Telangana: An old wound reopened

The last time largescale violence erupted in the Telangana districts of Andhra Pradesh for the formation of a separate state, it had been somewhat easier to tackle the situation. The principal reason was that the Congress, which was in power at the Centre as well as in the state, was in the forefront of the demand. A solution was facilitated both in 1969 and 1973 when it became clear that Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi was not in favour of either a separate Telangana or Andhra. This time round, the agitation is led by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, although Congressmen of the region also appear to be supportive. But more significantly, the Opposition parties, notably the Telugu Desam and the BJP, have jumped into the fray. It is not yet clear if this complicating factor will lend the demand a decisive edge, especially since the condition of the fasting TRS leader, Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao, appears to be delicate. The Congress leadership appears to be in a fix. It would certainly like to call the shots in the Assembly of the new state, should its formation become inevitable. It has the strength from the Telangana districts in the AP Assembly. But since the lead has come from TRS, the latter could possibly call for fresh elections. Presumably this is among the issues the Congress would like to discuss with Mr Rao if he is persuaded to end his fast. There are two separate ironies in the situation. The first pertains to the idea of a hungerstrike culminating in the formation of a state. When the Andhra Gandhian Potti Sriramulu undertook a fast unto death in 1952 and made the supreme sacrifice doing so, the then Jawaharlal Nehru government was obliged to concede the demand of a linguistic state comprising the 11 Telugu-speaking districts of the erstwhile Madras state. Not doing so is likely to have produced an impossible situation. It is not wholly clear if the circumstances surrounding the Telangana demand now admit of a similar possibility, but the context has become troubled. It is perhaps necessary that the Centre steps in to ward off an untoward situation. At the political level, it might be beyond the ability of the three-month-old Rosiah government in Andhra Pradesh to tackle the demand. An intervention by the Congress leadership could make it easier to address the demands of the regional development of the backward Telangana districts if the formation of a new state is to be headed off. The alternative is to accept the demand on terms that are acceptable on all sides. In that case too, the Centre might be better placed to play honest broker. The second irony lies in the twist of history. The state of Telangana (comprising Telugu-speaking districts of the old Hyderabad state),which had been established after the dissolution of the Nizam’s domain in the aftermath of Independence, had merged into the state of Andhra Pradesh to form a Visalandhra — the land of all Telugu-speaking people — in 1956. But the Telangana Telugus have clearly not been entirely satisfied. This is the second time that the divorce suit has been filed. Perhaps uneven development is the proximate cause. Historical poverty from the Nizamshahi period has persisted in the Telangana area whereas the wealth of the delta districts has grown, and many from coastal Andhra, the wealthy and the middle classes, have homed in on Hyderabad, offering competition to the people of Telangana