The Telengana issue which is hogging the limelight for the past one month at the national as well as regional press both in the print and electronic media has a long past and the current spell of agitation in the form of bandhs is just adding one more chapter to this murky drama thanks to the worst kind of bungling on the part of the the Congress-led government at the centre. It is time to take a dispassionate and well-informed view of the problem which has afflicted the state of Andhra Pradesh.
The state of Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1953 against the background of a demand led by the leader Potti Sriramulu to create a separate comprising the Telegu speaking areas of the erstwhile state of Madras and the government conceded to this demand. And the bifurcation of the state of Madras followed and the state of Andhra Pradesh came into being with four districts of Rayalaseema and nine coastal districts lying North of Madras with Kurnool as the capital of the new state.
Whereas the Telengana region already existed as State of Hyderabad with ten districts of Telengana which was under the rule of Nizam. At the time of Independence when the princely states were being merged with the Indian State, the Nizam of Hyderabad played all kinds of tricks and games to delay the inevitable merger which the Indian Army effected in 1948. Thereafter the Jawharlal-led government at the centre took the most short-sighted and controversial decision of merging the existing State of Hyderabad with Andhra Pradesh in 1956 and opened the proverbial Pandora's Box. This mindless decision is at the root of whatever unfortunate happenings we have been witnessing in the state for a long time. Since then the demands for a separate Telengana region have been made and all the successive governments played a wait-and watch policy which has culminated in the present crisis.
The first movement towards a separate state was launched by Late M. Chenna Reddy in 1969 under the aegis of Telengana Praja Samithi and witnessed violence on a large scale claiming close to 400 lives and here again the Congress Party-led government at the centre outmaneuvered him into joining the party and he was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh for more than one tenure and a Governor too at the fag-end of his career. And the demand for a separate Telengana was put back in the cold storage.
It is interesting to note that contrary to popular belief that a new state is being demanded to be created , it seems the demand is not in the nature of a new state but the restoration of the erstwhile State of Hyderabad.