I have received a email from - Member of Parliament Shri. - Vilasrao ji Muttemwar regarding Active Co-Operation for Seperate Vidarbha State....As another peoples may be received this mail....so, This is the Time to take action for Vidarbha against Govts. Plz Co Operate to all Peoples who are fighting for Vidarbha State..... Thanking You.... The Format of Mail is......... ........Respected Sir/madam The central government has recently announced the creation of a new state – Telangana – which will be the 29th state in the country. The step taken by the Congress party, which signals the victory of the people of Telangana a full 42 years after the demand was raised, is indeed welcome though late. The demand for statehood to Vidarbha is in fact older and stronger. But since there is no word on it from the Centre, the people of Vidarbha are naturally disappointed. The history of the case for Vidarbha bears repetition though plucking a few points from it would suffice here. The States Reorganization Commission headed by Justice Fazal Ali had, way back in 1955, unanimously recommended the creation of Vidarbha state, then comprising eight districts. Asserting that it will be a viable, stable and surplus state, THE COMMISSION HAD WARNED VIDARBHA AGAINST MERGING WITH MAHARASHTRA THEREBY LOSING ITS IDENTITY AND RENDERING ITSELF HOPELESSLY DEPENDENT. NOT ONLY THAT, BHARAT RATNA DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR HAD STRONGLY SUPPORTED THE CREATION OF VIDARBHA STATE SAYING THAT A DOCUMENT LIKE NAGPUR PACT WAS USELESS, FIT TO BE THROWN INTO THE WASTEPAPER BASKET. It was only in deference to the earnest request of India’s first Prime Minister late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Maharashtra’s first Chief Minister late Yeshwantrao Chavan that the leaders of Vidarbha had agreed to join the Maharashtra state. Acknowledging this, Nehruji had said on the occasion of the inauguration of Maharashtra state that “THE PEOPLE OF VIDARBHA WERE NOT READY TO JOIN MAHARASHTRA BUT WE HAVE PERSUADED THEM TO JOIN.” LATE CHAVAN SAID “THE NAGPUR PACT IS A SACRED TESTAMENT AND VIDARBHA WILL BE GIVEN MORE THAN IT PROMISES.” It is true that 106 people embraced martyrdom during the agitation for Samyukta (united) Maharashtra including Mumbai. But the unforgettable historic fact is that Maharashtra would not have got Mumbai if 54 Congress legislators from Vidarbha had not joined the state. It is also a fact that the people of Vidarbha were never keen to join Maharashtra, far from having ever agitated for it! The 54 years after the creation of the Maharashtra state have starkly shown that the experiment of coexistence, carried out under the specious plea of one state of Marathi speaking people, has utterly failed. It is one state only in terms of geographical boundary without any cultural, emotional or reciprocal integration. Lofty promises from stalwarts, several constitutional provisions, pacts and packages meant to ensure its legitimate share to Vidarbha have come to naught. Are we inexorably fated to suffer endless injustice and still keep being herded behind the leaders of Maharashtra? Do we have to accept it as our fait accompli? Do we not have any other option? I think the time has finally come to give it a serious thought. The happy and contented people of Vidarbha merged into the Maharashtra state in 1960 but in these 53 years, Vidarbha has moved backwards, not forward, in any area of development. This can be proved irrefutably on the basis of umpteen facts and figures and the statistics of backlog. Before 1960, Nagpur boasted of Empress Mill and Model Mill; there were textile mills too in Hinganghat, Pulgaon, Achalpur, Amravati and Akola. Employment was available house to house, thanks to the widespread handloom and power-loom activity in Nagpur and elsewhere. Orange growing districts of Vidarbha would be likened to California. What is the plight of that famed Nagpur Orange today – and of the orange cultivator? The Hapus (Alphanso) mango of Konkan got patronage but the orange languished in callous negligence. Why? We took pride in touting the glorious Varhad Sonyachi Kurhad (Berar that is the golden axe) badge because of the splendid cotton crop in western Vidarbha? What is the plight of that cotton cultivator today? Where is that past glory? Though Vidarbha is a rain-fed region, farmers here were happy farming as much as they could on the Nature’s bounty. What happened to the Green Revolution hope of Vidarbha that it would get its due share of irrigation by the virtue of being a part of Maharashtra? Unable to pay back the piling debt, they had to sell their farmland, bit by bit; they lost employment and many of them preferred death to the ignominy of begging! Nearly 25000 farmers committed suicide in the last 20 years as per the government records and the tragedy continues. As many as 23000 children died due