By JR Janumpalli Prime Minister Narendra Modi again said in Parliament that Telangana State was not formed properly. It is over seven years since the State was formed. The AP Reorganisation Act (APRA), 2014, was passed in Parliament unanimously. His own party, the BJP, was a willing party to the passing of the Act on […]
By JR Janumpalli
Prime Minister Narendra Modi again said in Parliament that Telangana State was not formed properly. It is over seven years since the State was formed. The AP Reorganisation Act (APRA), 2014, was passed in Parliament unanimously. His own party, the BJP, was a willing party to the passing of the Act on February 18, 2014. His Home Minister has also found fault with the formation of Telangana.
It is a misdemeanour by these constitutional functionaries to call this Act improper and unconstitutional. It can invite a privilege motion for contempt of the House.
Phobia Continues
It is not new for the Central government to look down upon the Telangana region and treat it as a political orphan. History records how Telangana got liberation from the feudal rule on September 17, 1948, while the rest of India got its independence on August 15, 1947. Since then, even in independent India, Telangana’s tryst with its destiny is about discrimination, exploitation, oppression and angst.
The very liberation from Nizam’s rule by the Indian army had started the discrimination. The Congress and the Indian union with their phobia of communism had brutally assaulted a section of Telangana people during the liberation from Nizam.
During the military and civilian government from 1948 to 1952, the iniquity against Telangana people in the name of containing communism was initiated. Outsiders were imported with the excuse of replacing the Urdu official language and weeding out communism. Though its own government was formed and functioned as Hyderabad state from 1952 to 1956, the administration was dominated by these outsiders, continuing the bias against Telangana people.
Then came the biggest of all misfortunes — the merger with Andhra State in 1956. Pandit Nehru, despite the SRC opposition, was influenced for the merger. It initiated a neo-colonisation and organised exploitation of Telangana and reduced its people to second class citizens in their own native land.
There was an agitation against the attitude of civilian central government and against outsiders as early as 1952, which was brutally put down. The attitude continued with the Congress party, before and after the merger with Andhra State. Andhras used their closeness to the Congress because of their British India politics. Telangana people who were holed up in Hyderabad state under Nizam had no influence with the Congress in Delhi. Again in 1969, there was an uprising in Telangana which was ruthlessly put down by killing 369 people. In 1972, the mulki rules were abrogated by amending the Constitution by the Indira Gandhi government.
BJP’s Slogan
It was the BJP which first raised the slogan of ‘one vote, two States’ way back in 1998 when the party passed a resolution in Kakinada extending support to the statehood cause. But when it came to the formation of new States in 2000, the BJP ditched Telangana and created three States — Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal, where the separation demand was of recent origin, ignoring the 50-year-old Telangana demand.
In 2004, the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi again stoked the fire for Telangana State. She kept the Telangana State dangling before the people of Telangana and won the elections in 2004 and 2009. But went back on it and it escalated into a bigger campaign. Under tremendous pressure, the Congress passed a declaration in Parliament for Telangana State. But kept it in abeyance for very long. Due to deteriorating political status in the hands of YSRCP in Andhra, just before the 2014 general elections, and after about 1,200 people died in the agitation, the Congress passed the Telangana State Act.
Telangana now is a full-fledged State along with the other 28 States. In just 5 years, Telangana emerged as one of the top States in economic progress. It has also proved the SRC right on its recommendation to keep it a separate State in 1956. This is despite no help from the Centre. In contrast, the residual AP is struggling to come to terms with its ill-balanced economy. This also clearly underlines the loss of Telangana revenue to the Andhra region in the united State to keep the united State’s budget balanced.
A look at APRA 13th schedule reveals the discrimination. Residual Andhra Pradesh was sanctioned 10 national-level institutions like IIT, NIT, IIM, IISER, Central University, Petroleum University , Agriculture University, IIIT, AIIMS, Tribal University and a National Institute of Disaster Management and one state port, apart from examining the feasibility of 8 infrastructural projects (10+2+8 =20). Whereas for Telangana, it was one Tribal University, one Horticulture University and examining the feasibility of 4 infrastructural projects. (2+4 = 6). There is also a big disparity in the sanction and execution of these institutions and projects.
Deep Discrimination
In addition, residual AP was given about Rs 52,000 crore as revenue deficit grant from 2014 to 2025 by the 14th and 15th Finance Commission. At the time of the merger, Andhra State came into the united State with Rs 3.6 crore deficit and Hyderabad State with Rs 6 crore surplus. In the united State, the budget was balanced with surplus revenues from the Telangana region for 58 years. After bifurcation, residual AP registered Rs 7,300 crore revenue deficit in 2015, whereas Telangana saw Rs 238 crore surplus. It can be surmised that the Telangana region in the united State lost at least Rs 7,000 x 58 = 4,06,000 crore revenue in terms of 2015 value. Despite this, the new Telangana State was not extended any financial assistance.
AP was sanctioned a national project, Polavaram, estimated to cost Rs 60,000 crore to irrigate about 10 lakh acres ayacut, 80% of which is already under irrigation in Krishna and Godavari deltas. But the Kaleshwaram project, which irrigates 18 lakh acres new ayacut and stabilises another 18 lakh acres old failed ayacut was rejected. It was not taken up as a national project in the water-starved Telangana State. Projects like Mission Kakatiya, Mission Bhagiratha, were not funded in spite of the recommendation of Rs 24,000 crore grant by the Niti Aayog, which is only a part of their total estimate. In such a scenario where is the injustice to Andhra Pradesh as alleged by the Prime Minister in Parliament.
Instead of complimenting and felicitating the new emerging State, denigrating the State’s formation time and again in Parliament by the Prime Minister in such uncharitable terms is undemocratic and unconstitutional. The Central government should know that Telangana is no more a political orphan. It is a sovereign State on its own and a rightful member of the Indian Union. And it is among the few States funding national economic development with their higher contribution of Central taxes to the national exchequer. Telangana demands its due place in the comity of States in India.
(The author is a freelance journalist)