Centre’s move on all-party meet puzzling: #Telangana #Samaikyandhra

From The Hindu, 1 Nov 2013

 

By inviting political parties for another round of consultations on Telangana even while it is hurtling towards the direction of dividing Andhra Pradesh, the Centre has made its plans about the future of the State quite suspect.

As alleged by Seemandhra protagonists earlier, the Congress is again putting the cart before the horse. It did so earlier when it began the process of consulting stakeholders through the Antony Committee after the Congress Working Committee and the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for creation of Telangana. It is a different matter that the Committee was still born.

Also, consultations with political parties at this juncture appear strange, as the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Home Minister S. K. Shinde has completed two meetings and is scheduled to hold the third one on November 7. On the other hand, top officials are moving back and forth from Delhi for consultations at a speed uncharacteristic of the government to prepare the ground for the November 7 meeting.

Mr. K. Vijay Kumar, senior security advisor the Ministry of Home Affairs, is camping in Hyderabad since three days to discuss a range of issues from sharing of police assets to developing a joint mechanism to ensure the security of software establishments.

The Centre’s latest invitation to parties has drawn comparisons with the CWC’s sudden decision on July 30 in the sense that both are alleged to have been motivated by political considerations. While it was votes and seats that mattered then, the objective now appears to expose Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu for his ambiguous stand on Telangana.

Mr. Naidu’s is the only major party that has not stated in clear-cut terms whether it is in favour of unified Andhra Pradesh or separate Telangana. Indeed, it has given a letter in support of bifurcation, but Mr. Naidu is now singing the tune of that the Centre must render justice to Seemandhra before proceeding with the division. The Centre wants to pin him down to taking a stand and pre-empt him from riding two horses simultaneously.

This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the Home Ministry seeking suggestions from parties on various issues spelt out in the GoM’s Terms of Reference.

Centre's game plan

The less charitable inference is that the Centre is resorting to a game of deferring implementation of its decision on Telangana and bring to heel the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) which is in no mood to oblige the ruling party with the offer of merger until passage of a Bill in Parliament.

On the same plane, the Congress badly needs to do something to give an impression of broad-based consultations to its unilateral decisions that have totally alienated the party from the people in Seemandhra. This is also essential to get wider support in Parliament for the Constitutional amendment that would be necessary to deal with Article 371 (D).

Fear among ‘T’ people

Amid these fast-paced developments, there is fear among Telangana supporters that the Centre may take the issue back to Square One.

One indication is the Home Ministry’s individual letters which say that the GoM will interact with “representatives of your political party”.

The Congress and the Telugu Desam are sure to depute one leader each from Telangana and Seemandhra, who will speak in diametrically opposite voices and add to the confusion.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/centres-move-on-allparty-meet-puzzling/article5303390.ece

November 1st - #Andhra Pradesh Formation Day! - Early history of #Telugu speaking people #samaikyandhra #telangana

A Glorious Day In The History of India: November 1st - #Andhra Pradesh Formation Day!

Montage below showing (Clockwise) Charminar, Tirumala Tirupati Temple, Rajamundry Barrage Over River Godavari , Lepakshi Nandi Bull, Kakatiya Thoranam (Arch)

Kondaveedu Fort - Guntur

Kakatiya Sculpture - Warangal

 

Pillar At Ahobilam Temple - Kurnool

Early history of #Telugu speaking people 

 

The first historical records appear in the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya, when what is now the Nizamabad and Adilabad districts of the Telangana region constituted parts of the Assaka Mahajanapada (700–300 BCE)[11] An Andhra tribe was mentioned in the Sanskrit epics such as Aitareya Brahmana (800 BCE) and Mahabharata (400 BCE).[12] The Natya Shastra written by Bharatha (1st century BCE) also mentions about the Andhra people.[13] The roots of the Telugu language have been seen on inscriptions found near the Guntur district[14] and from others dating to the rule of Renati Cholas in the 5th century CE.[15]

