Telangana Movement Revisited

Telangana Movement Revisited K Balagopal I AM neither a social scientist nor do I have the courage to describe myself a 'revolutionary socialist', in other words, I belong neither to the category in which Dhanagare (December 18, 1982) gallantly includes Barry Pavier (and gets an unpleasant rebuke in return) nor to the category in which Barry Pavier makes bold to include himself. If, nevertheless, I am chancing my arm in commenting upon Pavier's cavalier tract on Telan- gana ("The Telangana Movement, 1944-51") and his presumptous comments on Dhanagare's review of the book (March 5), that is out of a fear that nobody with better credentials is going to do so. The fear is prompted by the fact that Dhanagare, the acknowledged academic expert on Telangana, is so unsure of himself that he manages to render 'vetti' as bonded labour and suggests with an insufferable politeness that perhaps Pavier has not given enough importance to it in trying to understand Telangana. Such politeness, to paraphrase a historian of mathematics speaking of Spinoza, would be engaging were it not exasperating.