people. He even kicked them continuously. Unable to tolerate the
humiliation they stabbed him to death, stabbed his wife as well (she is
alive), raped the two daughters and killed them. Great going for the
city.... Godot Save Us!




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