Megasthenes, a Greek traveller and geographer who visited the Court of Chandragupta Maurya (322–297 BCE), mentioned that the region had three fortified towns and an army of 100,000 infantry, 200 cavalry, and 1,000 elephants. Buddhist books reveal that Andhras established their huts or tents near the Godavari River at that time.[16]

Inscriptions shows that there was an early kingdom in coastal Andhra (Guntur District) ruled first by Kuberaka and then by his son Varun, with Pratipalapura (Bhattiprolu) as the capital. Around the same time, Dhanyakatakam/Dharanikota (present day Amaravati) appears to have been an important place, which was visited by Gautama Buddha. According to the ancient Tibetan scholar Taranatha: "On the full moon of the month Chaitra in the year following his enlightenment, at the great stupa of Dhanyakataka, the Buddha emanated the mandala of 'The Glorious Lunar Mansions' (Kalachakra)".[17][18]

The Mauryans extended their rule over Andhra in the 4th century BCE. With the fall of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BCE, the Satavahanas became independent. After the decline of the Satavahanas in 220 CE, the Ikshvaku dynasty, Pallavas, Ananda Gotrikas, Rashtrakutas, Vishnukundinas, Eastern Chalukyas, and Cholas ruled the land.[19]

Scholars have suggested that the Prajñāpāramitā Sutras, the earliest Mahayana Sutras,[20][21] developed among the Mahāsāṃghika along the Krishna River in Andhra country.[22] A.K. Warder holds that "the Mahāyāna originated in the south of India and almost certainly in the Andhra country."[23] Sree Padma and Anthony Barber note that "historians of Buddhist thought have been aware for quite some time that such pivotally important Mahayana Buddhist thinkers as Nāgārjuna, Dignaga, Candrakīrti, Aryadeva, and Bhavaviveka, among many others, formulated their theories while living in Buddhist communities in Andhra."[24] They note that the ancient Buddhist sites in the lower Krishna Valley, including Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda and Jaggayyapeta "can be traced to at least the third century BC[E], if not earlier."[24] The Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Lamdré masters Sri Singha, Savari, Maitripa and Virupa lived and taught in the Andhra region for some portion of their lives or were in some cases permanent residents.[25]

During this period,[clarification needed] Telugu emerged as a popular language, supplanting Prakrit and Sanskrit.[26] Telugu was made the official language by the Vishnukundina kings (5th and 6th centuries), who ruled from their capital city of Vengi. Eastern Chalukyas ruled for a long period after the decline of Vishnukundinas; their capital was also Vengi. As early as the 1st century CE, Chalukyas were mentioned as being vassals and chieftains under the Satavahanas and later under the Ikshvakus. The Chalukya ruler Rajaraja Narendra ruled Rajahmundry around 1022 CE.[27]

The battle of Palnadu (1182) resulted in the weakening of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty and led to the emergence of the Kakatiya dynasty in the 12th and 13th centuries CE. The Kakatiyas were at first vassals of the Rashtrakutas, and ruled over a small territory near Warangal. Eventually all the Telugu lands were united by the Kakatiyas. In 1323 CE, Delhi Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq sent a large army under Ulugh Khan to conquer the Telugu country and captured Warangal. King Prataparudra was taken prisoner. Musunuri Nayaks recaptured Warangal from the Delhi Sultanate in 1326 CE and ruled for fifty years

From Wikipedia

A Glorious Day In The History of India: November 1st - #Andhra Pradesh Formation Day!

101 Lies & Dubious Arguments Of #Telangana Separatists - Lie #5

Lie #5: Nehru was against Telangana’s merger with Andhra.

Jawaharlal Nehru was never against the formation of Visalandhra, contrary to the propaganda by the separatists. Nehru was initially against splitting the Hyderabad State, which consisted of Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi speaking areas, since he thought the State represented his idea of unity in diversity.

