Protests, agitations and activism were nothing new to the students of Osmania University. Babu Rao Verma, a former student of OU, says: “We would lock up the Arts College building if we planned a big protest. Processions used to be taken out from the B Hostel. The police never raised their lathis or beat us up.”
But that was before Independence.
A few miles away in the heart of the city near the Assembly building is a granite installation sculpted by Aekka Yadagiri Rao that is topped by a white lily carved out of marble. At the base of the sculpture are nine chiselled holes. “The nine holes represent the nine districts from where activists and students were gunned down. They are on all the four sides as there were 360 Telangana activists who were killed,” says Yadagiri Rao, who executed the sculpture as a mark of tribute to the Telangana martyrs of 1969 agitation.
Full-fledged movement
An agitation that began as a protest against violation of safeguards on appointment of Mulkis (locals) in administration and academia grew into a full-fledged movement for separate statehood. The simmering feeling of disenchantment with the discrimination burst into open on January 15, 1969 with a call for bandh.
The call for the strike was given by the governing council of Osmania Students’ Union and students trooped out of their hostels and classrooms and assembled at OU raising slogans. They were joined by students of 19 other colleges and they marched to the Nizam College.
On January 24, the situation took a turn for the worse when a mob attacked the Sadashivpet SI’s residence. Seventeen were hurt in police firing. Police resorted to firing as the mobs remained uncontrollable.
On January 29, the Army was called out as trouble escalated in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Warangal, Guntur, Vizag, Khammam, Kothegudem and other areas.
Inside the varsity, students made a bonfire of books of a few students of the OU Engineering College.
Adding fuel to the fire, on February 3, Justice Chinnappa Reddy struck down Mulki rules. A day later, Chief Justice P. Jaganmohan Reddy and Justice A. Sambasivarao stayed the single-judge order after the government went in to appeal.
Protests continued
But the protests continued with a desperate administration resorting to frequent police firing. Students and activists were gunned down in different locations – Gajwel, Dhoolpet, Gowliguda, Kodangal, Cherial, Jadcherla, Kothegudem and other places in Telangana.
But nothing came out of the sacrifice of about 360 young men and women in 1969. A few generations later, it required another batch of young men and women from Osmania University to lead the region to statehood and a new dawn of hope.
