Hyderabad, May 14 -- Long before Telangana became a reality, before slogans echoed across university campuses and political parties, there was M Kamaluddin Ahmed, who raised his voice for the region's forgotten villages and neglected people.

History is often unkind to people who speak early. Several prominent names have become synonymous with the decades-old 'struggle' for a separate Telangana, but it was Kamaluddin Ahmed who stood up first and raised the issue of neglected farmers.

A son of Telangana's rural soil, Kamaluddin carried the cause to the Parliament, warning about the deep inequalities between Telangana and Andhra decades before statehood was achieved.

And now he is slowly fading away from the history books of Telangana Sta...