Way back in 1955, then Hyderabad chief minister Burgula Ramakrishna Rao wrote to the Congress chief urging him not to merge the Telangana province with the new Andhra Pradesh being created on linguistic basis.
In contrast, Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah is today of the view that the state should not be divided. But in both the cases, the final decision was left to the Congress high command.
“My estimate of the views of the people of Telangana is that the people by majority would desire Telangana to remain a separate state. There is a strong section of the people holding the other view, that is in favour of Vishalandhra, but the majority decidedly is in favour of retaining Telangana as a separate province as recommended by the states reorganisation commission....There should, however, be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the majority opinion is inclined towards a separate Telangana province,” Ramakrishna Rao said in his letter to Congress president U N Dhebar.
Rao felt that if Telangana is compulsorily merged with Andhra, there will be considerable bitterness in Telangana. “Telanganites feel that apart from being Telugus, they had built up their own way of life over the past 175 years. This way of life is is many respects different from the way of life of Telugus in Andhra. There is more of cosmopolitanism in Telangana than in Andhra. The merger, they fear, will destroy this way of life. That is why they are worried,” the letter said.
Although the SRC recommended the creation of a Telangana state with a promise that after five years, the Telangana assembly can decide by a two-third majority whether to remain a separate entity or merge with the Andhra state, the government of India merged the two and created Andhra Pradesh as it exists today, in 1956.
Almost 55 years later, chief minister Rosaiah is propagating the united state view. In fact, ever since the Centre announced the creation of Telangana on December 9 after a fastunto-death undertaken by TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, the state’s political leaders have been divided on regional lines. While those from the Telangana region want it to be separated, those who are opposing it are all from the non-Telangana regions including the chief minister who hails from Guntur.
Rosaiah too has left it to the Congress high command to solve the political turmoil raging in the state. But while the high command had not yet taken a decision on Telangana when Ramakrishna Rao wrote to them in 1955, the UPA government has already announced that it will initiate the process of creating a separate Telangana.
But with the non-Telangana regions on a boil over the Telangana decision, it remains to be seen what solution the Centre will come up with that will placate the angry feelings in both the regions.
B R Rao Rosaiah
(Source : TOI)
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