A hundred million years ago, all the continents were joined together as one, in a great big mass called “Pangea”. The Atlantic Ocean was absent, with the Americas snugly fitting around the western perimeter of Africa, and India itself was an island loosely floating around in the location of modern day Madagascar. Change is inevitable, however, and over time these great land masses have floated away from their original positions, leaving us with the world we have today.
While the forces of nature replaced Pangea with seven continents, the ideologies of man have wreaked much greater havoc! The empires and kingdoms of ancient and medieval times have given way to modern nations and city-states, but the propensity for humans to create, divide and rename the land they live on has remained the same. The bases for these changes have ranged from religion to language to political and cultural affiliations, but in each case, the impact has been to cause upheaval and turmoil for the majority, with a small minority claiming a benefit from the new (dis)order.
At the time of independence, India had over 500 princely domains, all of which needed to be integrated into a manageable number of new states for administrative purposes. While Sardar Patel did a masterful job of knitting these together and getting the fledgling nation on its feet as an independent republic, the last sixty years has seen a steady reversal of his vision, as group after new group has laid its claim to an area of land to call its own.
It is perhaps fitting that the call for the new state of Telangana is being made by the same linguistic group that started us down this path in 1956. And an even bigger coincidence is that it took another fast unto death to spur the government into action (unfortunately, the protagonist of the 1950s version of the drama did not have the good fortune to live to see his dreams come true). By acquiescing to their demands, the Center has obviously made a calculated decision – refuse, and risk alienating yet another (large) faction to add to the existing ones, or accept, and risk that the demands for every other “-land” will now only intensify. Thousands gave their lives over the demand for Khalistan and the ensuing “Punjab problem”, which thankfully is a distant memory today. I doubt that we have the resources, or the will, to undertake a similar fight.
The demand for Telangana, surprisingly, is neither on linguistic nor religious grounds, but on primarily economic and political considerations. In this regard, it is similar to the demand of the colonists for the creation of the United States, which was being excessively taxed by King George III, and with no representation in the British Parliament. The difference is that the US did not have to share a common boundary with its former master, and was able to develop on its own terms. The evisceration of Telangana is perhaps more akin to the demand of the Southern states of the US to secede, an action that led to a brutal civil war and eventual victory for the North. It’s clear that the “center” in that particular incident from history was not willing to tolerate any claims of separatism!
The Telangana issue has hopefully also put into perspective the whole “re-name game” that has been played across the nation over the past decade. While it is only a minor inconvenience to re-label maps with the name of a new city (or road or airport), the demand for a separate state is not a small claim. It will create yet another administrative bureaucracy, another hand at the table reaching out for the same dwindling pool of resources, another possible coalition partner for a government at the center. Just as the Kaveri waters dispute has created a rift between two other Southern States, the focus now could shift to the Godavari. And of the three large states that were created in the past decade, Jharkhand continues to be lawless, Chattisgarh is a Naxalite heaven, with Uttarakhand alone showing some decisive leadership in….changing its original name.
The obvious question to ask is – where does this lead to? Are we headed for a wholesale return to the India of 1947? After all, the names of the princely states still exist on maps, as do the memories of their Rajas in the minds of the people. It would not take much to carve out Gwalior from Madhya Pradesh, Baroda from Gujarat, Mysore from Karnataka and.....Hyderabad from Telangana! Let’s hope KCR and his friends have prepared for such an eventuality. Having started the first domino toppling, it would be hard for them to oppose a similar demand, even if it comes from within their own ranks.
And while we contemplate such serious issues, let’s spare a thought for the thousands who perished in the tsunami five years ago, and the survivors, many of whom have yet to put their lives back together. Jai Hind!
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