However, when the principle of carving out states on linguistic basis was accepted, he was very vocal in supporting the demand for creation of Visalandhra by merging Andhra state and the Telugu-speaking regions of the Hyderabad state. In the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru that has transcript of Nehru’s speech given in Nizamabad public meeting, he said the following:

“This decision has been arrived at after prolonged discussions with both sides and great care
has been taken to see that feelings on either side are not exacerbated. The people of
Andhra and Telangana have to lead their lives and progress as parts of the larger entity,
India. Therefore, petty arguments and tensions will lead nowhere. I hope all of you will
accept this new proposal wholeheartedly and put it into practice. I want that you should
become a part of greater Andhra and benefit by it.”

101 Lies & Dubious Arguments Of #Telangana Separatists - Lie #4

Lie # 4: Andhra Mahasabha was an organization run by the people of Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema

This is untrue and again part of separatist propaganda. In the early 1900s there were two organizations: one was Andhra Mahasabha led by Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema leaders and the other was Nizam Andhra Mahasabha led by Telangana stalwarts like Suravaram Pratap Reddy, Andhra Pitamaha Madapati Hanumantha Rao, Ravi Narayana Reddy, Burgula Ramakrishna Rao and several others.

It is the Nizam Andhra Mahasabha under the leadership of communists that led the armed peasant uprising against Nizam’s tyrannical rule.

101 Lies & Dubious Arguments Of #Telangana Separatists - Lie #3

Lie #3: Telangana under the rule of Nizam had no relations with Andhra, which was under British rule.

Despite different political dispensations across regions during British and Nizam rule, the Telugu people yearned for one administrative and political unit, since their cultural and social
unity continued to be as strong as ever. In Andhra Pitamaha Maadapati Hanumantha Rao Jeevita Charitra there is a reference to Nawab Aliyavar Jung, a senior official in the Nizam Government,
saying to Sri Madapati Hanumanth Rao: “it came to our government’s notice that the purpose of your Andhra movement is to merge the Andhra districts of Madras and the Andhra districts in Nizam’s dominion”.

Nizam has given incentives to people of coastal region by a firmana and encouraged them to come and settle in Nizamabad, Adilabad, and Warangal under the then newly constructed irrigation projects. The Telangana Armed Struggle attests to the fact that the shared cultural heritage was the prime reason for working together of peoples on either side of the artificial borders to bring down the Nizam regime. Many leading lights of the undivided Communist Party of India from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions such as Chandra Rajeswara Rao, P Sundarayya, M Basavapunnaiah and
Tammareddy Satyanarayana played crucial role in the historic Telangana Armed Struggle and acted in concert with the leaders from the Nizam region like Ravi Narayana Reddy, Devulapalli Venkateswara Rao, Bhimreddy Narasimha Reddy, Makhdoom, and Baddam Yellareddy. Many leaders of the Andhra unit of the Communist Party led the guerrilla squads during the Telangana struggle.

For example, Kasani Narayana acknowledged that the marching song of the then Telangana fighters – “Telugu talli biddalam, Telangana veerulam, Matrudesa mukti koraku porusalpa kadilinaam” (We the children of Telugu maatha, warriors from Telangana, fighting for the liberation of motherland are on a warpath) was composed by Sunkara Satyanarayana, a communist writer and fighter from Krishna district of coastal Andhra. It is the same Sunkara Satyanarayana who, along with Vasireddy Bhaskara Rao wrote the magnificent and popular play ‘Maa Bhoomi’ (Our Land) in 1947. It inspired millions of people (mainly in Telangana but also in Andhra) into anti-feudal struggles. The Praja Natya Mandali troupe which staged this play had artists mostly from the coastal Andhra region. The
play was performed in border areas of Andhra (as it was not permitted in Telangana) to enable the people from Telangana districts to watch. “All these factors emphasise the nature of the Telangana struggle, namely that it was the concerted action of the leaders of both the units of the Communist Party of India in Telangana and Andhra” wrote P R Rao in his book History of Modern Andhra.
The separatists would not even like to mention about the glorious Telangana Armed Struggle because it was a fine example of the oneness of all Telugus.