to malnutrition and the Naxal menace entrenched in Vidarbha’s five districts is threatening to spread to the rest of the region. There is widespread unemployment in several thousand households raising the frightening specter of Vidarbhga turning into a crime-land! A cursory glance at the daily rising crime graph is enough to bring home the truth. That Vidarbha has been meted out injustice on the count of equitable development is common knowledge and wholly undeniable. An analysis of how and why could the power-wielding perpetrators of injustice do it and get away leads one to realise that the protesting voices of 66 MLAs of Vidarbha are consistently drowned by the din raised by the majority of the remaining 222 in the house of 288 out to stall justice. In these 53 years, the cumulative development backlog of Vidarbha in education, health, industry, irrigation and roads has risen to a whopping 1 lakh crore. Several irrigation projects are still incomplete for want of funds. A case in point is GOSIKHURD (INDIRA SAGAR) which was inaugurated in 1988 with the blessings of Late Rajiv Gandhi. I have been consistently following up on this project for the last 33 years as a people’s representative. But alas, the project which has been rightly considered to be the lifeline of Vidarbha remains a victim of callous neglect till date! Had it been completed in time, eastern Vidarbha would have progressed splendidly. Be it Gosikhurd or the ambitious MIHAN PROJECT that has a potential to create 250 thousand jobs, these projects are lagging behind for long many years for want of timely provision of funds. It is an unfortunate fact that the MIHAN project has all but come to naught as the three axiomatic components namely, compensation for the farmers’ acquired land, rehabilitation of project affected people and incentives to attract industry! With all this happening only because the powers that be do not have a fair and even handed approach, the time has come for you to think what more the people’s representatives can do than protesting. BAHU ASOT SUNDAR, SAMPANNA KI MAHA; PRIYA AMUCHA EK MAHARASHTRA DESH HA (so what if there are many other beautiful, wealthy and mighty lands; the one state dear to us is Maharashtra) - the poem penned by the great poet Late Shripad Krishna Kolhatkar indeed inspired the people in the state. But surely no one expected the kind of prosperity where thousands of farmers have to commit suicide, or children have to perish due to malnutrition or the jobless youth are attracted to the pernicious Naxal fold! In the state reeling under a whopping debt of Rs.240000 crore making it impossible to start any new developmental project, no amount of shouting and protesting on the part of the people’s representatives here for fulfillment of backlog is going to be of any use. It has become imperative for every conscious citizen to think seriously about the future of the state whose population has risen to 110.5 million and carries a debt burden of nearly Rs.250000crore on its head. It will be virtually impossible for any leader coming at the helm of affairs of this state irrespective of his or her popularity and competence to ensure fair and equitable development for all its regions. The late chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had once said in a lighter vein THAT ONE WHO GUARDS THE LAKE WILL NATURALLY APPROPRIATE A LARGER SHARE OF WATER TO HIS OWN SELF. INDEED IN THE LAST 53 YEARS, IT IS THIS MENTALITY OF SELF AGGRANDIZEMENT ON THE PART OF THE POWERS THAT BE IN MAHARASHTRA THAT HAS RESULTED IN THIS PLIGHT OF VIDARBHA. AND IT DOESN’T REQUIRE AN ASTROLOGER TO SAY THAT THIS SAME MENTALITY OF SNATCHING A BIGGER SLICE OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL CAKE TO ONE’S OWN REGION WILL ONLY GROW IN THE FUTURE. In a representative democracy, it is but natural for any people’s representative to try to fulfill the aspirations of his voters and there is nothing wrong about it. And this is precisely what the legislators of all regions in Maharashtra other than Vidarbha have done – honourable exceptions apart. “Bigger states are more prosperous because they get larger revenue and thus are able to cope with exigencies”, say some experts. But they conveniently forget that equitable development of all regions doesn’t automatically happen because of the bigger size and larger revenue of a state. They also fail to see that Vidarbha has become a victim of a host of new problems only post Maharashtra state. The newly created states in India have proved that smaller states achieve all-round development faster. Indeed if Vidarbha had become an independent state, many problems it has been facing would not have arisen at all or would have been easily overcome because the government would then be required to look after a population of only 25 million in 11 districts. The common man could have easily watched