Separate Telangana Movement

The word “culture” is defined as the sum of attitudes, customs and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another. Culture is transmitted through language, material objects, ritual, institutions and art from one generation to the next. So statehood is formed on the basis of attitudes, customs and belief that form a separate culture.

Of late, there has been a distinct trend of divisiveness in a single culture; people living inside the state and sharing one culture want to create a different state. As it is said in the proverbial language that “a brother demanding his share from joint property of family”. There are causes bordering on nuances in one culture that raise the demand for separation by a group of people.

• Telangana is a vast area in the state of Andhra Pradesh of India, consisting of 10 districts. Those are Hyderabad,Adilabad, Khammam, Karim nagar, MahbubNagar,Medak, Nalgonda,Nizamabad, Rangareddy and Warangal.
• It shares borders with states of Maharastra on the north side, Karnataka on the west, Chattisgrah on the north and Orissa on the east. It is spread over the area of 1, 14,840 square kilometers.
• Historically, the state of Andhra Pradesh went through transitions in different periods of time. In the 14th century, the area under “Telangana” came under the rule of Sultanate of Delhi. Later, the rules of Bahamanis, Quatb sahis and Mughals came in succession.
• The Mughal Empire was on its last legs in the 18th century, when the Muslim Asifiahi dynasty established their rule and created Hyderabad as a separate state. Later, Hyderabad entered into a treaty with the British and formed a princely Hyderabad state. But Telangana was not directly under British rule, unlike the Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Royalseema regions. Those remained under the British India’s Madras presidency. This area came under numerous dynasties.

Beginning of “Telangana” movement in the before the days of independence

The first movement began with the revolt of peasants with the support of Communists. It continued from 1946 and lasted up to 1951. In this, farmers and laborers revolted against the feudal landlords. The peasants and laborers demanded that the entire debt from the landlords be waived off because the latter always exploited them.

In the post-independent India, the state of Hyderabad was annexed by an operation by the Indian Army in the year 1948 as the Nizam of Hyderabad refused to accede to India. The operation was called “Operation Polo”. In December 1953, the States reorganization commission was formed to study and recommend steps to form states on linguistic basis by the Central government of India. The commission was not in favor of merging Telangana with Andhra Pradesh.

The commission stated that the people of Telangana had several concerns. The areas under it had a less developed economy than Andhra Pradesh and people there feared that as the people of Andhra Pradesh were more educated during the British rule, they would take lions’ share in education and government jobs in the post-independence period. So the commission recommended that Telengana be made a separate state with a provision to get merged with Andhra Pradesh only after the general election of 1961.

But things were destined to go in a different direction. The then Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Burgala Ramakrishna Rao, expressed his views that the majority of the people were against the merger and he supported the Congress party’s decision to merge Telangana with Andhra Pradesh. The Andhra State assembly assured the people of Telangana through a special resolution that they would be provided with safeguards in every provision of development in the forthcoming years after Indian independence.

Thus the unified Andhra Pradesh was formed on November 1, 1965 under the central leadership with the assurances that the interests of the Telangana would be best looked after in the coming days.

Birth of demand for separate state for Telangana

In the year 1965, the students of Osmania University began the protest against the discrimination meted out to Telangana people in getting government jobs. This stir was also supported by teachers in the University. Discontent grew as some of guarantees in the agreement were not implemented by the government. Officially, this stir came to an end in the year 1972.

But from that time, the agitation for creating a separate Telangana state has continued. A particular mention might be made about the Srikrishna Committee report, which was prepared in two volumes and submitted to the central government in the year 2010 on 30th December.The committee recommended to keep the state united without going for the creation of separate “Telengana” state. It also recommended creation of a statutorily powerful “Telangana regional council”. The focus of the report remained on the overall growth of the Telangana region through different measures.

But the people of Telangana have always adhered to their demand for a separate state. After the Srikrishna committee report, people of it observed a 14 days non-cooperation movement against the state government in the year 2011. In this almost 3, 00,000 government employees participated and it cost millions of rupees of loss to the exchequer of the state.

Logical grounds for creation of a separate “Telangana” state

• In the year 2000, three new states were formed in India. The first one was Uttarrakhand out of Uttar Pradesh, the second one was Jharkhand out of Bihar and the third one was Chattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh. Telangana sounds a similar chord so far as the basic issues behind it are concerned.
• By and large, Telangana movement is related with the core sentimental values of people of a part of our nation. Lack of growth and a sense of alienation and negligence in the areas of development are the three chief causes motivating people to seek an independent state from the rest of Andhra Pradesh.
• If like the other newly created three states of India, growth gets the maximum focus then creation of a separate state out of Andhra Pradesh would be a welcome idea.

Will separate “Telangana” form?

There is something well said that “United we stand, divided we fall”. Andhra Pradesh is a model state in the areas of overall growth. Except drought and Naxalism, it has remained at the forefront of development in almost all areas. Maximum efforts must be made to remove the disparities between the people of Telangana with the rest of people of Andhra Pradesh.

There are also similar demands in other states of India to form another state out of a particular one. Creating infrastructure for a new state requires heavy expenditure and slowdown of growth. It is due to the fact creation and proper functioning of a political set-up and governance take time and it takes even longer to mature and keep pace with the fast development of other states. People of Telangana should exercise discretion from every angle, while raising their demand for a separate state.