Political math rules the roost • • 02 Aug 2013 • Osmania University students celebrate after the announcement of the separate Indian state of Telangana in Hyderabad on July 30, 2013. Afp The demand for new states needs a considered policy and cannot be held hostage to political compulsions. The moot point in the creation of a new state is whether it will add to the integrity of India, or take away from the large democracy that is finding it difficult to sew ends together. ~ seema mustafa Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh was on television the other night, piously insisting that all requests for separate states across India will be considered on merit, and decisions will be taken accordingly. What he did not add is that the ‘merit’ itself is questionable in the absence of a ‘new state’ policy and the inability of the ruling class to come to any agreement on what demands are meritorious, and which ones are not. Almost from the minute the UPA government decided to go ahead with Telangana, the Gorkhaland protest has been revived, with a middle-aged supporter of this separate state movement immolating himself. Petitions are being prepared and old ones dug out by those demanding Bodoland in Assam, Poorvanchal and Harit Pradesh in Uttar Pradesh and so on and so forth. The Congress has done tremendous damage to the people’s equations within the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh by flirting with this issue over and over again without taking a decision. It has raised expectations with false promises, it has dashed expectations to the point of generating violent outbursts across the region, it has divided polity and peoples, it has weakened its own party over the last nine years and now finally, faced with defeat in Andhra Pradesh in the general elections, has steamrolled opposition within the Congress to take the decision it should and could have taken years ago. Despite the pious excuses, it is clear to one and all that it is not the larger question of the feasibility of a 29th state that motivates the Congress. It is electoral politics that remains the deciding factor. Faced with certain electoral defeat in Andhra Pradesh that returned 42 members to Parliament in the general elections, the party leadership has tried to make up by dividing the state in the hope that Telangana, with 17 seats in its kitty now, will at least return the favour in the elections next year. Hence, YSR Congress leader Jagan Reddy, seen to be on a roller-coaster ride to near victory, seems to have been checkmated as the Congress pursues the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti for the next polls. The Congress is also optimistic that the revival of the Telegu Desam Party, visible over the last few months particularly, will be stalled as well with this move that has the Telangana section of the party celebrating, and members of the coastal Andhra and Rayalseema factions of the party threatening resignation. Of course, the people who will now be part of Telangana are not fools, and much of the initial support for the Congress has withered away following its reluctance to take the decision. It remains to be seen whether the political gains of the decision will flow to the Congress or be captured by parties like the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, which has been particularly steadfast in its position. What were the new factors that prompted it now, just six to eight months before the general election? After all, the Congress ignored large-scale violence that had engulfed the state not so long ago, when the Central government was seen to have reneged on its promise of carving out the separate state. At this moment, all was quiet, with people preparing to oust the Congress from Andhra Pradesh once and for all. Its dominance over the Telangana region was substantially reduced, with the Congress losing all recent by-polls. All polls, including intelligence reports, predicted a rout for the party in what is one of its last surviving bastions, Andhra Pradesh, and clearly the decision now was part of the rush to secure the vote banks as far as possible. There is nothing wrong in a political party trying to make electoral gains, so long as this is not reduced to political hay. The demand for new states needs a considered policy and cannot be held hostage to political compulsions of the moment. The first question that should be looked at from all dimensions is whether a new state will add to the unity and integrity of India, or take away from the large democracy that is finding it difficult to sew ends together now? In several cases, the answer to this question would be a ‘yes’ as in the case of Telangana, where the separation would have helped consolidate cultures and peoples of all parts, instead of deepening fissures and creating political confrontations. In some cases, it could be a resounding ‘no’, with a separate state adding to the erosion of the social and political fabric, rather than cementing peoples into a larger, cohesive whole. The current structure within India is definitely not cast in stone, and can and should be changed if it benefits the nation as a whole. But this must not be determined by political opportunism, and only by the yardstick of strengthening the country and her people. The Congress would have inspired more confidence had it used the intervening years of reneging on its promise to those demanding Telangana, to publicly encourage a debate and discussion on the issue, and set up an expert committee to examine the many demands for new states according to broad terms of reference. Without this, the politician invites the charge of using the just demands and concerns of the people to make political hay by whipping up passions for votes. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has been very cutting in her response to the party members of the rest of Andhra Pradesh, telling them that they have no choice but to support her decision. The protests are just about beginning in coastal Andhra and the Rayalseema regions of the state, and it will be interesting to see whether the central leadership of the party will be able to weather the storm. The writer is Consulting Editor, The Statesman
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 20:05:33 +0000
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