insights-on-t-gana-andhra-s-socio-economic-divide

After years of struggle, Telangana was bifurcated from Andhra Pradesh and it finally came into existence as a new state of the Indian union on June 2, 2014. Today, in popular memory, we mostly remember the 2009 protests, led by chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) and Prof. Kodandaram, and the year-long 1969 statehood movement.

 

However, Telangana was originally meant to be an independent state, and decades of struggle could have been perhaps avoided had the then Indian government had some foresight.

 

The States Reorganisation Commission, formed by the Indian government headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1955 also recommended against the merger of the Telangana and Andhra regions as a unified Telugu state based on linguistic commonality. But the merger still happened and became a reality on November 1, 1956.

 

A historical glance of Telangana’s socio-economic background will provide for a better understanding.

 

Telangana region’s background

 

All of the Telugu speaking regions of Telangana, coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema were all under the Nizam’s (or Asaf Jahi), who came into power in 1724. However, after the second monarch, Nizam Ali Khan (1762-1803), signed the Treaty of Subsidiary Alliance with the British in 1798, the rulers were soon under financial duress as the state had to pay the British East India Company lakhs of rupees a year to maintain the foreign troops.

 

The Nizam’s government kept borrowing money from a bank (Palmer and Co) in the first half of the 19th century, which it could not pay back. Instead, the EIC paid-off the bank, and in return took the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions away from the Nizams.

 

This was what led to Telangana and Andhra diverging in terms of culture and language, as the former’s Telugu was influenced due to its close proximity to Hyderabad and Urdu language (45.4% speakers in Twin Cities of Hyderabad and Secunder, as per the States Reorganisation Commission report, 1955).

 

The Andhra areas were merged with the British-administered Madras Presidency, with Chennai (then Madras) as its capital. Telangana, with its state-appointed landlords or Jagirdars under the Nizams, concentrated its wealth and capital in Hyderabad city, while the districts were fairly disadvantaged, even in the 20th century under the last Nizam Osman Ali Khan (1911-48).

 

Andhra state is formed with a demand to share Madras as shared capital

 

By 1953, the Telugu speaking population from the Madras Presidency began demanding its own statehood, and on November 1, 1953, the Andhra state came into existence. However it had no built capital. Being part of the presidency, naturally its leaders wanted to share Madras with the Tamil speaking regions, but that demand was rejected.

 

Eventually, the idea of merging the Telugu speaking regions of Telangana and Andhra state was brought about. This was of course not going to go down well in Hyderabad, where there was already resentment against people of Andhra for taking up government jobs. In fact, what the States Reorganisation Commission said on this matter is very important to understand the imbalances that eventually came about after both the Telugu states were merged to create Andhra Pradesh on November 1, 1956.

 

States Reorganisation Commission’s recommendations in 1955 on Telangana and disintegration of the Hyderabad State

 

While the Marathwada or Marathi and Kannada speaking (except Bidar) areas were to be merged with Maharashtra and Karnataka, the States Reorganisation Commission observations on Telangana are quite telling and interesting of how common languages does not work when there is socio-economic inequality.

 

After going through the merits and demerits of merging Andhra and Telangana, and stating that the case for “Vishalandhra thus rests on arguments which are impressive”, the report also noted: “The considerations which have been urged in favour of a separate Telangana State, however, not such as may be lightly brushed aside.”

 

It took of the fact that “some” leaders from Telangana “seem to fear that the result of unification will be to exchange some settled sources of revenue, out of which development schemes may be financed, for financial uncertainty similar to that with which Andhra is now faced”. Before the merger, and after 1953, Andhra, without a capital, had a lower per capita income than Telangana, which from an administrative point claimed “to be progressive”.

 

The Commission, while stating that there are benefits of bringing Telangana and Andhra regions for sharing the Krishna (over which both states are today vying for a higher share) and Godavari river basins, and “suitability” of Hyderabad as capital, was still not convinced about the merger. It also noted that Andhra leaders were also ready to provide adequate safeguards, like a pact for local job quotas, if both states merged.

 

Merger and creation of Andhra Pradesh

 

The States Reorganisation Commission noted that all the promises and pacts will however not “prove workable or meet the requirements of Telangana during the period of transition”.

 

In its final conclusion, it said: “After taking all these factors into consideration, ‘we have come to the conclusion that it will be in the interests of Andhra as well as Telangana, if for the present, the Telangana area is constituted into a separate state, which may be known as the Hyderabad state, with provision for 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 residuary Hyderabad State expresses itself in favour of such unification.”

 

It added that Telangana, if public sentiment in Telangana “crystallises” against the unification, it will “have to” continue as a separate unit. So what does this mean? Perhaps Andhra would have built itself a new capital, and Telangana in turn would have functioned as it was with Hyderabad as its capital.

 

However, issues with regard to jobs and cultural oppression in Telangana continued, leading to the 1969 statehood movement first. Led by Marri Chenna Reddy.

 

After him, the issue was raked by incumbent chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao in 2009, after former CM of the joint Andhra Pradesh state YS Rajasekhara Reddy died in a helicopter crash the same year.