[When India won independence in 1947, giant
states were created along linguistic lines. As the country’s population
ballooned, so did identity-based movements based on religion, caste, region and
ethnicity. Three new states were created in 2000, bringing the total to 28
states and seven territories, and the governing Indian National Congress party
promised to create a commission to review existing borders, though it never
materialized.]
By Ellen Barry
 |
People
celebrated after the Indian Parliament’s lower house passed a bill for
the
creation of new state on Tuesday. Mahesh Kumar A./Associated Press
|
Passion over the issue has driven hundreds of young people to suicide, inspired hunger strikes,
and, just last week, prompted a member of India’s Parliament opposed to
Telangana tounload a can of pepper spray on
his fellow lawmakers.
After more than 40 years of dispute, a bill on
Telangana finally reached the lower house on Tuesday afternoon, and was passed
unanimously. Critics said the burst of progress was driven by major political
parties, hoping to consolidate regional support before general elections in
May.
More than a dozen lawmakers, all opposed to
the new state, were excluded from the vote for disciplinary reasons after the
pepper spray incident.
The vote set off delirious celebrations among
Telangana’s supporters and protests among its opponents. Jayaprakash Narayan, a
legislator from Andhra Pradesh State, which would be divided to create
Telangana, said the process had created deep divisions that would take years to
heal.
“This is a classic case of how not to create a
new state in a very large, diverse federal country,” Mr. Narayan said in a
telephone interview from Hyderabad. “I am sure that in the years to come in
political science faculties, people will study how terribly this was bungled.
You cannot create, in a large, federalist country with primordial loyalties, a
group of winners and a much larger group of losers.”
When India won independence in 1947, giant
states were created along linguistic lines. As the country’s population
ballooned, so did identity-based movements based on religion, caste, region and
ethnicity. Three new states were created in 2000, bringing the total to 28
states and seven territories, and the governing Indian National Congress party
promised to create a commission to review existing borders, though it never
materialized.
The Telangana initiative made it clear how
divisive such movements are. While residents of the inland part of Andhra
Pradesh desperately wanted statehood, the state’s remaining population opposed
it with equal passion. One reason is that both groups want the revenue from the
state’s booming capital city, Hyderabad, a major technology hub and host to
multinationals like Dell and Motorola.
If the bill is passed by the upper house,
Hyderabad will remain the capital of both states for 10 years.
Bulli Konda Ramulu, 45, had stripped down to a
loincloth, pink slogans scrawled across his body. Many exulted that an economic
boom would transform the new state.
“Our first step to a golden future has been
taken,” he shouted, trying to make himself heard above beating drums. He heaped
praise on K. Chandrasekhar Rao, a politician made famous by his 16-day hunger strike
in favor of Telangana. “K.C.R. is our god, Sonia Gandhi is our goddess,” he
said, referring to the president of the Congress party. “I worship them.”
Manmohan Reddy, 24, said the real celebrations
would begin on Wednesday, when Congress’s leaders returned to their home
districts. “Today, we are just happy roaming on the road, shouting slogans,” he
said. “We are happy. We are free. At last.”
Amid the happy crowds were people from
Seemandhra, the coastal region where most have opposed the new state’s creation.
As they made their way home from work, some looked shellshocked.
“In less than 25 minutes, Parliament, without
a debate, passed a law to divide our state,” said Rama Rao, 36.
Moments before the vote, as the authorities
braced for unrest, the live television feed from Parliament went dead, further
fueling complaints that the process had not been transparent or democratic.
Officials said the blackout had been caused by “technical problems.”
Leaders from Seemandhra declared a statewide
strike beginning Wednesday morning, and pointed to the television blackout as
evidence that the vote had been deeply flawed.
“Today, democracy has come to a standstill,”
said Dinesh Trivedi, a member of Parliament who opposed the creation of a new
state. “When you take away the right to democracy, I have no business remaining
in the house. The spirit of democracy has been killed.”