101 LIES & DUBIOUS ARGUMENTS OF #TELANGANA SEPARATISTS - Lie #2

Lie #2: There was communal harmony during Nizam’s rule which was disturbed after the formation of Andhra Pradesh state

Muslims dominated the state administration during Nizam rule. Of the 1.7 Crore people living in the Hyderabad state, roughly twenty lakhs, about 12% were Muslims. Despite their small numbers,
Muslims held 90% of the army and police jobs and occupied more than 80% of the government administrative jobs. The religious discrimination was so rampant that, in the railway stations of Hyderabad, there used to be two separate refreshment rooms labeled “Moslem Tea Room” and “Hindu Tea Room” according to a Time Magazine article that came out in August 1948 titled The Holdout.

Anjuman Thabli Gulislam, a religious organization supported by Nizam, actively converted poor and downtrodden Hindus to Islam. To counter these conversion activities, Arya Samaj formed an organization called Shuddhi Sabha. As a result, there was considerable hostility between these two religious groups. Muslims were the rulers. They dominated the administration, and the cultural and intellectual spheres. The majority of the subjects in the Hyderabad State had to bear the domination silently because of their powerlessness. Their meek and silent endurance of brutal dominance by despotic rulers cannot be described as communal harmony. Absence of violent protest by the Hindus against the muslim domination cannot be termed as communal peace.

Unknown History Of Andhra Telangana Golkonda Hyderabad With Sangam Pushpa Sambi Reddy

This person has done a lot of research to come up with some previously unknown facts. She has pored through old books, maps located in the great libraries of UK and US.

For Example: The word Telangana actually came from Telingana....which actually came from Trilingadesa meaning the land between the three great siva temples. Doesnt include Hyderabad or most contemporary districts.

Must watch, see this video of ABN Telugu news channel's interview of Sangam Pushpa Sambi Reddy.
 

 

101 LIES & DUBIOUS ARGUMENTS OF #TELANGANA SEPARATISTS - Lie #1

101 LIES & DUBIOUS ARGUMENTS OF TELANGANA SEPARATISTS

Lie #1: "Telangana was a separate entity for 2200 years out of 2500 years of Telugu history"

Historically, this is untrue. From Satavahanas and Kakatiyas (A.D. 1162 – 1323) to
the Vijayanagara Rayas (A.D. 1336 – 1565), Qutub Shahis (A.D. 1518 – 1687) and
the Nizams (A.D. 1720 – 1948), Telugus were ruled as a single political entity for a
large part of history. Even if you take the Muslim rule which is the recent past, most
of the present day Andhra Pradesh was under the suzerainty of one political power.

In A.D.1766, the Nizam signed a treaty with the British, whereby in return for the
Northern Circars (most of the Coastal Andhra region- which was initially given to the
French), the British agreed to furnish Nizam Ali Khan with a subsidiary force as and
when required. As per another treaty, he surrendered the Guntur circar in A.D.1788. Yet another treaty was signed by the Nizam In A.D.1800 with the British to cede an area comprising the districts of Rayalaseema and Bellary (now in Karnataka).

Even though different kings ruled different parts of the Telugu-speaking region albeit for brief periods, we cannot use historical balkanization to buttress arguments for dividing the state. This argument is as good as saying, India, which was ruled by 500 different kings and nawabs in pre-Independence era, should have as many states.

It is an undeniable fact that the entire Andhra Pradesh of the present day shared similar cultural and
linguistic features all through the history, notwithstanding being under different political dispensations for brief spells.

See maps:

Courtesy: Visalandhra Mahasabha

REFUTING AN AGITATION: 101 LIES & DUBIOUS ARGUMENTS OF TELANGANA SEPARATISTS - Part1

REFUTING AN AGITATION: 

101 LIES & DUBIOUS ARGUMENTS OF TELANGANA SEPARATISTS - Part 1

http://www.myteluguroots.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Refuting-An-Agitation.pdf

Extracts from the book published by Visalandhra Mahasabha

Introduction
This book is an effort to carefully examine the claims, assertions, and allegations that are made by the
separatists in Telangana. These have gone unexamined for a long time. Therefore, they went unchallenged and unquestioned. Not only those who want the state to be divided believed them to be true but also those who are opposed to the division thought initially that there might be a grain of truth in them. We do not know what the purveyors of these claims and allegations thought about them when they brought them into circulation. Did genuinely think that they were true? Or they just propagated them to serve their separatist agenda?

