Word: sriramulu
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...October 1952, an acolyte of Mahatma Gandhi named Potti Sriramulu invoked the tactics of his teacher and went on a hunger strike. The nation of India - at the time just five years old - was still finding shape after centuries of division and colonial rule, with many of its diverse regions clamoring for greater political recognition. Sriramulu's fast came on behalf of tens of millions who, like him, spoke Telugu, a prominent south Indian language, and wanted their own state within the country...
...protest went unheeded for weeks by New Delhi and, 58 days after it began, Sriramulu died, a sacrifice that triggered widespread rioting and eventually forced the government into forming the Telugu-speaking state of Andhra Pradesh in 1953, as well as other new states organized on linguistic lines. No small irony then, that, almost 60 years later, another hunger strike threatens to dismember the state Sriramulu first won, and revive a fierce debate about the nature of the federal Indian nation-state. (See a pictorial history of the tempestuous Nehru dynasty of India...
...days later, Sriramulu came to the crisis. His eyes were sunken, his skin a ghastly pallor, and he was hiccuping continuously. His throat was so inflamed he was unable to swallow water and he vomited blood. One of the doctors at his bedside suggested that it was time to end the fast. Sriramulu had lost the power of speech, but he lifted his hand, slowly and unsteadily placed a finger on his lips in refusal. A few hours later he was dead...
...Communists hailed Sriramulu's "supreme sacrifice," accused Nehru of "deliberate delay in [forming] Andhra state." When the All-India Parliament refused to stand up in homage to Sriramulu's memory, the Communist members walked out. A wave of hysterical emotion swept Andhra territory. Students, youths and workers, led by Communists, attacked Indian government property, cut telegraph wires, damaged railroads, burned rail cars and stoned fire engines, looted railroad restaurants, hoisted black flags of mourning over government buildings. Police, firing on rioters, killed seven and wounded forty. A 13-year-old boy attempted to halt a moving...
...week's end Prime Minister Nehru, responding perhaps as much to the violence as to Sriramulu's nonviolence, announced that his government had decided to establish Andhra state. But he still refused to include Madras city. To that extent, Potti Sriramulu of Madras city had died in vain...