Tracing Telangana

Looking back at sixty years of popular agitation and protest

An interesting aside, while exploring the historicity of the 8220;Telangana8221; issue as it resurfaces in the pre-election season in Andhra Pradesh, is the name of the Communist Party pamphlet in 1945. The Communist Party of India, in the thick of battle at the time in the Telangana area, arguing vociferously for a Visalandhra, set out what it called an 8220;anti-feudal8221; and 8220;revolutionary agrarian programme8221; in those parts; the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of the CPI issued a pamphlet called Prajarajyam in Visalandhra or people8217;s rule in the larger Telugu-speaking state of Andhra Pradesh. nbsp;

Now, with Chiranjeevi choosing to call his party Praja Rajyam, and the Telugu Desam party, earlier opposed to splitting the state,- talking about Telengana, interesting things seem to be going on in what has often proven to be a 8216;swing8217; state, so to speak.nbsp;

What is interesting is that even at the time of the States Reorganisation Commission, the recommendation was to exclude Telengana from Andhra Pradesh 8212; at the time, the region included five districts now in Maharashtra and three districts now in Karnataka. The recommendation was set aside, because of what the state saw as a special situation in those parts. nbsp;

With a population of more than 3 crores now, with ten districts including Hyderabad, with 40 percent of AP8217;s land mass, if it is actually carved into another state it would be the fifth largest in the country. The language spoken by Telangana is Telugu, but some talk wistfully about the different dialects spoken there, its rich sub-culture and other differences, 8220;crushed8221; by being part of AP. At the root of the feeling of being left out is the economics of it. With the Krishna and the Godavari rivers flowing through the region, they claim they get very little from the rivers 8212; claiming rights on seventy percent of the Godavari8217;s water, as they say two-thirds of the catchment area is in Telangana, as compared to just less than half of the water they say they get. With regard to the Godavari, as well, they want a much higher proportion of the total water, as the catchment area in Telangana is twice as much as the water set out for them.nbsp;

Telangana and movements around it literature, poems and folk songs too have made an appearance in at least three bursts in the last century.nbsp;

The first Telangana movement, in pre-independence India, largely led by the Communist Party, involved 12 to 18 months of agitation against the Asafjahi Nizam8217;s landlords: in this period, claim Communist records, village peasant committees that made decisions and ruled. The Congress accounts, though, tell a different story; and when Sardar Patel decided to settle the difficult Nizam through 8216;police action8217;, the Centre then thought it necessary to quell Communist activity in Telangana with a firm hand as well. The fact that the Telangana region, activities there and the political struggle in the area had a deep impact on national politics is evident from a view that even Vinoba Bhave8217;s bhoodan, started at the time, was the Congress Party8217;s way of sublimating the passions that the urge for land reform had stoked in the countryside.nbsp;

The next two agitations for statehood were in 1969 Jai Telangana and then again in 1972 Jai Andhra. Both agitations, especially the one in 1969, led to chaos being experienced state-wide and school and college sessions were disrupted. nbsp;

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In 2001, when the deputy speaker in the AP state assembly, K. Chandrashekhar Rao, resigned from the TDP, and announced his support for a separate Telengana, he was joined by members of the Congress from the region, and 41 Congress MLAs even petitioned their leader pressing her to consider a separate Telangana. The emergence of the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti the TRS, did at first signal a viable electoral base with more than 100 of the 294 assembly seats, and 16 of the 42 parliamentary seats from the state being from Telangana, but recent polls, municipal, and by elections for the Vidhan Sabha and Parliament seem to suggest mixed trends, and TRS has received anything but a walkover.nbsp;

Against the narrative of discrimination , sub-culture and under-development of the region, those opposed to fragmenting the state in the Rayalaseema and Andhra regions of Andhra Pradesh say they too have large parts which are under-developed, and in that sense, backwardness is not the preserve of Telangana. Ironically, the regions and districts where the present Chief Minister hails from Cuddappah and from where NTR contested Anantapur are in Rayalaseema and among the more backward areas of the state.nbsp;

Anyhow, on a slightly trivial note, it may also hurt Andhra Pradesh8217;s pride that the Telugu bidda or son of Telugu land PV Narasinha Rao 8212; whose ascent to the Prime Ministership was hailed by even the TDP8217;s founder NTR 8212; will turn into, should the break-up of the state take place, someone whom Telangana Rajya will take credit for 8212; a Telangana bidda.

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