Now that the contents of the Sri Krishna committee are out, it goes without saying that Hyderabad is abuzz with discussions about Telangana, about what is, what could have been, and what should be. My father is an old protagonist of the Nizam State and believes that when India had its independence the erstwhile Nizam State should have been assimilated into the Indian Union as it was, but with a new name. He tells me that identities in those days were of no importance in spite of the many that existed. He says Hyderabad was then a true cosmopolis with Maharashtrians, Kannadigas, Tamilians, Gujaratis, Sikhs, Muslims and Christians all living together in the same localities and not in different groupings. He says India's integration was best seen in the old Hyderabad and that if that province had not been changed, then that would have been ideal. He is opposed to linguistic states because for him that is the beginning of parochialism. In my numerous discussions with my colleagues at the University I have argued on similar lines saying that the articulation of a Separate Telangana was not really the best and that I would be the first to agree to a reverting of the old situation. Yesterday was a continuation of the same discussion with my father. My father also tells me that the Nizam is unnecessarily vilified and that all development that was seen in Hyderabad which was always one of the big cities of India, was only due to the efforts of the Nizam. He assures me that he knows what he is saying since his grand father was the Chief Auditor of the Nizam's treasury and took care of most of the developmental activity such as the Railways and Roadways etc. I cannot disagree with him on all that but I was thinking about what might have been, had the new state just continued with the old contours? I know that social scientific knowledge or for that matter any kind of knowledge is incapable of dealing with conjectures, but still I am drawn to that question. I ask myself if parochial and separatist tendencies would have existed in such a composite state. I am not too sure that they would not have. Some how the unity that we showed as a nation during the freedom struggle is being gradually replaced by a competitive spirit and jealousy. If this is true then does it matter what the contours of the state are? Maybe people would have agitated on some other lines, but then that is only a maybe so we will leave it at that.
But we know what is today and let us get back to that. The Sri Krishna Committee report is something on which I will not comment too much because I have not read the full report and what I saw are various snippets selectively put out in various newspapers. Now we know that the vernacular press (I don't read Telugu newspapers since I am not fluent in reading) and papers such as the Times of India and the Deccan Chronicle are mischievous and in order to increase circulation will take recourse to various forms of sensationalizing. So what I have seen is mainly in the Hindu which is in spite of a big decline in standards still the best available option. A couple of things caught my eye there. One thing pertains to Hyderabad and the figures quoted in there are indisputable and what they say about it becoming a one crore population city in this year and the nature of the economy here needing a non-disruption of the existing Andhra Pradesh are factually sustainable. On one of the pages there was this piece that said that the separate Telangana state would be economically viable since the per capital income of the Telangana region is significantly higher than the national normal. That is a very good thing indeed. But then the question of why the talk of Telangana backwardness arises. I Telangana really backward and does it need to separate itself for further progress? What yard stick will be used to say Telangana will develop more rapidly without Andhra? Like I said, these are bits and pieces of information which should not be taken too seriously since they may have been taken out of context. But still my curiosity is piqued, that I must admit.
It was one year ago approximately that the Sri Krishna Committee was constituted with the explicit purpose of finding out what the people may want and what would be a realistic solution to the problem. The wheel has turned a full circle and we are back to where we began. Agitations. Why did the political parties agree for the appointment of this commission if they were not going to relent their positions? Is it not a waste of time and precious national money to go through an exercise which is now being dubbed a charade? One of the arguments that I have heard on discussions on various television channels is that the constituting of a separate constitutionally valid and empowered Telangana Developmental Council with statutory powers is not the solution to the problem. The reason cited is that a similar thing was tried after the first separate Telangana agitation and that it did precious little for the region. The instance of Gorkhaland is also being cited where this experiment is a failure because the Gorkhas are still demanding a separate state.
A couple of questions here
1. If Gorkhaland autonomy is a failure then are the states of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh successful? Evidence points to the contrary. Then why selectively use the example of Gorkhaland?
2. If a similar experiment was conducted in the past and it failed what could be the reasons? The person who started the separate Telangana movement in the first place, Dr. Marri Channa Reddy, went on to become the Chief Minister of the State of Andhra Pradesh twice. And there were other Chief Ministers such as T. Anjaiah and J. Vengal Rao, also from Telangana. What did they try to do for Telangana and what stopped them from doing what they could do or wanted to do? Some answers here are necessary.
Unfortunately the whole Telangana question is wrapped in layers and layers of political rhetoric and with politicians and journalists misusing the freedom of speech to spread information that is convenient to them there does not seem to be any possibility of any rational deliberation, which as I have said in another post is the only forward. But in all this posturing and fighting for political one up man ship I don't see that happening. KCR and his family (meaning son and daughter) are making Telangana their family heirloom just as the Nehru-Gandhi family is doing with India. Those who oppose KCR are trying to establish their own hegemony. The politicians on the Andhra side are no better. Therefore I will come back to what I said in an earlier post. It does not matter what is said in the Sri Krishna Committee report. It does not matter if there is a United Andhra Pradesh or a Separate Telangana. This is a game of the politicians, for the politicians and by the politicians. Common people are mere pawns who have nothing but sacrificing their own future to do. If a separate Telangana does happen, the Chief Minister and the rest of the ministers will have security, gunmen and posse of cars. The person will be as inaccessible as the present Chief Minister or other ministers. The common man will have to visit and revisit government offices with officials not being available or not doing what he wants. The corridors of political power will have the same power brokers brokering deals for the corporates and other moneyed organizations. The common man will also be the same. The situation will be the same in the United Andhra Pradesh as well. Let me quote the Urdu and Hindi poet Sahir Ludhianvi
"Jalado ise phook dalo yeh duniya, yeh duniya tumhari sambhalo yeh duniya
yeh duniya agar mil bhe jaye to kya hai?" - Sahir Ludhianvi
The poet could leave it at that. I cannot. I therefore hope that there is a fundamental change in the nature of politics of this country. I hope that the enlightened will come to power and guide the country through good and morally sustainable politics. Otherwise demagogues like Hitler can hijack anything and everyone onto things which are very personal and ultimately dastardly. I live in hope and look beyond the Sri Krishna Committee for solutions. Meaningful dialogue is what I think is necessary. That I hope will happen one day and soon.
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