The Telangana Tamasha

"Once the arrow is shot, it can't be taken back. There is no question of going back on the Telangana" said KCR in his first interview after breaking his 11 day fast. But, if he thinks that the Telangana issue is as straight as an arrow, he must be joking. Center itself is not clear whether they shot an arrow or hurled a boomerang. Incidents that followed the announcemnt were not something unexpected by the Center. They successfully applied the principles of modern crisis management. Which says, create a bigger crisis to solve the current one.

People who don't know AP history or people outside AP might be seeing it as yet an another state demand. But this is an unique and the most complex demands of all. To understand this, first we have to go back about 50 years in history. In 1953, after a very long fight two Telugu speaking regions, Costal Andhra and Rayalseema got separated from the Madras state and formed Andhra State with Kurnool as capital. Telangana, another telugu speaking region had been a separate state till 1956. It was then in 1956 based on state re-organisation commission report, Government of India merged both andhra state and the telengana region and named the entire state as Andhra Pradesh. Even though it recommended merger, commission also cautioned Central Govt. Commissions findings were not entirely in favour of merger. It said "The case of unification rests on arguments which are impressive. The considerations which have been argued in favour of a separate Telangana State are, however, not such as may be lightly brushed aside." It also said "we have to take note of the important fact that, while opinion in Andhra is overwhelmingly in favour of the larger unit, public opinion in Telangana has still to crystallize itself". Infact it didn't recommend an immediate merger. Commission had asked Govt. to wait till next general elections(which were to take place in 1961 i,e 5 years from the time report was submitted) and after that if two-thirds of telangana legislators favor unification then they asked to go ahead. But govt. performed the marriage well in advance.....To Be Continued(when I get some time)