from close quarters the functioning of the government and come to Nagpur for redressing his grievances. It would also have been easier for the leaders to plan for the 11 districts and monitor their development, sorting out serious problems. Sitting in Mumbai hundreds of miles away, the rulers just could not attend to the problems of Vidarbha because it was unwieldy administrative machinery that they have been trying to handle. The loss Nagpur – which was the capital of C P & Berar and Madhya Pradesh – has suffered is unquantifiable. The cities that grew up as state capitals saw all round development. Bangalore, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Bhuvaneshwar, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati, Ranchi, Bhopal and our neighbourhood state Raipur have developed as new growth centres, the development often spilling over to the regions around them. In these 53 years the world changed, several states stole a march over us, many cities and the people developed but we in Nagpur lost our capital status and our importance. We remained where we were; nay, we went further down. If the trend of injustice continues, Vidarbha will do down as the most backward region of the country! Telangana and Vidarbha had similar problems and demands. So if Telangana qualifies to be a state, why not Vidarbha? As your representative in Lok Sabha, I have raised the demand for statehood to Vidarbha or shifting of Maharashtra’s capital from Mumbai to Nagpur. If Nagpur is made Maharashtra’s capital for 50 years, the old capital city will regain its past glory, it will emerge as a new growth center and this will benefit all the districts of Vidarbha. Three generations of Vidarbha have waited for development, which has eluded the region. Nagpur didn’t get anything except the meaningless second capital status. Pune has developed as a metropolis thanks to its vicinity to Mumbai and Nagpur has had to be content with the status of a divisional commissionerate. The ‘second capital’ status of Nagpur dawns on the government’s consciousness only for the duration of the annual winter session here. In the last 53 years, the state government has neglected the city. The time has come to decide whether to continue to put up with this injustice or wage a decisive war against it. The time has come to serve an ultimatum on the government – it will have to choose one of the two options: either restore to Vidarbha its statehood or shift the state capital to Nagpur. If either happens, the future of the people of Vidarbha is bright. As I have stated earlier, the people of Vidarbha have been yoked together with the rest of Maharashtra only geographically, by being within one artificially created boundary. But cultural unanimity, fraternity and emotional integration has never been achieved. No leader has ever made any such attempt. No one seems to be bothered about the pains, problems and aspirations of the people of Vidarbha. Far from it, people take pride in callously proclaiming their progressive credentials by opposing the Vidarbha statehood demand. We have suffered a lot. If we had had an independent state right since the beginning alongside that of Maharashtra, our three generations would have been much better off. But all of us collectively neglected our own interests and prospects. If we continue to suffer in silence, our future generations will not forgive us. We will have to decide how long we will be bystanders, waiting for someone else or some other power to do it for us. Again, as I mentioned earlier, administration of a small Vidarbha state of 11 districts will be easily manageable and transparent, ensuring instant interface between the government and the people, which is an essential indicator of an ideal state. But since our government is a thousand km away, we can’t see it from the distance and can’t afford to travel such a long distance. A separate state of Vidarbha will mean two Marathi speaking states, which is better than one in terms of an increased importance in the national politics. The joy of achieving an independent statehood for Vidarbha would be comparable only to the joy we experienced in 1947 when India achieved freedom. And in order to achieve it, we have to resort to the same peaceful, non-violent ‘satyagraha’ that the common people of this country launched under the leadership of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. All who matter have neglected the historically important and culturally rich Nagpur. You are an alert and conscientious citizen of Nagpur. So this letter to you with a fervent appeal to rise for a collective action! I will be grateful to you for your thoughts and suggestions on this issue. Jai Vidarbha! Yours in anticipation of cooperation Vilas Muttemwar
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 10:40:45 +0000
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