The Government of India took a formal decision on Thursday to create the country’s 29th state in Telangana by bifurcating the region from the composite state of Andhra Pradesh.
The Government of India took a formal decision on Thursday to create the country’s 29th state in Telangana by bifurcating the region from the composite state of Andhra Pradesh. This follows political clearance by the Congress Working Committee on July 30. Considering the emotional upsurge in the state as a whole after the CWC’s decision, for and against the new state, and the politically surcharged atmosphere that came to exist with even chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy appearing to sound like a rebel, it is a bit of a surprise that the Centre managed to stitch up the decision of the Union Cabinet in just over two months. It is well to remember in this context that the present state of Andhra Pradesh came about only in 1956 by superimposing the Nizam’s Telangana territories on the parts of his erstwhile kingdom that were coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. The latter had been excised from the former Madras Presidency to form a new state with Kurnool as its capital after Independence. Of the Nizam’s holdings, Telangana was attached to Andhra Pradesh and other areas became in due course parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra. The degree of attachment of the people of the Seemandhra areas, constituting 13 of the 23 districts of the composite state, to the post-1956 state, and especially to its capital Hyderabad, appears to be extraordinary. Perhaps this is on account of the fact that they were ruled by the Nizam from Hyderabad before 1947. Also, since 1956, the economic integration of Hyderabad (if not all of Telangana) with coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema became comprehensive. Politically, the Seemandhra areas came to have a dominant voice, not least on account of their relative demographic dominance and the fertile delta soil since the green revolution. Other states of India have also been bifurcated to make new states, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh being relatively recent examples of the latter. In no case was the political and social fallout as acute as in the case of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Four Seemandhra Union ministers have resigned as the past two days have seen sweeping protests in this region (and jubilation in Telangana). This could last and the Centre will have to be alive to the reality by making appropriate administrative and legal arrangements. A financial package has been got ready by the Union to take care of economic dislocations on both sides. Hyderabad will remain the joint capital for 10 years, but a new capital for the residuary Andhra Pradesh will have to be developed with Central assistance. Two countries have not been created, only two states of the Indian Union. This should not be lost sight of. Remember, Hindi-speakers reside across eight states.
