With the Centre giving the nod, India may have the 29th state by year end. And, Telangana may soon be a reality. Mritunjay Kumar traces the journey of the Telangana saga, even casting a glance, through the lens, at its final metamorphosis.
The Telangana saga curtain-raiser
Opinion about this decision is divided. Some feel it is in country’s progress, while some say it was for personal and electoral gains. The state of Andhra Pradesh was in a messy phase when the Congress Working Committee took the historic resolution to create India’s 29th State – Telangana; and the division of Andhra Pradesh redeems a pledge the party made to the people of the region on the night of December 9, 2009. Vis-à-vis Congress’s calculated politics earlier, this move reveals Congress’s ambitions towards make-shift politics, especially when the Lok Sabha elections are nine months away.
A separate Telangana state was first conceived in 1953. The fact that the region spoke the same language as Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra became the basis for the formation of India’s first linguistic state when a unified Andhra Pradesh was created in 1956. What followed, unfortunately, was a saga of unkept promises, violation of the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1956, and two violent agitations in 1969 and 1972. Slowly, a feeling grew among the people of Telangana that they were being discriminated against, as far as employment and education went.
After hectic consultations and back-breaking discussions, a final decision was taken by the CWC and the UPA on creation of India’s 29th state. For the moment, the proposal to include two districts of Rayalaseema — Anantapur and Kurnool — in Telangana has been put in cold storage. The Polavaram irrigation scheme, the resolution states, will be named a national project, and the Centre will provide adequate funds for the development of the area. The new State will have 10 districts, while the remaining Andhra and Rayalaseema regions will together constitute Seemandhra.
Why did it take the Congress 60 years?
The Congress has only to blame itself for not encouraging a credible leadership that could face the challenge from the YSR Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Seemandhra. Except in some reserved constituencies, its choice of the Lok Sabha candidates was largely guided by their wealth. Not surprisingly, many of them were contractors, builders and realtors with little stake in the common good or sympathy for the people’s cause.
Why did it take the Congress 60 years to understand and fulfill the aspirations of the people of Telangana? Was it not Jawaharlal Nehru who said on November 1, 1956, when Andhra Pradesh State was formed, with the merger of Hyderabad State with Andhra, “this marriage, as I call it—has many features, good and bad, which often accompany marriages…”
The CWC’s smart call to declare Hyderabad, lying in the Telangana heartland, as the common capital for 10 years is reminiscent of the arrangement proposed for Chandigarh. (Chandigarh was to serve as the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana and it was agreed under the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1985 that it would be handed over to Punjab. The promise still remains undelivered.) The Centre will assist in building a new capital for the “residuary State”, which will continue to be called Andhra Pradesh.
Though the road ahead is rough, the recent ruckus in Parliament that led to the suspension 12 MPs (who were against the origin of Telangana), actually split the House.
But, Congress leaders claimed that the process can be completed in four to five months, though the CWC resolution maintained silence about any deadline. This may be for good reason. The track ahead promises to be steep, throwing up many opportunities for anti-Telangana groups to interject and delay the process.
Look at the strenuous steps to be followed:
Step 1: Firstly, to get an Assembly resolution passed for a separate state of Telangana would be a tough nut to crack. It would witness sharp division in the 294-member House which is dominated by 175 members from non-Telangana regions. Though it may not be constitutionally mandatory to get the resolution passed in the Assembly, as new states like Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh had passed their resolutions in assembly during their creation, the Congress may find it difficult to evade this step. But, but they will flash some legal card, at the right time.
Step 2: After resolution gets passed, it would move up to the Centre where the union cabinet will have to give a thums up. This will be followed by grueling discussions by Group of Ministers, which will be constituted to figure out the details of – dividing revenue, assets and liabilities, devolution of central funds to the new state, sharing of resources like water and power and demarcating boundaries, sharing administrative resources, to name a few. This step is strenuous and will take time to get approval.
Step 3: Combining all the details approved by Group of Ministers, the Centre will prepare a draft legislation that will again require the Cabinet’s OK, following which, a recommendation will be made to the President to refer the Bill to the parent state’s legislature for their views. This has to be completed within a prescribed time-frame, as stipulated by the President.
Step 4: Again the Draft Bill passes from the President to the Centre and then to the Home Ministry, where they will add the views of the State Legislature and give a fresh Cabinet note. This stage will also witness final legal examining by the Law Ministry.
Step 5: Now, the State Reorganisation Bill will be sent to the Union Cabinet for its final approval and then introduced in Parliament, where it will need to be passed by a simple majority in both houses. The President will then grant his assent to the Bill for final enactment.