If they genuinely thought that their allegations and claims were true, this book will give them the
correct picture. They should then have no problem in reexamining their argument and revising their position. But if they deliberately distorted the facts to advance their partisan agenda, this book will expose them and call their bluff. We do hope that they reexamine their position in the light of the facts presented in this work. Victimhood evokes sympathy. Telangana separatists repeated their allegations, claims and assertions in concert. They wrote continuously and propagated tirelessly that Telangana region was discriminated against, exploited, humiliated, and insulted. Those who did not have time or opportunity to verify these claims and allegations took them to be true. And as a consequence they found themselves in sympathy with the separatist cause. This is one of the reasons why in Delhi and elsewhere in the country many columnists, political commentators, and several prominent persons in the media and NGO sectors thought that they were lending their support to a deserving cause. Some political parties and their leaders, despite being unfamiliar with the realities in the state of Andhra Pradesh and in Telangana, also extended their support to what they thought was a genuine cause. But, as it turned out, it was uncritical acceptance of claims, undeserving
sympathy for a cause and unthinking support for a demand. We hope that those who accepted the separatists’ claims at face value will carefully examine and evaluate the narrative that we are presenting in this book.

The separatists began their agitation with the claim that Telangana region has been neglected, that it was backward, and that it was exploited. That was the overture to their concert of propaganda. They were emphatic about their claims as long as those claims went unchallenged. Nalamotu Chakravarthy’s book My Telugu Roots was perhaps the first work that challenged those claims of economic exploitation and backwardness. His book conclusively showed that the region is not backward (no more backward or no less prosperous than any other region in the state) and in fact has registered impressive growth in every sector of economic activity since the formation of Andhra Pradesh state in 1956.

That Chakravarthy hails from Telangana region is significant. Separatists could not tarnish his work as a biased interpretation of data by someone unsympathetic to the interests of his own region. They could not come up with a cogent rebuttal of his argument. Therefore, a cowardly physical assault on Chakravarthy was the only thing that they could do to lend force to their claims. They began to lose their cool as they began to lose their argument.

Justice Srikrishna Committee also rubbished the ‘economic backwardness – exploitation’ argument in its report. This marked the final demise of the economic argument of separatists. The argument that jobs of Telangana people were taken away, that there was theft of irrigation water, and that the successive governments neglected the region, that agreements were violated and other related claims and allegations were proved to be simply incorrect and untrue.

Telangana Lies - Continued...

Another lie by those who want to divide Andhra Pradesh - "Nehru during the merger said that an innocent bride is being given in marriage to a crafty groom. According to Nehru, there was a provision of divorce at the time of merger"


This is another falsehood that the separatists have been spreading for too long.
Nehru never uttered these words in his Nizamabad Speech where the separatists
assert that he provided this blank cheque for future use.

The Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, which reproduced the Prime Minister’s
speech at Nizamabad in full, nowhere mentions this remark. In fact, if one observes
the tone and tenor of the speech, Nehru was emphatic about the need for the
people to live together for all-round development of the country.

That he was so against regional, parochial arguments is clear from the following statement of his:
“India does not belong only to you or me but to all of us. Bharat Mata does not belong only
to the people of Hyderabad, or Uttar Pradesh alone. All of us are parts of India and the
whole country belongs to all of you from the Himalayas down to Kanniyakumari. You cannot
tell me Hyderabad and Nizamabad belong to you and Allahabad and Delhi to me. I too have
a right in Hyderabad just as you have claim to the Himalayas, Delhi and other places.”

