Telangana Report Is Political

The 5-member Srikrishna Committee report on the question of a separate statehood for Telangana has come out on the expected lines. There are no suprises in the list of options recommended by the panel headed for Justice Srikrishna. Of the six options, the least favourable, as suggested by the panel itself, is maintaining a status quo. I think, maintaining status quo will again throw the entire region into clashes, arson and bloodshed. The panel has fuelled at the same time the aspirations of Rayalaseema region by giving them some fodder to give a shape to their agitation (that has not begun yet) for a demanding a separate political identity.

The five intelligent men also gave the people of Rayalaseema an option to either go with Telangana or with Andhra and be part of Rayala-Telangana or Seemaandhra! This is the most baffling option to me. It reminds me of the British design that gave some 562 princely states of united India an option to go either with Pakistan or join the union of India in 1947, when most of the states naturally thought themselves a part of the country; thereby giving them an option to go separate and nourish their narrow political aspirations, if any. The wise men should have thought otherwise this time around.

To me, the question before the panel was whether a separate state of Telangan will fulfill the needs and aspirations of people living in the resource rich region. The problem of Telangana is the problem of all those, who demanded or are demanding a separate state for themselves. But, instead of focusing on people and the depravity that they have suffered under the present political set up, the committee seems to have acted with an aim to satisfy the political groups that have been nourishing their own ambitions as they have failed to capture power in united Andhra Pradesh.

This does not augur good for the people who have genuine hope with attached to the creation of Telangana. They may well be on the path of their brethren in Uttarakhan, Jharkhand and neighbouring Chhattisgarh, where people are still deprived even after ten years of the creation of states they fought for. The Committee led by a former supreme court justice should have focussed on these issues to expose the detrimental political designs of the rulers or potential rulers. Rather, it has supplied various groups six bags of political fodder to masticate. It has also created confusion among the protagonists of separate Telangana as to what to do? Which option to go for?

To sum up, the Srikrishna committee has not delivered what was expected of it. It seems to have dealt with the political tug of war both in New Delhi and Hyderabad.