A lot can happen over "T"

The hottest buzz in andhra Pradesh now being the dramatic T issue has complled me to spill some pearls of my expertise wisdom lols..

I had never known the telangana history till last month. But the 11 days diet schedule of Mr. KCR has compelled me to ask the my beloved friend and a great Telangana leader Buffy(Nitin Kosuri) who sacrificed his breakfast(believe me that rarely happens) for one day as a sign of support for a seperate T state. This post is completely dedicated to him.

Early History
To brief up the T movement which has been on the run from the 50s in India is a demand for seperate state of 10 districts which were previosly under the nizam rule.
Whereas Andhra and Seema were governed by Hindu rulers. Nizam dynasty established a separate state known as Hyderabad. When the British began their rule in India, Andhra and Seema became a part of the Madras Presidency. However, Telangana was never under the British rule - they had a treaty of subsidiary alliance.
Obviously the british developed the education, transportation, irrigation and other systems. On the other hand the hyderabad state was exploited by the nizam and only the city of hyderabad lived in riches and the other areas were left underdeveloped.

After Independence
The Nizam was give a choice either to join India or Pakistan. Now this is really ridiculuous that the nizam wanted to join pakistan surrounded by indian territory(what a loser he was). Ultimately hyderabad was merged with India by force of the Indian Army and the Operation was named Operation POLO.PM Jawaharlal Nehru had a task to reorganize the entire country.

He had setup the State Reorganization Committee and had decided to do the same on linguistic lines. But there was another problem - the Hyderabad state didn’t want to merge with the Andhra state. The reasons were many but predominantly the problem was that Andhra was miles ahead in terms of Economic Development. Though Hyderabad had more money, Andhra had more literacy and education. This was because they were under the British rule and they concentrated a lot on irrigation, education and agriculture. This was what even the SRC report had mentioned. Para 386 of States Reorganization Commission Report (SRC) said "After taking all these factors into consideration we have come to the conclusions that it will be in the interests of Andhra as well as Telangana area is to constitute into a separate State, which may be known as the Hyderabad State with provision for its unification with Andhra after the general elections likely to be held in or about 1961 if by a two thirds majority the legislature of the residency Hyderabad State expresses itself in favor of such unification." But the government overruled this, merged the two and brought in an agreement between the two parties. This agreement was called the Gentleman’s Agreement which provided reassurances to the Telangana people as well to Andhra people in terms of power sharing as well as administrative domicile rules and distribution of expenses of various regions.But Telangana continued to suffer from lack of jobs, poor irrigation facilities, poverty and illiteracy. To overcome the suppression, the separate Telangana movement was launched in the year 1969. But that was when the Congress was at its might. With no strong opposition, the Congress had everything going its way. But the party began lose its sheen when Indira Gandhi imposed emergency and Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. Congress had no strong leader to piggyback upon, and the other parties began to take advantage of this.

Rise of TDP
In Andhra Pradesh the Congress met its match in the form of the legendary hero N.T.Rama Rao. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) which was started by him was ruling the roost. He had a completely different ideology. He worked on the popular slogan “Telugu vari aatma gauravam” (Self-respect of the Telugu people). The entire state worshipped him and he had an agenda to uplift all the underprivileged, irrespective of which part of the state they belonged to. Even Chandrababu Naidu who succeeded him was against separation of Telangana and the division of the state. This was one of the reasons why the BJP, which was at power in the centre couldn’t split Andhra like Jharkhand, Uttarkhand and Chhattisgarh(whose seperation took very peacefully).

The Great KCR
Coming to our present day hero Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao. He joined the TDP and immediately rose to the ranks of Deputy Speaker. Or course, he was not content with that post. He wanted to be a minister, but when Naidu didn’t agree, KCR floated his own party - the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), with the sole agenda of SEPARATING TELANGANA. Can you believe it the political party has no other objective i.e either to develop the T region or reduce corruption nothing all it wanted was give us a seperate state to rule. It would have been better if it had no manifesto point like PRP("nenu mee madhyaloki vasta meere cheppandi nenu emi cheyyalo" by Chiru). There were allegations against him that he was playing the Telangana card only to gain political power that he lacked while he was at TDP. Well this was not just an allegation the world knew about it. But still TRS was received well. The party won the Mandal and Zilla Parishad elections within 60 days of its formation. In the year 2004 during the general elections the TRS allied with the Congress. Y.S.Rajashekhara Reddy had attained immense popularity, mainly thanks to the pada yatra he had performed before the elections.But still to dethrone TDPs Chandra Babu, YSR agreed to ally with the TRS, even though their ideologies over the Telangana issue were very different As a result, the grand alliance of Congress and TRS won the elections. The Congress came to power in the state and formed a coalition government at the centre. TRS joined the coalition government in 2004 and was successful in “making a separate Telangana state” a part of the common minimum program (CMP) of the coalition government. However, TRS withdrew support in September 2006 from the Congress led coalition government, citing indecision by the government over the delivery of its electoral promise to create Telangana. Well this was kind of obvious. Congress has never supported the separation of Telangana, its alliance with TRS was just a political strategy by YSR to make sure Congress gains power. TRS won the by-elections though, that too with a record margin, but it could do nothing regarding the Telangana issue.

