“Around 100 police officials arrived at our college that Friday. This hadn’t happened before. The entire atmosphere changed in an instant and left us feeling uneasy. A few hours later, we were asked to head back home,” said 21-year-old Raghu*, a mechanical engineering student from VR Siddhartha Engineering College in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada.
Raghu was recounting the events that took place nine days ago. Krishna district police officials descended on the college campus on September 15 to clamp down on protests organised by members of the Telugu Nadu Students Federation (TNSF), the student wing of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). The previous day, around 400 students from the college had decided to participate in a programme titled ‘We are with CBN’ – short for former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu.
Raghu told TNM that after their arrival, officials met with the college administration, checked the phones of several students to sift out ‘suspicious activity’. A circular was also released by the college administration with a diktat, “Students are advised to go home immediately and not to participate in any type of rasta roko, processions, rallies, dharnas, riots etc.”
A series of pro-TDP protests have broken out across Andhra since September 9, the day Chandrababu Naidu was arrested by Andhra Crime Investigation Department (CID). Following his arrest, visuals of Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh demanding officials to permit him to see his father, TDP leaders expressing outrage, and students aligned with the TDP taking to the streets and blocking traffic emerged across several news channels.
Naidu was arrested by the AP CID for his alleged involvement in the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) scam. The AP CID and the ruling YSRCP led by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy have alleged that the former CM was involved in a multi-crore scam which panned out during the TDP regime, where the government hastily paid Rs 371 crore in five tranches over the course of just three months. Supporters of TDP allege that Naidu’s arrest is political vendetta by CM Jagan.
Clampdown on protests
While there have been several small-scale protests against the ruling establishment, in favour of Naidu, they have, however, been clamped down by the AP police at every turn.
The engineering students of Prasad V Potluri (PVP) Siddhartha Institute of Technology and its sister college, Velagapudi Ramakrishna (VR) Siddhartha Engineering College, both a stone’s throw from each other, were planning a dharna. A poster with the phrase ‘We are with CBN’ was circulated by the TNSF to mobilise students. The poster surfaced on an Instagram page, Siddhartha Telugu Yuvatha, which has several posts favouring the TDP.
Students claim that the protest was suppressed even before it materialised. Speaking to TNM, Krishna district Superintendent of Police P Joshua said that they were aware of such protests taking place in general, as they have a nigah (oversight) on “anti-social elements”.
“It isn’t just students who end up in student protests. Anti-social elements who could trigger caste and communal violence, destroy public property, stop ambulances, and attack women may also join, so curbing such protests is essential,” he said.
Read: Chandrababu Naidu arrested in corruption case: What is the skill development scam?
Dakshit, a 19-year-old TDP member and a student of PVP Siddhartha college, said that the fear of a police case, a general mood of surveillance, and social resistance to student involvement in politics has ensured that students slowly backed away from voicing support for Naidu.
He also said that he was warned by his college staff members not to participate in any political gatherings. “I wasn’t going to listen. My understanding of politics started when I was a lot younger,” he said. Dakshit went on to recount how at the age of 11, he broke his piggy bank to contribute money to Naidu’s campaign, when the TDP chief vowed to ensure that Amaravati was made the capital of the newly formed, and now much smaller, Andhra Pradesh.
Engineering students across several districts, few of whom were not from Naidu's caste, echoed sentiments similar to Dakshit’s.
A fourth year BTech student studying at Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management (GITAM) in Visakhapatnam discussed why he was protesting for Naidu despite being from the Reddy community. “Several members of my family voted for the YSRCP,” said the student who requested anonymity. “But after Jagan came to power, many people were refused access to the Jaganna Ammavodi (a welfare scheme granting Rs 13,000 to encourage parents to send children to school) for petty reasons. Jobs have taken a hit. Opposite my university, there are several IT companies that I hope to work with one day. They were all set up by Naidu. So I shifted allegiances,” he said.
He said that when around 400 students at the university tried to take part in protests, more than 100 police officials cordoned off the college to stop them.
Anand*, a GITAM student from the Kapu community, added that police officials pushed students to a side and when they deemed someone suspicious, checked their call logs.
Student leaders of the TNSF had similar stories to share. Marukurthy Teja, TNSF Kakinada president, said that the district police picked up three former MLAs of the TDP and preventively detained them when they attempted to protest. The TNSF Vizag president S Ratankanth said that over 15 students were detained for protesting.
“Police officials have the right to take protesters into preventive custody if they pose a threat to society,” Krishna district SP Joshua explained. When asked if police officials threatened engineering students against protesting for the TDP chief, Joshua denied it, calling it an unfair accusation.