Blackmail that works fast - Tavleen Singh on Telangana

One of India's most experienced journalists Tavleen Singh on Telangana. This article is dated but still relevant today.....

Blackmail that works fast
By Tavleen Singh 
(Originally written in Dec 2009)

If you do not hear from me next week it will be because I am on hunger strike on a cold pavement near Jantar Mantar. I want Sheila Dikshit’s job and will fast unto death for it. I need to lose three kilos anyway but my motives are political. Ever since Mrs Dixit let Manu Sharma out on parole, I have been thinking of taking her on. I am well qualified. I am from Delhi, better educated, younger, more dynamic and see no reason why she should keep her job. Not only was it amoral to release Manu Sharma the way she did, she is slipping on the infrastructure front as well. The broken roads in my neighbourhood have not been repaired in more than a year and those stadiums for next year’s Commonwealth Games remain un-built. Since neither the Congress Party nor the BJP will consider letting me run on their behalf I have decided that a hunger strike is the way forward. All I have to lose are my kilos.

Besides, if K. Chandrashekhar Rao could get a separate Telangana after a few days of fasting, then why should we not all try to get what we want through political blackmail? Right? By the time you read this Yasin Malik, a Gandhian since he threw away his machine gun, could already be fasting to death in some icy Srinagar square. In Darjeeling there could be some unknown Gorkhaland leader similarly inspired and Ajit Singh who wants to become Chief Minister of a Harit Pradesh has already appeared on television to announce sulkily that he is going to change his tactics. Now there is no way that the Government of India can ignore Irom Sharmila who has been on hunger strike for ten years. All she wants is for the Armed Forces Special Powers Act to be repealed in Manipur. Considering the ‘special powers’ to rape and murder that the armed forces have appropriated in Manipur, Irom Sharmila’s demand is just and should have been conceded long ago.

That really is the point. If a demand is just there should be no place for political blackmail and if it is a stupid demand then no amount of hunger strikes should work. The Telangana demand has long baffled me. As a veteran political pundit I have been asked about Telangana many times. People stop me at airports and in crowded bazaars to ask if I can explain what is behind the demand. I confess that I had to Google up the historical background to Telangana and still understand no more than that it is a backward part of Andhra in which people are ‘proud Telugus’. Are there un-proud Telugus in the rest of Andhra? And, if K. Chandrashekhar Rao was such a hero why did he do so badly in the last general election? Could it be that all he is after is a job for himself to pass on one day to his son who has already entered the ranks of our political princelings.

The manner in which the Government of India succumbed to political blackmail is frightening if you keep in mind that we live in bad times. Not only do we live under the constant threat of Islamist terrorism but now there are signs that the Islamists are winning in Afghanistan. If the Americans need 100,000 troops to defeat the Taliban the war could already be lost. If I were advising President Obama I would have told him to get out of Afghanistan before he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize last week. In any case the Americans will leave sooner than later and we will have to rely on our own government to protect us from the rabid Taliban. What hope is there for us if an obscure, regional leader can bring the Government of India to its knees by a ten-day hunger strike?

What is more annoying than the political blackmail is the reality that Telangana will make no difference to the lot of the Telanganian citizen. Many small states have been carved out of big ones in recent years and the people of these new states remain in exactly the same appalling conditions as they always were.

The fight against poverty and deprivation can only be won by improved methods of governance. The politicians know they cannot deliver on this front so they encourage expensive distractions like changing the names of cities and cutting big states up into little ones. If the ‘aam aadmi’ is fooled into believing he benefits then there is nothing we can do about it. What we need to worry about is the shameful weakness the Government of India exhibited under pressure from a smalltime regional leader who lost nearly all the seats his party contested in the last election.

http://www.tavleensingh.com/article_detail.php?aid=54
 

GDP down, gross domestic bitterness up - MJ Akbar on Telangana

Excellent article by one of India's most respected journalists - MJ Akbar - on Telangana. (Interestingly, this appeared on a Pakistani site):

GDP down, gross domestic bitterness up

By: M J Akbar

There are no votes in despair

Between 1757 and 1857 the British patched together an Indian empire full of geographical odds but with one logical end: an administrative map which maximised their security and trade, rather than reflected what people wanted. Blaming the British is pointless. They ruled India for Britain's benefit, not India's.