Its 2009 Congress is Back with a Bang..!!
General elections again! This time around, TRS allied with TDP (yet another party which was never pro-separation). But TRS backed out of the alliance in the last minute, thereby creating a huge dent in the prospects of TDP reclaiming power. YSR won the elections again. People forgot who KCR is. He did try to make some noise now and then, but things weren’t looking up, and he was almost on the verge of political decline. Majority of his TRS members contemplated on switching to Congress. Also the entrance of Chiru to politics brought another stakeholder for the medias attention. All in all KCRs pages were on the verge of being ripped of from the history of AP(even though KCR doesnt recognise AP i guess u ppl do :P)

The BIG TWIST
And then the big twist, the big break - YSR died in a chopper crash. The Congress were left in doldrums over who should be the next CM. Jagan son of YSR claimed the the chief minister chair is his. His supporters made some fuss in the state and also at the centre. But all he got was a thumbs down from sonia. Even chiru was no more the hot favourite of media with his poor performance in the GE. This was the right time for KCR to play the big game. He started Operation CM in 30 days.

Operation Chief Minister
KCR takes advantage of this situation and rises again. He starts the fast-unto-die movement. He was smart, he knew he had to make news, he knew he had to return to power by any means necessary. He triggered an agitation amongst the students, making allegations that their jobs are being snatched away by the people from Andhra n Seema. It was just a big political game. He continued the fast for 11 days with medical assistance. And the irony being his supporters comparing him to Bhagat Singh.

The Protest
Most of the violent protests were by the students organizations of OU. The agitations involved stone pelting rallies ,destruction of buses and cars the default way of protesting in India. The protests were welcome by the TDP and PRP to make sure that they reappear on APs map where they were almost eliminated by the well led YSR. No sooner Rosaiah wrote to the centre about the oppositions demands and

T is a seperate state
P Chidambaram gave a green signal to a seperate state since as it was visible for him that all political parties were in favour. Without looking or much analysing the whole issue. He being the busiest minister of all with the new anti terrorist installations. This came as a shocker to most of the people in Hyderabad who actually slept in AP and when they woke up they were in Telangana. This announcement triggered protests in all other districts of AP who had economic interests in the capital city. But amidst all this KCR was fit enough for merry making after a dreadful fast for 11 days which could have pushed him into coma as told by media.

T is not a seperate State
Soon TDP and PRP retraced their steps back with pressure for their local leaders. Again it was only TRS demanding a seperate state. This compelled the Centre to take back its declaration of a seperate state and asking for time and consensus from all the political parties for resolving the issue. The latest statement by Chidambaram and Congress spokes person seemed logical i.e " Stop all the protests let us establish a peaceful enivronment for a dialogue and discuss over it and resolve a practical solution". As the earlier SRC was very old and from a different time period. But KCR did not like it nor did his supporters. They decided to have more fun on the streets busses were charred glasses broken, people injured. Amidst all this non sense the two major govt depts. Police and Road Transort were suffering. Bandh was imposed for one day, then another day, then another day. Then KCR gave us a holiday from bandhs as it was Christmas.

Current situation
Now few MPs and MLAs from Congress , TDP and PRP have joined hands with TRS to form the Joint Action Committee and has given an ultimatum to the Centre i.e is to give us a state by monday or.... u know.. Bandh bandh....


My Personal Take
T region has been suffering and is under-developed and needs better attention from the government. All through the protests I have seen people and leaders demanding a seperate state but not more developmental projects. Nor the existing the government promieses any. The Centre also helpless which has to save its chair to continue. It all comes to our flawed political system which in order to ensure democracy has crippled the responsibility of the government. The economy talks about capitalism and also promotes reservation. The reservation system kills me. I dont understand how do people support reforms like 610 GOs(which states that the jobs shall be allocated regionwise T jobs reserved for T ppl Andhra jobs reserved for Andhra ppl). Will the techies reading this give away their jobs if the Karnataka govt says so?? Its not time for reservations it is time for Change for development. Phew...

The Verdict
Now that we know the history of the entire movement, the question that we have in front of us is, ‘is separation the right solution?’ YES and NO.

YES because, Telangana has indeed been neglected and is backward. All its irrigation projects, agriculture, education and employment is courtesy of Andhra. Hyderabad did shine but it’s just a dot in the entire region of Telangana. And the people living in Hyderabad are not just the people from Telangana but also from Andhra and Seema. The people of Telangana have every right to ask for a separate state, considering nothing has been done under the united state. And with a separate state it will be easier to govern and administer the issues at hand.

NO because, the state division is only because Hyderabad has become such a centre that neither of the region would want to lose it. So both of the regions need to retain it i.e be united and well governed. The state is divided into various constituencies and each constituency has its own representative who sits in the assembly and the parliament. Everyone is given funds equally and according to the Gentleman’s agreement the Telangana region gets more. What matters is the leadership. Also even if a separate state is carved out, there will still be the same leaders for these regions. It is not like there’ll be a separate set of new leaders. It is the fault of the leaders in the Telangana region that it hasn’t developed. But the big issue is this - KCR wants power more than the itch to fix the Telangana region. If he really was so concerned about Telangana, how is it that he did nothing when he was an MP, apart from screaming his guts out for a separate state? Shouldn’t he have done a few development projects for the region?

If Telangana is to be separated, it should be because of proper analysis and thinking and not because Mr. KCR threatened to end his life. Because if it is divided now this way it will set a poor example for the whole country that you can achieve things through violence and fasts.

Personal opinion? NO separation!!! A united state with better leadership.

PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE NOT MENTION THE INJUSTICE HAPPENED TO THE T REGION AS YOU MIGHT ALREADY BE AWARE OF IT IN DETAIL FROM THE VARIOUS FORWARDED EMAILS.