00:00 Outlook brings to you excerpts from its latest issue titled "Farewell Ideology".
00:06 India's tryst with ideology has been more complex than the West's.
00:10 We have caste and region, language and socialism.
00:14 All these are forces in their own right.
00:17 In different times and in different contexts within our country, one has trumped the other.
00:23 Outlook's latest issue looks at some of the regional and national political parties
00:28 and the shifts in their ideological stance as they strive to navigate political power,
00:33 coalition politics and opportunism.
00:36 It is a reminder for us and for them about what they stood for once, lest we forget.
00:43 Hyderabad Blues by Anisha Reddy from Outlook.
00:46 He may have won Telangana twice for fighting for its creation,
00:50 but K Chandrasekhar Rao's changing persona has cost him dearly.
00:55 "Gali mein bolo, Delhi mein bolo, Jai Telangana, Jai Telangana"
00:59 "Say it on the streets, say it in Delhi, Victory to Telangana, Victory to Telangana"
01:04 This was the slogan that student leaders, activists and supporters shouted in unison
01:10 on June 2, 2014 when the 29th state was carved out of Andhra Pradesh.
01:16 The landscape was pink and it was in favour of K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR.
01:23 The leader entered public and political consciousness with one aim,
01:27 and with one aim only, to form a separate state for the 4 crore people
01:32 who he said had been discriminated in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
01:37 His followers, from children to their grandparents, call him Telangana Tiger and Telangana Gandhi.
01:43 For them, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti was synonymous with KCR.
01:48 But now, road ahead for the regional party appears to be difficult
01:52 after the state voted out its tiger in the 2023 assembly elections.
01:57 Once with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and then with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA),
02:04 KCR formed the TRS, now Bharat Rashtra Samiti or BRS, in 2001,
02:10 with a purpose of working towards Bangaru Telangana,
02:13 wherein the social aspirations of marginalised communities would be fulfilled.
02:18 It joined hands with the Congress-led UPA in 2004 and then with the BJP-led NDA in 2009.
02:25 But both alliances didn't reap any electoral dividends.
02:29 The party then fought alone and positioned itself as the flag-bearer of social welfare
02:35 by promising pension for single women, widows and senior citizens,
02:39 double-bedroom houses to eligible residents and insurance for farmers.
02:44 Hence, the party, over a period of time, had earned the tag of being populist.
02:49 For this and more, read the latest issue of Outlook.
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