The views expressed by the author are personal

Consider these excerpts from a set of essays I have been reading:   

‘The people of Telangana find themselves in an unenviable state. Their fellow countrymen outside the State of Andhra Pradesh, are unable to understand, much less appreciate, the significance of the revolt in Telangana’.

‘The moment Telangana elected representatives dehypnotise themselves from the lure and pressure of the Andhra political bosses, and fall in line with the aspirations of their electors, the movement will reach its natural culmination’.

These words sound wholly of the moment, whereas they come from a book published 40 years ago. In the first weeks of 1969, meetings calling for a separate state were held in towns and villages in Telangana. As a result of the ‘continuously rising tempo of the Telangana movement’, the police came out in force, and ‘lathi-charges, firings and the resultant violence became the accepted way of life in Telangana’.

In response to the crisis, 300 college teachers held a convention at Hyderabad on May 20, 1969. The proceedings of the conference were published in a book, now scarce, entitled The Telangana Movement: An Investigative Focus. I came by my copy on the pavement in Bangalore some years ago — it is time to share it with the world, since, as the excerpts show, it has a strikingly contemporary resonance.

In 1969, as in 2009, the campaign for Telangana was marked by a rhetoric of betrayal. On February 20, 1956, a ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’ was signed between the Congress leaders of the Andhra and Telangana regions respectively. This promised that the deputy chief minister of the united state would be from Telangana, that there would be a quota for Telangana people in government jobs, that an influx of Andhras into their territory would not be allowed. The complaint was that these safeguards had not been put in place.

Nor did the charges end here. Thus, while Telangana had 42 per cent of the state’s cultivated area, it was allotted 30 per cent of the state’s expenditure on agriculture, 27 per cent of the allocation of fertilisers and less than its fair share of canal waters and hydel power.

The convention also made the case for Telangana in positive terms. The state would be viable in size; bigger, for example, than West Bengal and Kerala. It would be viable in economic terms; its rates of food production were higher than the national average, and it had excellent mineral resources. More substantially, it would contribute to a deepening of Indian democracy. For ‘smaller states can help [in] democratising our political process, which in turn will attract the larger sections into [the] developmental process…’ Indeed, ‘smaller states may herald a new and promising era in the political and economic life of [the] nation’.

The delegates to the Hyderabad convention met with the Union home minister to press their case. They failed then — now, 40 years later, their successors appear to have succeeded, with the government promising to pass a resolution in the Andhra Pradesh assembly calling for a separate state of Telangana.

In the 1950s, the map of India was redrawn to create states based on language. That process was likewise set in motion by a fast, conducted by Potti Sriramulu, for a separate state of Andhra Pradesh. Sriramulu, like

K. Chandrasekhar Rao, embodied the sentiments of millions of people. Since he was more obscure, and the prime minister of the day more powerful, it took his death (after 58 days without food) and the intensification of the street protests for the Centre to concede the new state. This then led to protests by Kannada, Marathi, and Malayalam speakers, in response to which a States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) was created, which, in 1956, officially mandated the principle of linguistic states.

In retrospect, it is clear that this reorganisation consolidated national unity, such that India did not go the way of Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which had to suffer bloody civil wars because of the unwillingness to grant linguistic autonomy. However, our nation-state is comparatively young, and still evolving. It now faces a second generation of challenges, these pertaining to the regional imbalances in social and economic development. A new SRC should be constituted, which would look dispassionately into the demands for Vidarbha, Gorkhaland, Harit Pradesh, Kongu Nadu, and other such. Its mandate should also include the granting of real financial and political autonomy to panchayats and municipalities.

To do its task fairly and honourably, a new SRC must draw its members not from political parties but from the law, the academy, and the social sector. The members of the first SRC were the jurist Fazl Ali, the author and diplomat K.M. Panikkar, and the social worker H.N. Kunzru. India today has a comparable set of distinguished and independent-minded people. Some names for a fresh SRC I might suggest are the jurist Fali Nariman, the economist Jean Dreze, the sociologist André Béteille, and the social worker Ela Bhatt — but there would be others, too.

One hopes the Centre has the courage to redeem a promise first made in the UPA manifesto of 2004 but quietly forgotten since. Meanwhile, expect Jaswant Singh to put aside his pen, thus to answer his constituents’ demand that he make Gorkhaland the sole object of his attentions. Ajit Singh may also be stirred out of his present lethargy to lead the movement for Harit Pradesh. As for Rao, he certainly knows the parallels with the movement in the 1950s for a separate Andhra. Potti Sriramulu’s fast was conducted in Madras; because he lived there, and because he wanted Madras to be the capital of Andhra Pradesh. In the event, Sriramulu’s supporters got their state but not that city. Rao’s greatest fear now must be that history would repeat itself in toto, such that they have their Telangana, but without Hyderabad.

(Courtesy: HindustanTimes)

Protests, road blockades, rallies, processions, meetings, human chains and cultural programmes were organised across the region by all political parties and other pro-Telangana groups.

Tension continued at Osmania University, the nerve centre of the agitation, as students took out a procession to the police station demanding release of their leaders. Police had a tough time controlling the angry students.

The protest was held even as police stepped up efforts to foil the plans of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the students for a ‘Chalo Hyderabad’ march and rally Jan 3. Police have denied permission for the protests and imposed prohibitory orders in and around the city.

However, the government Tuesday received a jolt with the state high court quashing its order for closure of all university hostels and messes in Telangana. The court directed that the hostels and messes be reopened with necessary measures to prevent the entry of outsiders.

Police went on alert in Hyderabad and other parts of the region a day ahead of the shutdown called by the all-party JAC. Additional forces, including paramilitary personnel, were deployed in the state capital and other towns.

The tussle between students on hunger strike and the police continued on the campuses of all universities in the region, especially the Kakatiya University in Warangal.

Some student unions have threatened to disrupt New Year celebrations at Ramoji Film City on the outskirts of Hyderabad. A group of students staged a protest outside the film city owned by media baron Ramoji Rao.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner B. Parasada Rao has warned of strict action against those planning to disrupt New Year celebrations in the city.

Demanding withdrawal of cases booked against those participating in the agitation, lawyers staged a sit-in outside the Nampally criminal court complex.

In Warangal, students, lawyers and government employees came together to stage massive protests. Lawyers boycotted courts.

In Karimnagar town, hundreds of people marched through the streets demanding the immediate formation of Telangana state. Leaders of all parties vowed not to rest till the central government announced the formation of the state.

Protesters in various towns also used folk songs and cultural performances to highlight their demand.

In Mahabubnagar district, government employees resorted to a ‘pen down’ protest in support of the Telangana movement.

The ‘fast unto death’ and relay hunger strikes by students, lawyers and legislators cutting across party lines also continued.

(Courtesy: Hindustan Times)