Telangana-An Inevitable Decision Telangana indicates that perhaps it is time to rethink the organisation of states in India. The unanimous decision by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to initiate the formation of Telangana state from Andhra Pradesh brings to a closure a long period of uncertainty. While it has been received with much, if somewhat weary, jubilation in the 10 districts which will form the new state, it has surprisingly elicited a muted reaction in the coastal districts and Rayalaseema areas of Andhra Pradesh which have been opposed to this bifurcation. Hopefully, the protests will not be fanned by the political leaders. In a sense, the decision in favour of Telangana had become inevitable; it was no longer a question of whether, but of when. Even at the moment of the creation of a united Andhra Pradesh in the 1950s, the demand for a separate state of Telangana was strong, contained only by a “gentleman’s pact”. By the late 1960s this pact had come off and an intense agitation for “de-merger” claimed hundreds of lives and was only contained with intense repression of the agitators and the buying out of the leaders. In the present phase, which started a little over a decade ago, the interesting aspect has been that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), which initiated and spearheaded the agitation, has not been a major electoral force in the region; and yet, with every electoral defeat, the demand for separation only deepened. In 2004, the Congress gave the demand for a separate state of Telangana prominence in its election manifesto to cement an alliance with the TRS. By 2008, the Telugu Desam Party, which had been intractably opposed to separation, passed a resolution demanding a separate state. Later on, the newly formed YSR Congress Party too officially endorsed statehood for Telangana. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India had been for a separate state earlier too and by the 2009 general elections, only the Hyderabad based Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), with eight members in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly out of its total of 294, officially opposed bifurcation. Yet, as is well known, each party was internally divided over the issue, with legislators and activists from Telangana supporting bifurcation and the others opposing it. With the formal announcement of the new state, some of these internal divisions are coming out into the open once more. The reason that almost all political parties officially came around to supporting a separate Telangana was because this demand had almost universal support in the region. Outside of Hyderabad, it would be hard to find people in Telangana who do not support the demand for a separate state. With such widespread support, the situation was such that the political costs (not to mention the administrative and policing costs) of not granting a separate state were high and would continue to mount. Thus, it is not just the Congress which has been cynical and opportunist in its support for Telangana, but so has almost every other political party. It is now imperative that the UPA government steer the legislative process and keep all political actors on board. After much dilly-dallying, the government has come out with a fairly sensible road map. The issues of division of assets and, more intractably, liabilities (Andhra Pradesh has a debt burden of Rs 1,60,000 crore) will be difficult given the bitterness that the process of separation has given rise to in both regions. What will be even more difficult to deal with will be the division of water resources, not just from the existing dams but also from the Polavaram. The division of the revenues generated by Hyderabad, for the 10 years it will remain a joint capital, will also be complex. Incidentally, some of the issues raised by the division of Bihar have still not been entirely settled. One hopes that these difficulties, in the case of Andhra Pradesh, will not be compounded by wheeling and dealing, and political opportunism. One way of ensuring this does not happen will be to develop general principles to divide assets and liabilities. A second state reorganisation commission may not be able to provide solutions for the Telangana separation but it appears increasingly to be a necessity in the given political context. As the national political fallout of the Telangana announcement shows, there are many other long-pending demands for separation. Gorkhaland has erupted in protest. Demands for statehood in Karbi Anglong and Bodoland in Assam too have seen extensive protests. Vidarbha, which too was merged in Maharashtra with a similar understanding as Telangana with Andhra, is also now again in focus, and demands for the four-way division of Uttar Pradesh have been raised again. Other states like Gujarat, Karnataka and Odisha too have areas where people have demanded separate states. The political economy which developed in India following Independence found expression in the formation of linguistic states in the non-Hindi speaking areas. This was a clear move away from – and, in that context, a very progressive one – the communal divisions which marked the colonial era. However, it is clear that the past half century has seen a major transformation in India’s political economy – in size, in structure, in regional emphasis and in social-class relations. Literacy rates, migration and communication too have transformed radically. Further, there has been a deepening of the electoral process with not only the institutionalisation of the panchayati raj system but also greater participation of people in state and national elections. It is difficult to draw definite lines of causation from these correlations but it is equally difficult to ignore their impact. What is clear, however, is that Telangana is not an isolated incident and that a deliberative reorganisation of the federal system is needed if we are to avoid the chaos and confusion of patchwork repairs.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 12:11:58 +0000
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