Telegana - The Siege within India as History repeats itself

The battle for the Telegana State is eerily similar to the battle for Andra Pradesh State in 1950s. Ramachandra Guha writes about the Andra Movement in the Hindu:

On December 3, Nehru wrote to Rajagopalachari: "Some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra Province and I get frantic telegrams. I am totally unmoved by this and I propose to ignore it completely". By this time Sriramulu had not eaten for six weeks. As his ordeal went on, support for the cause grew. Hartals were called in many towns. The sociologist Andre Beteille, travelling to Madras from Calcutta at this time, recalls having his train stopped at Vizag by an angry mob shouting slogans against Rajaji and Nehru.

Nehru now recognised the force of popular sentiment. On December 12, he wrote again to Rajaji, suggesting that the time had come to accept the Andhra demand. "Otherwise complete frustration will grow among the Andhras, and we will not be able to catch up with it". But the formal announcement was delayed, and Sriramulu continued his fast. On the 15th he died. The next day all hell broke loose. Government offices were attacked, and trains stopped and defaced. The damage to state property ran into crores of rupees. Several protesters were killed in police firings. On the 16th, Nehru made a statement saying a state of Andhra would come into being, but its boundaries would be decided by an independent Commission. In March 1953, the Telugu districts of Madras were identified for separation; later, these were joined by Telugu-speaking areas of Hyderabad to constitute the present state of Andhra Pradesh.

What is the consequence of the Creation of Andra Pradesh? The Creation of Andra led to the creation of other linguistic states like Maharastra, Gujarat etc crushing the hope of Nehru and Rajaji to create a federal India with a common culture. Over the decades, It also reduced the political influence of Congress as many of the states have regional power-centres whose coalition is the only significant threat to Congress.

What would be the consequence of Telegana? Telegana itself is a political movement whose inner core is the vast socio-economic disparities between the Rural and Urban Andra. This inner core issue is the same across many states in India especially Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharastra. The short-sightedness of Chandrababu Naidu and later YSR who focused all their attention on building Cyberabad, neglecting the rural Andra has led to the emergence of Telegana movement. The same short-sightedness applies to Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu, CMs of Maharastra and Karnataka also. As this is a national phenomena, the responsibility of this rests on the Central Government. The Congress took advantage of stupidity of “the India Shining” BJP Government which ignored the rural India and came to power. It’s answer to the rural-urban divide, the NREGA program for the rural, is an socio-economic planning disaster but political success as it had created a rural votebank for them. As the Congress was voted back to power, Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram had thought that they had solved the Rural-Urban divide. The Telegana movement is the voice of the lower-middle classes of rural India which was ignored by the Congress and is now starting to haunt them.

Once Telegana is granted, it would pave the way for many other smaller states atleast in South India such as Kongunadu in Coimbatore region, Vidharbha in Maharastra etc. This will be disaster for the National Parties and even current State level Parties as hyperlocal issues would dominate the politics there reducing the national influences. The inter-state disputes especially in South India would be even more unmanageable. Telegana Movement is clearly the Siege Within that is brewing in India which would to larger threats to India’s stability. The support enjoyed by the Telegana movement has started giving nightmares to Indian Politicians.

So whatever be the turnout of the current Telegana Movement, the clear winners would be rural lower middle classes of India would have been completely left out of the Globalization wave. The Telegana movement is a wake up call for Karunanidhi who had largely ignored the Kongu region. The Telegana's impact on Tamilnadu will be seen shortly from the upcoming plans of Karunanidhi's DMK government for the Kongu Region. Similarly there will be change in stance of the MNS of Maharastra which had so far been barking at the wrong issue of marginalization of Maharastrians in Mumbai.