Mr. Narayan said he had long expected the
formation of a new state, but had hoped to see efforts to “assuage the feelings
of all regions.” Now, he added, “you have glee and celebration in one-third of
the state, and you have a deep sense of grief — grief is the only word I can
use — in 60 percent of the state, and in 10 percent of the state, you have a
lot of disquiet and anxiety and unease.”
Vivekananda Nemana andSriram Karri contributed reporting from Hyderabad,
India, and Hari Kumar from New Delhi.
[N. Kiran Kumar Reddy
resigned as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday, declaring that his
Indian National Congress party, which had backed the creation of Telangana, had
betrayed him and the Telugu people, the majority ethnic group in Andhra
Pradesh. Mr. Reddy had been chief minister since November 2010.]
By Sriram Karri
HYDERABAD, Andhra Pradesh — The coastal and southern
regions of this southern state were shut down Wednesday as political leaders
called for a strike and denounced the lower house of Parliament’s approval of
the new state of Telangana, which will be created out of the northern areas of
Andhra Pradesh.
N. Kiran Kumar Reddy
resigned as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday, declaring that his
Indian National Congress party, which had backed the creation of Telangana, had
betrayed him and the Telugu people, the majority ethnic group in Andhra
Pradesh. Mr. Reddy had been chief minister since November 2010.
“I cannot continue,” he
said in Telugu at a televised news conference in Hyderabad, the capital of
Andhra Pradesh. “I am resigning from the post of chief minister, as member of
the state legislative assembly and as a member of the Congress party. The
Telugu people would never forgive the Congress.”
If Mr. Reddy’s resignation
is accepted by the governor of Andhra Pradesh, E.S.L. Narasimhan, the state
will be governed by the Indian president, Pranab Mukherjee.
Local parties opposed to
the formation of Telangana, including the Telugu Desam Party and the YSR
Congress, had called for a one-day bandh, or strike on Wednesday after the
lower house of Parliament, or Lok Sabha, passed the Telangana bill on Tuesday.
Moments before the vote, the televised feed to the parliamentary session was
cut off, fueling complaints from opposition members that the vote was not
transparent.
“Tuesday was a black day in
the history of Indian democracy,” said Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the YSR Congress
president.
“Sonia Gandhi has behaved
like Hitler,” he said, referring to the Congress party’s president. “This is
dictatorship. Every democratic norm has been violated.”
With the support of the
government employee’s unions, including the organizations that had earlier
spearheaded a massive protest when the Congress party first declared support
for Telangana last July, public and private educational institutions,
government-run bus services, offices and businesses in the southern and coastal
areas of Andhra Pradesh were all closed on Wednesday.
Residents held impromptu
protests, occupying street corners, riding in motorcycles packs and walking in
groups while chanting slogans. Some formed human chains in cities, like
Vishakapatnam, Vijayawada, Kurnool and Anantapur.
“The bandh has been
peaceful till the afternoon, with no reports of any violent incidents,” P.
Umapathi, deputy inspector general of the Visakhapatnam area, told the Press
Trust of India. “Paramilitary and state police forces have been deployed at
sensitive locations, including at central government offices, as a
precautionary measure.”
Several federal and state
ministers from the Seemandhra coastal region of Andhra Pradesh resigned from
their posts and from the Congress party.
“The Congress party used an
old British empire’s tactic of divide and rule,” said the Telugu Desam Party’s
president, Nara Chandrababu Naidu. “We demanded justice and fair play for all;
instead, Sonia Gandhi divided our people whimsically, hurting their sentiments
for political gain. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party also failed in its
responsibility to foil the Congress conspiracy.”
Meanwhile, in New Delhi,
many opposition lawmakers were still angry about the decision to black out the
televised feed from the lower house of Parliament during the vote on the bill
Tuesday.
In the Rajya Sabha, the
upper house of Parliament, lawmakers from the Seemandhra region kept yelling
during the session on Wednesday, prompting a couple of adjournments. But the
upper house was expected to pass the bill after it reconvened in the late afternoon.
Sriram Karri is a freelance
journalist based in Hyderabad. Find him on Twitter @oratorgreat.
@ The New York Times
@ The New York Times