Sources claim that this administrative and constitutional exercise may stretch for about seven months before the process is completed and the new state finally comes into being. Also, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government cannot give a timeline for the formation of a separate state of Telangana, but asserted that the views of all political parties and others on issues (including the status of Hyderabad), would be kept in mind, before taking a decision.
People’s answer: unbridled joy
Happiness erupted in several places of Hyderabad, as Telangana supporters could not hide their tears of joy, when the poker-faced Ajay Maken and Digvijay Singh formally announced the Congress Working Committee’s nod for India’s 29th state –Telangana. A spirit of revelry immediately spread. Cries of ‘Jai Telangana’ rent the air. The signs were plenty – hugs, sweets, crackers and even screeching bikes. Ironically, this was the same battleground which had witnessed angry sloganeering, lathi-charges, teargas shells, dharnas, stone-peltings and even tragically, suicides. Today, it’s rife with hope; though, tempered with a generous dose of caution.
“It is our Independence. We have finally achieved our goal, and our self respect restored. That’s the predominant feeling among the people of the region,” says IT professional Sumanth K Reddy, who hails from Rangareddy district.
More jobs, better education, fat positions in the government and private sectors. All this will now come their way, feel the Telanganaites, given that the region’s most developed city, Hyderabad (which is a lifeline for them), will be the joint capital for both states for 10 years, by which time Andhra Pradesh has to build one of its own.
And, herein lies the rub.
Most of the people do not understand that why Hyderabad is given to Telangana, Hyderabad’s transition took place under the Chief Ministership of Telugu Desam Party supremo Chandrababu Naidu from 1995-2004. Both Telangana and Seemandhra had helped to develop it. It began with the IT boom and today HiTec City is home to IT giants like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, TCS, as well as other biggies like Deloitte, Accenture, HSBC, Bank of America, Facebook and Amazon, amongst others. With the booming IT sector came high salaries, highrises, shopping malls and multiplexes, fuelling the real estate and retail sectors.
Most of the people think that it is impossible to create another capital in the line of Hyderabad in 10 years. One of the residents of Guntur, Mani Parmakushan reveals, “Investors wouldn’t know where to invest once there are two states. We have to start everything from scratch.” He predicts a fall of at least 20-30 per cent in the retail and real estate sectors in the coming years.
What would be BJP’s strategy?
Recently, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi tried to do a balancing act on the issue of division of Andhra Pradesh saying that both Telangana and Seemandhra are equally important for BJP. Though Andhra Pradesh had contributed the highest number of MPs for Congress to come to power at the Centre, Congress ended up creating only a hostile atmosphere between the two regions of the state, he said.
Modi addressed a massive public meeting, his first campaign rally, since his anointment as BJP’s poll Campaign Committee Chief. He recalled how NDA government, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee created three new states of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chattisgarh without any hostilities in any region. Modi concluded his speech saying ‘Jai Telangana’ and ‘Jai Seemandhra’.
On the other hand, with the bifurcation of the State, the Majlis feel its arch enemy, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will emerge stronger in Telangana in the long run. The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) will lose political ground and merge with the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) too will get weakened.
The political space left by these two parties would be occupied by the BJP. “I have been telling that the BJP is going to be the political beneficiary in the event of bifurcation and I stand by it,” said Majlis president Asaduddin Owaisi.
Opening the political Pandora’s Box
As the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre prepares to announce the formation of a new state Telangana carved out of Andhra Pradesh, demands have arisen from other regions of the country as well.
The heat is on the Centre, now, to create a separate Vidarbha state out of Maharashtra. Staunch protagonist of Vidarbha state, former BJP MP Banwarilal Purohit, who formed a political outfit for fighting for the cause, said that his party had passed a resolution in its Bhubneshwar Executive Committee in 1992, supporting a separate Vidarbha. Now, the BJP should convince its alliance partner Shiv Sena to concede the demand, he said.
Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supremo Bimal Gurung said if the Centre announced a Telengana state, then it should also declare one for Gorkhaland.
Recently, the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) gathered in Assam’s Kokrajhar town, with slogans ‘No Bodoland, No rest’ and ‘Divide Assam 50:50’. Days after the UPA Government sanctioned the formation of Telangana, the Bodoland Members of Parliament staged a protest outside the Parliament, for creation of a separate state.
Also, Bahujan Samaj Part Chief Mayawati said Uttar Pradesh should be divided into four smaller states – Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Pashchim Pradesh. “When this population is divided between four states, development will increase,” she said. “Ministers in Central Government, who hail from Uttar Pradesh should build pressure on the Central Government for formation of these states,” she added.
There is no denying that Telangana has given momentum to many of these demands. Some of them would try and intensify their call for statehood, by even resorting to violence to show ‘serious’ intent and to get the Centre’s attention.
But, the political Pandora’s box that the Congress has opened up with the Telangana decision, would only overflow in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
