Andhra divided: What next?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

What Telengana Rastriya Samiti chief K Chandrasekhar Rao could not do in eight years of politics, he did it with eleven days of fast virtually blackmailing the Centre at point blank range. The Congress which rules both the Centre and the State had to finally give up. After a high level meeting chaired by the Prime Minister himself, Home Minister P Chidambaram declared that a resolution would be passed in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly for the creation of separate state of Telengana.

KCR will now be hailed as a hero in the Telengana region from creation of the new state by means of 'Gandhian Way of Protest.' Although his party workers vandalised the entire city of Hyderabad and other parts of Andhra it will be hailed as a great achievement by TRS. All the vandalism would be blamed on 'fringe elements' who took advantage of the law and order problem. This explanation might have even forced Gandhi to take up arms.

Many would wonder why Telengana moment gained so much prominence. Leaders from Telengana created a notion that the region's backwardness was due to it being a part of the larger state where leaders usually came from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema region. Now the question is wasn't Telengana sending leaders to the Lok Sabha and the Assembly? What were these representatives doing all these years? Will a new state with the same inefficient leadership yield results?

By giving into such a demand has the Centre set a right precedent? This is the question that many are asking. Will sitting on 'fast unto death' now become a means to blackmail the government. It is another fact that in the last 100 years only two people Jatin Das and Potti Sreeramulu have died after fasting, so many of our leaders have done nothing but great PR campaigns sitting on fast unto death. Karunanidhi registered his name in Guinness Book for the shortest fast lasting six and half hours.

There are already demands for Gorkhaland, Bundelkhand, Bhojpur, Saurastha, Harit Pradesh, Mithilanchal, Greater Cooch Behar, Vidarbha, Bodoland, Karbi Anglong, Garoland and Coorg. Will this lead to further agitation and chaos in the nation? The recent small state experiments with Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttarakhand have failed with Chattisgarh becoming famous for Naxalism while Jharkhan's greatest claim to fame beingMadhu Koda.

Linguistic states was a blunder with leaders of the country made at its birth, as there seems to be no end to division. Centre's action of Telengana might have just sown the seeds of more violent uprisings.