Separatist who burnt himself to death for 29th Indian state
This gruesome poster shows an IT student burning to death after setting himself alight at his university in the central region of Telangana, which he believed should be autonomous from Andhra Pradesh (AP), the state in which it lies. The young martyr is not the only one from the disaffected area, where more than 200 people are thought to have committed suicide in a desperate plea for autonomy.
Twenty-three-year-old K. Venugopal Reddy, who was in his final year of his master of computer applications degree at Osmania University, Hyderabad, doused himself in petrol and set himself alight on 20 January 2010. A note found nearby his charred body demanded the immediate amputation of Telangana from AP, India's largest state.
According to Telangana independence activists like Reddy, the province remains an underdog in the area, deprived of water and public service jobs. Telangana is generally considered the most backward of the state's three provinces. It is home to one third of AP's 80 million residents. While regional Telangana political parties have been lobbying the central and state governments for a separate Telangana state since the 1950s, the movement has only become violent in the past six months.
It's believed that in that time, between 100 and 200 people — most of them young — have committed suicide for the cause. The suicides come as part of wider unrest, which has seencontinued clashes between activist university students and the police in Hyderabad, the local capital and flashpoint of the Telangana state crusade.
Telangana is not the only state fighting for autonomy in India. Neighbouring Greater Rayalaseema also wants to count itself out of AP, and in the north of the country, the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha movement is fighting to create another separate state called Ghorkaland, while in Pakistani-bordering Jammu and Kashmir, fierce campaigns to leave India altogether have been raging for decades.
The central powers fear that giving autonomy to one state could create a domino effect across the country.
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