Robert Clive is justly famous for winning Bengal, but an equally significant achievement of his time was conquest of the Andhra coastal belt, called the Northern Circars, in 1758-59. The Nizam of Hyderabad had ceded this region to the French, who promptly lost it to the British. Clive's strategic interest was to control the coast, and establish a land route between the premier British trading cities, Calcutta and Madras, strengthening the defences of both. He knew its value from experience. In 1756, when Clive set out to recapture Calcutta, seized by Siraj ud Daula and renamed Alinagar, his fleet was forced to sail from Madras via Ceylon and Burma to the Hooghly river in Bengal.

The Mughal map had deeper roots in local history and ethnicity, because Mughal expansion, after Akbar, sought to assimilate as much as to acquire. A regional dynasty was permitted to rule over its fief as long as it accepted the Mughal emperor as overlord. The identification between land and people in princely India was deeper, thanks to continuity and feudal tradition. When free India sought a new internal map, based on the will of the people, most disputes emerged from British India, and why would they not when Sind and Gujarat were ruled from Marathi Bombay, and half of Andhra from Tamil Madras?

The Circars were not included in the new state of Andhra Pradesh when it was formed after the end of the Nizam. It required massive protests, and a fast-unto-death that actually ended in death to correct the absurdity of keeping Andhras out of Andhra Pradesh. But poisonous tensions embedded in that initial mistake could never be buried because they had never died. Telengana, consisting of the poorer districts of the Nizamate, soon convinced itself that its progress was being sabotaged by economic aggression of the old Circars. By the 1970s a popular movement, also known as the "mulki struggle", took shape, spurred by the thought that demonstrations and fasts could change a decision in a democratic polity.

Of Andhra's myriad chief ministers, spanning the scale from heroic to useless, only one man seemed to understand that if the problem was economic, then the solution did not have to be political. He was Y. Rajashekhar Reddy, father of Jagan Reddy, and, ironically, the Congress leader who could legitimately claim to be close to Mrs Sonia Gandhi. The demand for Telengana all but evaporated over his six years as CM because he delivered development.

The casualty rate in public life rises not from murder, but suicide. In an astonishing blunder four years ago, a little after Rajashekhar died in a tragic helicopter accident, P. Chidambaram, then home minister, revived a comatose conflict by offering Telengana. Since then, everyone has suffered grievously because of this mistake, except the man who made it.

One of the great mysteries of the present UPA government has been its phenomenal indifference to public rage. It lined up a team of ministers, headed by Kapil Sibal, to sneer at Anna Hazare. Today, Andhra Pradesh is in cinders. What is the response of its top leaders? Mrs Sonia Gandhi emerges now and then to scold the BJP and returns to silence. Rahul Gandhi is deeply concerned about Jupiter velocity touched in the head by lunar sagacity. And Dr Manmohan Singh stops by in Delhi to implement some Rahul Gandhi diktat before he boards again a fast plane to somewhere far, far away. Andhra? It could be on another planet; and if Digvijay Singh has been left in charge, it probably has reached stratosphere in any case.

Political malpractice punishes the nation more than it does any ruling party. Has anyone measured the economic cost of Andhra's meltdown after Chidambaram's blunder? How much of our GDP have we lost in the last four years? And how much has gross domestic bitterness grown?

There will never be unanimity over Telengana, but the quality governance is measured by the management of change. Far from ensuring peace, Congress has itself splintered. Some solutions being suggested are downright stupid, like declaring Hyderabad as a common capital. Hyderabad is over 100 kilometres from the border of Seemandhra. In 1948 Nehru and Patel had sufficient credibility to take a decision through Cabinet on new states. They left the call to a judge and a commission.

