Solid state solution

Statehood for Telangana has become an object lesson in the need to match means with ends. The Centres impulsive announcement of the new state and the blood feud it flamed demonstrated how political grandstanding makes consensus,or even attempts to calm frayed nerves,that much more difficult. Therefore,the agreement last month on a panel to consult all stakeholders was cause for cautious hope. That is also why its very unsettling now that K. Chandrasekhara Raos TRS and the Joint Action Committee have dismissed the B.N. Srikrishna committees terms of reference and returned to their agitation. A violently divisive politics is once more set to thwart the best chance so far of working towards a sane,peaceful solution.

The Srikrishna panel should be given a chance,and not just for Telangana. Its mandate is to examine both demands: for a separate state and for maintaining status quo; to study how recent and past developments in Andhra Pradesh impacted different regions and sections of society; to identify the key factors to be addressed. In doing so,the panel is to consult all political parties and organisations,asking them for a range of

solutions. It is to finally offer a roadmap,with optimal solutions,in its report by December 31.

For the pro-Telangana grouping,what is unacceptable is that the panel is to examine the other sides demand too. But how else are mutually hostile demands assessed,met or reconciled in a democracy? If the adversarys point of view cannot even be entertained by a panel which itself is the result of a consensus,why have the panel at all?

But the Srikrishna committee is important not just for a solution to Telangana but also for clarifying the terms of reference for a new states reorganisation commission,demands for which have been in the air ever since Telangana was announced. The time is also meant for politically stabilising the state,beginning with the largest party in the region the Congress which is divided. Players on both sides of the Telangana divide must let the panel do its job. A new state,or the preservation of the existing one,must be the result of dispassionate and disciplined work,not angry street agitations.