Hyderabad, July 26 -- On June 27, a group of men walked into Bharat Chandra School in Armoor, in Telangana's Nizamabad district and confronted the principal in front of the police. The principal, 37-year-old Amer Khan, was slapped. The man who slapped him was Mandula Balu, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) town president in Armoor. The alleged offence was that the school had allowed Urdu to be taught.

Within 24 hours of his remand, Balu was granted conditional bail. Khan, the man who was hit, is now before the Telangana High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case filed against him.

That inversion, where the assaulted becomes the accused, is the thread running through Telangana's second quarter.

The numbers and what they hide

Siasa...