Protest for separate state launched in Osmania University in 60s

HYDERABAD: Osmania University (OU) has always been a potboiler as far as student politics and agitations are concerned. Right from the 30s when former PM PV Narasimha Rao was a student, OU campus has played a major role in deciding the political course of the state.

Varsity students had orchestrated the first agitation for separate Telangana state in 1968-69 and their resolve during the second protest for Telangana during 2009-13 forced the Centre to carve out India’s 29th state in June 2014. The students were also in the forefront of struggle for women freedom during 70s and 80s. The radical movement of Naxalism also impacted OU and few university graduates charted the course of Maoist struggle in the Telugu states.

While Osmania was held in high esteem in the world of academics in the first 50 years of its formation, there was also a time when students graduating from the university were barred from job interviews. Several recruiters, in the 70s, would advertise that Osmanians need not respond to the job notification.

The university’s student power came to the fore for the first time in 1938 when a group of students defied the Nizam’s order banning singing of Vande Mataram on campus. The order was passed on November 28, 1938, and 350 students were debarred for violating the diktat. Soon, protests erupted in other educational institutions in then Hyderabad state, forcing the government to remove about 2,000 students from the rolls. Narasimha Rao was one of them.

The university erupted in agitation in 1935 supporting the demand that Hyderabad is for Hyderabadis forcing the Nizam to implement the Mulki (local) rule promulgated in 1919. The students also took to agitation in 1952 when the Central government proposed to convert OU into a Central university. There was also a proposal to make it a Hindi university.