Parakala.org : Yesterday, Visalandhra Mahasabha (VMS) had organized a press conference in Hyderabad. Our prime objective was to appeal to everyone concerned not to use children and students as pawns in the ongoing political game.
The press conference was organized at the Hyderabad Press Club. We had sent only sms messages to the media persons. It was very heartening to see an impressive turnout of the press corps.
Our point in the press conference was very limited. We might have differing views on the future of the state of Andhra Pradesh. Some might be in favour of its division. And we, as everyone knows, are against the division. However, we said that we can have our differing opinions; we can carry on with our respective political agitations or struggles to realise our political objectives. But we could do that without making use of small children – the school going children – as pawns in our agitations. Our appeal to all the political parties, various JACs, not to obstruct the functioning of schools. We set out to appeal to the managements of schools, and teachers’ associations, parents and their associations not to allow anybody to obstrut the functioning of schools in order to press for one demand or the other. We also appealed to the government to ensure that school calendar was not disrupted.
The striking employees and workers of various state government departments and undertakings can get wages for the strike period. They don’t lose anything. But a day lost in the life of a student is lost forever. The child cannot get back that day of instruction. Students will be at a serious disadvantage in terms of their preparedness and ability to compete in the national entrance examinations to various professional courses.The agitators should keep this fact in mind.
Some people tried to disrupt our press conference. Some advocates, we were told that they were advocates, tried to barge into the premises of the Hyderabad Press Club. But fortunately the police was able to stop them from entering the compound.
Inside the Press Conference some reporters grew restless when Sri Narra Madhava Rao was speaking. Sri Madhava Rao is a 91 year old person. He was an active participant and leader of the Telangana peasant struggle against the Nizam and the dreaded Razakars. Hailing from Telangana, he is a staunch votary of the unity of the State. He was a close colleague of luminaries like Ravi Narayana Reddy, Madapati Hanumatha Rao, Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, Suravaram Pratapa Reddy and others who led the movement for liberation of the Telangana region form the oppressive rule of the Nizam. They all were staunch votaries of Visalandhra. Sri Madhava Rao is also the President of the State Freedom Fighters’ Association.
When one of us from the dais admonished the reporter who was interrupting Sri Madhava Rao, he seized the opportunity to divert the attention away from the main purpose of the meet and tried to create some confusion. Of course, saner elements among the journalists prevailed and the press meet went on and concluded smoothly.
Sri C Anjaneya Reddy presided over the meeting. Sarvasri Narra Madhava Rao, C Narasimha Rao, Nalamotu Chakravarthy, Kumar Chowdary Yadav, Kodicherla Venkataiah, Karimnagar Venkatesh, Dr. Syed Faheem, Sultan, Sunkara Venkateswara Rao, Chegondi Ramajogaiah participated. I made a brief intervention towards the end of the press conference.
Sri Subrahmanyam who is the secretary of the parents association has explained graphically the anguish of the parents whose children are losing their precious school days. He said the agitators did not obstruct cinema halls, and wine shops. But are against the functioning of the schools. He wondered whether the agitators had no objection to ‘Vinodam’ but seem to be against ‘Vigjnanam’.
There was one channel – T Channel – which described the press conference as ending in ‘rasaabhaasa’. The channel was more interested in showing the advocates who gathered outside the press conference venue to their viewers. That was their way of understanding journalism and their role as an agency to disseminate information. The credibility deficit that T Channel suffers from is well known.
We made our point effectively.
What we said yesterday was in sync with the entire community of parents and teachers across the state and especially from the Nizam region. Parents are expressing their contempt for the agitators for disrupting their children’s education.
We hope the agitators would understand that closing schools won’t take them closer to their objective. And not closing the schools won’t keep them away from their objective. There are more civilised forms they can choose to register their protest, or to press for their demand.
The most important outcome of yesterday’s press conference was that we were able to claim our democratic space to voice our opinion. The kind of atmosphere of intimidation that the agitators succeeded in creating in the capital of our state has to be seen and experienced to be believed. We the members of VMS were able to brave that, assemble at the press club and made our opinion known from a public platform.
We won’t look back. Nobody can take away our democratic right to express ourselves.
That was the essential victory of yesterday’s press conference.
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