You cannot toss a bomb into the air, get out of the way, watch who gets hit on the street and then pick up votes from the debris. There are no votes in despair.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/10/15/comment/gdp-down-gross-domestic-bitterness-up/

MJ Akbar is a leading Indian journalist and author. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Guardian. He has also served as Editorial Director of India Today.

BJP's inconsistent stand on Andhra Pradesh bifurcation: Telangana

BJP's inconsistent stand on Andhra Pradesh bifurcation: Telangana

 
"Smaller states were neither viable nor conducive to the integrity of the country"

 "Regional disparities in economic development could be tackled through planning and efficient use of available resources"

We therefore do "not propose creation of a separate state of Telangana"

Who said the above golden words? None other than LK Advani of BJP in April 2002, also then Union Home Minister.

Economic Times says Congress' Telangana game plan ready: Andhra Pradesh

Today's Economic Times says Congress' Telangana game plan ready:

First impose President's rule in Andhra Pradesh,

then target dissidents like CM Kiran Kumar Reddy etc,

then introduce Telangana bill in parliament winter session!


Shameless bastards, Seemandhra people protesting for 70+ days and they still want to go ahead?

Tavleen Singh on Telangana

"If someone from Telangana can explain why people wanted a separate state at all I would be grateful. It makes no sense to me."

@tavleen_singh in Twitter

Samajwadi Party: The decision to create Telangana is not in the interest of the country

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Naresh Agarwal said bifurcation would reduce the administrative capacity of the two divided regions. "Samajwadi Party is against the bifurcation of states. We believe that if a state is bifurcated, its administrative capacity will reduce, and the bifurcated states will not be able to sustain themselves. The decision to create Telangana is not in the interest of the country. It is a political move, to create tensions between the bifurcated states," Agarwal said.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1898357/report-opposition-says-government-has-created-near-civil-war-situation-in-andhra-pradesh
 

Shinde says Seemandhra ministers have to be 'consoled'! Telangana

Shinde says Seemandhra ministers have to be 'consoled'!

Sushilkumar Shinde Friday said the central government will have to take the Seemandhra ministers into confidence and "console" them over bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

He made the remark a day after the cabinet gave its approval for creation of Telangana, following which Tourism Minister K. Chiranjeevi resigned and Human Resource Development Minister M. Pallam Raju said he too has decided to resign.

"They are our colleagues, we will see they remain in the cabinet. They have expressed their concern and we will have to take them into confidence and we will try our level best," said Shinde.

Speaking to media persons here he added: "After all, when there is bifurcation of state such feelings are there. No one can avoid this, we will have to console them."

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1898226/report-need-to-console-seemandhra-ministers-says-sushilkumar-shinde-on-telangana-issue 

 

Black Day for Democracy - Cabinet Note on Telangana

Who said what....

Lagadapati Rajagopal, MP
...Will move the Supreme Court challenging the move. The move violates the federal principles and structure of the Constitution, he said. Contending that majority of the people of Andhra Pradesh are against the bifurcation, he said when a resolution in this regard is moved in the State Assembly, "we will ensure that it is defeated".

Jaganmohan Reddy MP
Injustice is being done to Andhra Pradesh

No rational thinking employed in creation of Telangana, this is not right

No scientific procedure followed in formation of Telangana

Union Minister Pallam Raju
“Deeply offended and aggrieved that the cabinet did not take any note of our anguish. Cabinet has acted in great haste without understanding the issues or the statements of the people. It is harmful to the state,” “It is a very sad day for Andhra Pradesh,”

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar


"Here, the Congress failed to take their own party into confidence. Their own Chief Minister is a rebel now. Their own Ministers are resigning. This shows utter opportunistic politics Congress does just with the eyes on elections and no commitment for the cause,"

"The Congress mismanaged the whole situation. They could have done it with more grace, but they failed to do. And therefore, now they will have to pay what they have sown. The whole Seemadhra (region) has become restless. They should have assured them that their concerns will be addressed and still we are creating the state, but they couldn't do that," he said.