The manner in which the
Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Bill was passed in the Parliament is
unprecedented and obnoxious. For all these ten years that the UPA government
has been in office, little has been done to work out an amicable and acceptable
solution to the decades old demand for a separate state within Andhra Pradesh.
Most of the political parties have offered uncanny flip-flops in their position
on the Telangana issue. The election year has always been one when mountains
could be moved and icebergs melted. All for electoral considerations though.
The Congress has been, for
some time now, staring at an imminent defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. There’s
little they could do to revitalize voters and their own party cadres. Andhra
Pradesh was kind to the party in the last Lok Sabha polls. With all the turmoil
in the state in the last few years and with the emergence of Jagan Reddy’s (who
was ironically bailed out by the Congress in an apparent move to woo him) YSR Congress,
the grand old party realized curving out Telangana could be a last-ditch effort
for them to salvage some electoral pride in the region by capitalizing on the
‘look I did it all for you’ claim. Never mind a Chief Minister and his cabinet
that wage a war against the party ‘high command’. Never mind the BJP that is
yet to be born in Andhra Pradesh and therefore voters of the state don’t really
matter to it. Nevertheless, the race to the ‘who done it’ podium has already
begun.
Let’s leave aside the politics
for a moment, and turn our focus to the two new states and the people. One of
the bones of contention between Telangana and Seemandhra will continue to be
Hyderabad, a city that had become synonymous to Andhra Pradesh. Except for the
pharmaceutical hub that Vizag is today, most of the Andhra business might and
pride is concentrated in Hyderabad, and to some extent, in Secunderabad. Hyderabad
as a joint capital for ten years is like sharing a piece of land between two
halves of a joint family after a bitter split. There is bound to be fight,
confrontation, and still worse, string of lawsuits. Sadly, it would be the same
people pitted against each other in a court of law for something they once
proudly shared with each other. Building a new state from the word ‘go’ isn’t
child’s play, especially when what is involved in the process include building
infrastructure, schools, hospitals, courts, offices, creating jobs and so on.
Along with the euphoric ecstasy of a ‘new state’ will come the challenges of
governance. The natural resources of Telangana shouldn’t fall prey to the
Naxals who enjoy quite a foothold along the border areas.
The demand for a separate
state of Telangana has been almost as old as independent India is. Ease of
governance and uniform development of all the regions of Andhra Pradesh have
been among the front-ending arguments in favor of the bifurcation. Now that it’s
a reality, I’m sure a large section of the people who wanted this to happen
will be extremely happy with the development. What must not however happen is
the fabric of Andhra Pradesh getting diluted in all of this frenzy. I hope
people will remember who they were is who they are even today. My best wishes
are with the people of both the states.
I grew up learning that India
had 25 states out of which 5 had a common word ‘Pradesh’ in their names. As
Andhra Pradesh slips into nomenclature oblivion, India has one more state and
one less Pradesh!
