Yet Another State

- Dasu Krishnamoorty

Divisiveness is a unique virtue of the Indian state and its people who revel in their multiple identities to the exclusion of an umbrella identity. The Indian carries his kaleidoscopic identity, always awaiting impending fragmentation, to everywhere he goes. For example, you may encounter an Indian, say, in Manhattan but may not take much time in decorticating his telescopic personality till you have found his core identity which hardly is Indian. Sardar Patel's gigantic effort at welding the country's sub-national identities into one national identity became a victim to a senseless drive by the political community to officially place communalism and casteism on a pedestal.

To these primitive sensibilities, Telangana is no exception. Suddenly, it is wrenching space on the front pages of the media forcing political parties to unambiguously declare whether they are or are not for a separate state. Headed by K.Chandrasekhara Rao, who recently resigned as deputy speaker, the movement has succeeded in changing the government's responses towards such agitations. The demand for a separate state seems less to do with underdevelopment in the region and more to do with the pursuit of office as history shows us. At the level of the people, there has been so far no collective consciousness of a deliberate state drive to keep the region backward or underdeveloped.

Nothing catalytical has happened that could be said to have stirred the sensitive soul of Chandrasekhara Rao in sudden sympathy for the Telangana people. What has he, and others of his ilk, been doing since the failure of the first agitation in 1969? It is the duty of the 107 MLAs from Telangana, including Rao, to explain to their constituents their 32-year-old silence. Telangana returned more chief minsters than coastal Andhra. P.V.Narasimha Rao was not only one of them but also became a Prime Minister later. Why did he not do anything for his region? Why should they blame others when they did not do anything for their region when they were in office?

To say this is not to deny the urgent need for addressing the concerns of the area and its people who allowed themselves to be played around by power-seeking politicians. They remember the havoc caused by the 1969 agitation for a separate home for people in the Telangana region, the price the common people both in Telanana and Andhra had to pay and also how Chenna Reddy hijacked the movement for his own political rehabilitation, ultimately merging the Telanagana Praja Samithi with the Congress. History has a tendency to repeat itself.

Parties in the state are cautious in their support or opposition to the movement. Officially, the Congress is silent, waiting for further developments helping it to make up its mind. MLAs of the party fear that if the high command does not take a decision supporting the move for a separate home, it may have trouble in the coming elections to local bodies. Congressmen are worried that the reckless promises Chandrababu Naidu is making of late, assuring thousands of crores of rupees for Telangana development, may deprive their party of an important lever to discomfit the chief minister. But AP Congress president M. Satyanarayana Rao has clearly stated his opposition to a separate Telangana state.

The Telangana Legislators Forum (a body formed by 21Congress legislators from the Telangana region) is in favour of swift action by the high command to pressure the central government to suitably respond to the demand for a separate state. The media have made much of a Congress MLA from Sircilla R. Papa Rao supporting the Telangana Rashtra Samithi's demand at a press conference addressed by Chandrasekhara Rao. Another Congress MLA from Karimnagar district Ratnakara Rao also is seen often meeting Chandrasekhara Rao, which was enough for speculators to dream of an exodus from the Congress to TRS. The Forum is likely to meet on 14th May to launch a new body called Telangana Congress Forum which will fight for Telangana on its own and not in the company of TRS.

The BJP also is embarrassed by the media attention that the TRS demand is receiving because the party had at one time pledged to work for a separate state. The state unit is meeting on 13th May to discuss the strategy to reconcile its earlier support for the cause with its present neutral stand. It cannot pretend that the problem does not exist because two leaders of the party A. P. Jitender Reddy, MP and Ravindranath Reddy, MLA have declared their intention to participate in the simhagarjana programme of the TRS to be launched at Karimnagar on 17th May.

However, both the Communist parties believe that there is no need for a separate state and that problems of backwardness or discrimination in development can be tackled within the present one-state format. CPI leader Sudhakara Reddy thinks that a revival of regional development boards will help contain regional imbalances by monitoring the flow of funds and development activities. It is now very clear that the TRS is ploughing a lonely furrow and many believe that it will go the same way as the earlier Telangana Praja Samithi had gone after the panchayat elections.

What matters most, however, is the stance of the Telugu Deasam Party and its government, which find it impossible not to respond to TRS challenge. Even as the TDP Mahanadu at Visakhapatnam will discuss party and government response to TRS demand on 27-29 May, Chandrababu Naidu came out with interim responses aimed at dousing the divisive fires. The Chief Minister announced three weeks after the birth of TRS that his government had decided to

bring 17 lakh acres of land under irrigation in Telangana with an investment of Rs 1,450 crores, to provide 4 lakh gas connections during the Mahila Janmabhoomi programme beginning from 1st June, to secure remunerative prices for chilli farmers of Waragal district by entrusting Markfed with the job of procuring chillis in the region and to bring Godavari waters to the region.

Somewhat exaggerated is the claim of TRS president that a survey he had commissioned shows that 72% of Telangana people were behind his demand for a separate state. He says his mission is to achieve separate Telangana by capturing the political vacuum caused by the weakening of the TDP-BJP combine in Telangana which, according to him, may not be able to get more than 10-15% of votes in the coming panchayat elections. Rao predicts a midterm election by this year-end or early next year.

Rao has no history of sacrifice or leadership that helps him to mobilise the people of Telangana. If he persists in chasing his ambition, he will disrupt public life by resorting to rasta rokos, rail rokos, bandhs, etc., and yet in no way move nearer his goal. What Rao wants is a separate state and not the development of the region. It is very easy, if Rao is sincere, to recruit the sympathies of 107 MLAs instead of mobilising millions of people who have a genuine distrust for unfamiliar crusaders.

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