What if Shiv Sena had sought a 'nativist policy'?

A BJP MLA K Lakshman one of hundreds of MLAs affiliated to the party and way down the pecking order makes a poorlyarticulated comment questioning Telangana CM Kalvakuntla Chandrasekar Raorsquos decision to appoint tennis star Sania Mirza as the lsquobrand ambassadorrsquo of the StateOur sanctimonious lsquonational mediarsquo oozing selfrighteous indignation seizes upon it to berate K Lakshman slander the BJP tar the Right and make it abundantly clear that therersquos a new Moral Brigade keeping watch on all and sundry The Leftliberal McCarthyists are hereFrankly for most of us it is irrelevant whom Kalvakuntla Chandrasekar Rao better known as lsquoKCRrsquo appoints as Telanganarsquos lsquobrand ambassadorrsquo or how much he pays the person for promoting the State at home and abroad Taxpayers living in Telangana are free to question the decision even contest it Itrsquos a story at best for the local media Therersquos nothing more to it than thatYet for the past 48 hours we have been subjected to a relentless barrage of cockamamie concern and thundering opinion on how K Lakshman who must be rattled by the fact that he made it to the front page of newspapers and primetime news has erred in questioning the credentials of Sania Mirza Lost in the din is the story of a school bus colliding with a train at an unmanned railway crossing in Telangana killing 25 childrenReal life issues for instance this terrible accident which demonstrates how casually we shrug off the loss of human lives neither grab eyeballs nor fetch ratings So they get ignored while we are treated to monkey chatter and bogus commentary on Sania Mirzarsquos credentialsStrangely or perhaps not the Virtuous Army of the Righteous that controls media has glossed over politically significant developments in Telangana issues that are of far greater consequence and national import than a Chief Ministerrsquos fascination for a tennis starWe havenrsquot heard a pip squeak from the commentariat on KCRrsquos appalling lsquonativist policyrsquo for students or his plan to introduce lsquocitizenship cardsrsquo for lsquocitizensrsquo of TelanganaNor has the commentariat ever so swift to pick on stray inanities rebuked his daughter Kavitha who represents Nizamabad in the Lok Sabha for her absurd assertion that ldquoTelangana was forcibly annexedrdquo by India and ldquoour troubles have started since thenrdquoA strange silence has been maintained on Kavitharsquos patently provocative statement calculated to recall and rekindle Hyderabadrsquos defiance But more on this later Since comment is free it would be perfectly legitimate to suggest that mediarsquos stunning silence on KCRrsquos proposed lsquonativist policyrsquo is at once criminal and collusiveThe policy seeks to deny taxfunded privileges to students who cannot prove that their families have been residents of Telangana since 1956 when the region was merged to form Andhra PradeshIn brief it is a cutoff based on the percepts of narrow parochialism The lsquoson of the soilrsquo policy deplorable as it is could never have been articulated in a more vile mannerTill now there has been no condemnation no demand that KCR abandon this ruinous path that segregates Indians from Indians What if the Shiv Sena had imposed such a cutoff year Would media have remained equally silent Why do we then rage against the Ranbir Code of Jammu amp KashmirOr call for ridding our system of restrictive domiciliary rules Had the Akali Dal proposed lsquocitizenship cardsrsquo for the lsquocitizensrsquo of Punjab or if the Khalistan movement were to be revived on the specious plea that Sikhs form a separate nation would media have bitten its tongueWhat Kavitha has said is no different from that She has asserted that ldquoTelangana was not part of India before 1947hellip It was a separate nationhellip we were forcibly annexedrdquoNo thatrsquos was not a stray comment It was said with a purpose and the purpose was indicated in what she had to say about JampK ldquoFew parts of Kashmir are not ours and we need to redraw international bordersrdquoThe significance of what she said was surely not lost on our Virtuous Army of the Righteous It couldnrsquot have been For evidence look at how the Pakistani media has taken notice of Kavitharsquos statementHyderabadrsquos inclusion in the Indian Union against the wishes of a devious Nizam and his ruthless razakars it would seem is not a settled issue Or else KCR wouldnrsquot want a lsquonativist policyrsquo and lsquocitizenship cardsrsquo for Telangana and his daughter wouldnrsquot be contesting the permanence of Hyderabadrsquos mergerThe writer is an NCRbased journalist His Twitter handle is KanchanGupta