Defending the police action, YSRCP national spokesperson Ravi Chandra Reddy said that his party welcomed student opposition but not if it was orchestrated. “If TDP and Kamma groups instigate students to participate in protests, there is no reason why the police shouldn’t respond. They have serious law and order considerations to consider and as such have to resort to detention sometimes,” he said.
In the most recent instance, a small protest was held at Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati. The university, where Chandrababu Naidu obtained his Master’s in Economics in 1972, witnessed students protesting on Thursday, September 21.
Ironically, Naidu himself didn't favour student politics immensely. "After he became the chief minister of united Andhra in mid 90s, he banned student elections in universities and colleges in part owing to the rise of left wing extremism," explains Chigurupati Ramachandraiah, a political analyst and retired professor of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS).
How caste dominates the discourse and its protests
Protests across Andhra Pradesh also have the underpinning of caste and a visible divide has emerged between the Reddy and Kamma communities. Several protests have been led by students like Dakshit, who is from the Kamma community whose families have historically voted for the TDP. Further, with the recently formed TDP-Jana Sena alliance post Naidu’s arrest, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan’s followers – who are largely members of the Kapu community – are also joining the protests.
Dakshit, however, said that students from across caste lines tried to join the protest. While his family wasn’t heavily political, they, like several other Kammas in the state, voted for Naidu. “Caste isn’t avoidable in Andhra. But that isn’t to say that Naidu doesn’t have support from other communities,” he said.
Marukurthy Teja, who belongs to the Yadav (OBC) community, is a case in point. He said that while the protests were skewed when it came to the participation of women with nearly all students being male, there has been noticeable support from backward communities.
Nineteen-year-old Durga Prasad, a student at the Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Eluru, who belongs to the Gouda (BC) caste, explained that he chose to protest out of disdain for Jagan’s governance. “The training I got from the skill development corporation set up by Naidu has helped me immensely, it will improve my chances in the job market,” he said.
One TNSF member painted a very different picture and claimed that there is not much ground support for the TDP chief in reality. “People can say what they want but within the TDP itself there exists the issue of privileging Naidu’s family and the Kamma caste over everything else. BC leaders get sidelined, which is why even on the ground we don’t see a more representative turnout of people. There is sympathy for the arrest of an elderly man, but that does not necessarily translate to support,” said the student, requesting anonymity.
The reason for Naidu’s pro-engineer image
Aside from anti-incumbency for the Jagan-led government, TNM’s interaction with the protesting engineering students also revealed the fondness tech-sector Telugus have for Naidu, the man who symbolised the neo-liberal dream of Information Technology (IT) employment. “Chandrababu projected himself as a CEO and efficient manager – the image the World Bank and the profiteering classes were fond of,” social activist K Balagopal wrote in his work, Leaders Beyond Media Images.
The united Andhra Pradesh in the mid-90s under Naidu’s leadership witnessed the development of the IT industry. His Vision 2020 document published in 1999, four years into his chief ministership, outlined a five-pronged strategy focused heavily on ensuring a world class IT infrastructure, providing broadband digital connectivity, and in general making Andhra Pradesh a premier IT centre.
Read: Exclusive: The Chandrababu Naidu case files
The bifurcation of the Telugu states and his time out of power appeared to have done little to dent the image of Naidu as the CEO of Andhra Pradesh. During his time as the first CM of the newly carved out state, his interaction with Microsoft founder Bill Gates made for major headlines, with the tech mogul reminding people of Naidu’s use of digital tech in governance. As the popular story narrated by Naidu himself goes, he was supposed to meet Gates for 10 minutes but ended up spending 40 minutes with him instead.
At the valedictory ceremony of the three-day AP AgTech Summit 2017, Naidu, with Gates by his side, explained how he convinced him to set up Microsoft’s Development Centre in Hyderabad. “Not only did Microsoft open its development centre in Hyderabad but Satya Nadella who is from our place became the CEO of Microsoft,” Naidu said amidst thunderous applause.
However, the glory of Naidu’s heyday as the CEO recounted by several students isn’t applicable anymore. “The entire pro-engineer image was before bifurcation. Post the formation of Telangana, Naidu’s governance took a back seat as he focused chiefly on developing Amaravati as the capital while Jagan insisted on working class welfare,” said Ramachandraiah.
It is important to note that the pro-Naidu protests by engineering students continue in hopes of a return to the IT glory, a glory they have not been privy to as adults. “After bifurcation, Naidu diverted any investment coming from Vizag to Amaravati in his quest to make the latter the capital. Investors were unwilling to invest in Amaravati and as such the state suffered,” added Ramachandraiah.
As student protests mushroom, police suppression of these protests also continues unabated. When asked to comment on the clampdown, Vijayawada Police Commissioner Kanthi Rana Tata said that they were operating within the bounds of law. “Besides,” he asked, “what business do students have in politics anyway?”
*Names changed to protect identity