1969ல் தெலுங்கானா - Telangana 1969.

ஆந்திரபிரதேசத்திலிருந்து தெலுங்கானா தனி மாநிலமாகப் பிரிந்து இன்றோடு ஓராண்டு நிறைவாகின்றது.  தெலுங்கானா பிரிக்கப்பட வேண்டுமென்று 1969ல் தமிழக ஆளுநராக இருந்த சென்னா ரெட்டி போன்றவர்கள் பல்வேறு போராட்டங்கள் நடத்தினார்கள்.

அந்த 1969காலகட்டத்தில், பேராசிரியர் குமார் அவர்கள் ஸ்வராஜ்யாவில் அன்றைக்கு எழுதிய கட்டுரை பழைய வரலாற்று சம்பவங்களை நினைவுக்குக் கொண்டுவருகின்றது.  அந்த பத்தி இத்தோடு இணைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.

கே.எஸ்.இராதாகிருஷ்ணன்.
02-06-2015.



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Today, June 2, marks one year since the birth of Telangana. On this occassion, we present a piece from the Swarajya archives from 1969 which reflects the contemporary views on Telangana and the re-organisation of states. 

HIGH-LEVEL TALKS are going on to solve the Telengana tangle, and it may be that some formula will be evolved short of the demand for the formation of another State. But it is common sense that unless the root cause of the fragmentation of our country that has been going on since 1947, beginning with Partition itself, is traced and rooted out, the compromise will be only a temporary one. You cannot remove cancer by removing the outward symptom; it will appear in another place.

The Partition was supposed to have removed all ill-will between the Hindus and the Muslims; all it did was to give both parties armed strength to fight it out on the battlefield. The formation of the linguistic States was supposed to have removed all political ill-will between the different groups who had in the course of thousands of years built up a common culture; all it did was to rekindle ill-will in other fields, with senas in every State, more or less under the protection of the State Governments, determined to oust all non-locals from their midst. And now this rivalry has spread to the States themselves; the Sikhs would not live together with the non-Sikh Punjabis, but must have a separate State for themselves; and the Assam hill tribes would not live together with the other Assamese and must have a sub-State for themselves. And now it is the turn, of the Telenganas; they cannot live together with the other Telugus, and must have a State, for themselves.

Telangana

Have our political doctors asked why this demand for the political fragmentation of the country has persisted during the 22 years of Independence? Do they really think that whatever the face-saving formula they adopt to prevent the break-up of Andhra for the time being- if they succeed in that at all- they can keep it up for long? Do they not know that whatever happens regarding Telengana, Rayalaseema will be the next to demand a separate State, followed perhaps by similar movements in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh – unless the root cause of the cancer is removed? But there is no indication that they are thinking along those lines; like all politicians, they can only find ad hoc solutions; sufficient unto the day, after me the deluge.

And so the fundamental question: what is the cause of our political cancer, erupting first in the form of the demand for the break-up of the Madras State in favour of Andhra, etc., then the break-up of the Bombay State into Maharashtra and Gujarat; then the break-up of Punjab into Punjab and Haryana; followed by the birth of Nagaland? India was cut up because Hindus and Muslims could not live together; Madras because Tamils and Telugus could not live together; Bombay because of the same tangle between the Maharashtrians and the Gujaratis; and now Telenganas and Telugus. Why?

The Romans were a practical people, and in all legal disputes they started with the question, “For whose benefit?” The French put the same idea in another form, “Cherchez la femme”. Go to the root motive. Suppose we start with this question: who stands to gain by the fragmentation of the country? Certainly not the tax-payer, the ordinary citizen; his only pleasure is to bear the extra burden of taxation that every additional fragmentation of the country leads to- another army of ministers, legislators, bureaucrats, clerks, menials. The benefit goes exclusively to our new class of rulers, the politicians, and their, henchmen. Every new State means a few thousand cushy jobs for them, with hardly any work and an infinite number of perquisites, and the conceit and pride of their undeserved power and pomp.

The agitation for the Partition of India was started by the Muslim politicians because they felt that under an overwhelming Hindu majority they could never dominate the political scene; and they alone were its beneficiaries, as recent events in Pakistan prove. The agitation for the break-up of Madras, Bombay, Punjab, Assam – in each case the moving spirit is the politician. A united India could have only one Chief Minister, a few dozen Ministers, and a few hundred Legislators. But the more you fragment it, the more Chief Ministers, etc., you create. Perhaps the whole policy of fragmentation is part of the work of a ‘Planning Commission’, to create jobs for the New Class that has grown up since Independence. Our politicians have a vested interest in the fragmentation of the country.

Can the politicians see this fact? Perhaps not, for under the lamp there is only darkness. Perhaps they dare not see it, for if they saw it, what censures and curses they would have to pass on themselves for the ruin they have brought to us in every sphere of life during the last 22 years of their unchallenged dictatorship!

The problem for the politicians therefore is not to solve the Telengana tangle by some compromise but to remove its root cause: the vested interest of their own; and this can only be done by removing politics out of their own hands; by placing it above politics in the sphere of ethics. Certain things are wrong, even if done by politicians, singly or in a group. In the matter of the political organisation of India, from the ethical point of view it should be done in such and such a manner; a manner that gives the maximum of integration, with the minimum of bureaucracy and taxation; the maximum of freedom to every citizen to order his own life, with the minimum of interference by the State; individual freedom is the salt of life – within the general framework of the State; any abridgement of it is slavery. On some such basis alone can the further fragmentation of the country be avoided and the scars of the past fragmentations be healed. After all, cancer can only be removed by a certain technique; must it not be the same with the political cancer from which we are suffering?

It was on this ethical basis that Gandhiji till the last refused to be a party to the Partition of India in 1947, and refused to be present in Delhi on the day of Independence. It was on an ethical basis that the Hindu Kings did not take from the subjects in taxation more than a certain percentage of their product, generally a fourth. If in the case of the fragmentation of India, an ethical approach were adopted in the matter of taxation-no citizen to be taxed beyond a certain amount-a good many States would automatically disappear. It is the generous doles from Delhi, made possible by unlimited taxation, that support the demand for further and further fragmentation at the hands of our politicians-its sole beneficiaries.

This article was published in April 26, 1969 issue of Swarajya. The author of the piece spelt “Telangana” as “Telengana”. That has not been changed. 

Courtesy-  PROFESSOR B. R. KUMAR- in Swarajya​.