Telengana is born; no more Andhra Pradesh - 'ma telegu talliki malli poo....'

Many living outside the State may not be knowing Shankarambadi Sundarachari,  a renowned writer and poet or his contribution to the State….. perhaps the future may soon forget him too, because of the circumstances that start today !!. Andhra Pradesh  is (or rather has been) one of the 28 states of India ~ fourth-largest state by area and fifth-largest by population.  It was bordered by Maharashtra; Chhattisgarh and Odisha; Tamilnadu and Karnataka.  It was one with the second longest coastline (of 972 km (604 mi)) among all the states of India, after Gujarat.  The small enclave (30 square kilometres (12 sq mi)) of Yanam, a district of Pondicherry, lies in the Godavari delta to the northeast of the state.

It has had a long and chequered history …. Vijayanagara Empire, one of the greatest empires in the history was founded by Harihara and Bukka, who served as treasury officers of the Kakatiyas of Warangal.  Then came the Bahmani Sultanate; the Qutb Shahi dynasty held sway for about two hundred years.  The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb captured the kingdom of Golconda including the city of Hyderabad in 1687 and, during this short Mughal rule, Mughal-appointed governors of the city soon gained autonomy.  The rule of the seven Nizams saw the growth of Hyderabad city. In Colonial India, Northern Circars became part of the British Madras Presidency. Eventually this region emerged as the Coastal Andhra region.

After the Nation’s independence in 1947, Nizam wanted to retain the independence of the Princely Hyderabad State from India, but the people of the region launched a movement to join the Indian Union. The state of Hyderabad was forcibly joined to the Republic of India with Operation Polo in 1948. In an effort to gain an independent state based on the linguistic basis and protect the interests of the Telugu-speaking people of Madras State, Potti Sreeramulu fasted until death in 1952. Andhra state was carved out of Madras Stateon 1 November 1953, with Kurnool as its capital city. On 1 November 1956, the States Reorganisation Act formed Andhra Pradesh by merging the Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking areas of the already existing Hyderabad State. Hyderabad was made the capital of the new state.

Now, whatever you read above is history … you need to forget or unlearn ! ~ as Andhra Pradesh has ceased to exist from today…  starting Monday(26.5.2014), Governor E S L Narasimhan halted all transactions from midnight of May 25 to June 1 at the secretariat, paving the way for the formation of the two Telugu states on June 2, bringing halt to the 38 years of history of Andhra Pradesh. 

The end of an era was symbolized by the closure of the government treasury on Saturday after salaries were paid to employees to over 14 lakh state employees and pensioners. Although a new Telangana treasury account has been created and the existing account is supposed to continue for residuary AP, no transactions would be made out of these accounts, which means there would be no remittances or payments for any services, including civil works during the week-long period.

It marks the birth of Telangana State and remnant Seemandhra – but death-knell for the existing Andhra Pradesh.  As per plans, the employees allocated to the two bifurcated states had to work separately from Monday as part of an exercise dubbed as ‘dry run’ for the division. There is confusion as Telangana employees complained that thousands of Seemandhra staff had produced fake nativity certificates in a bid to continue with the Telangana government. Telangana chief minister-designate K Chandrashekar Rao also got into the political mode stating no Seemandhra jobbers in Telengana and urged the governor to stop the exercise of distribution of employees till his government takes charge on June 2, while his party Telangana Rashtra Samithi ( TRS) established a ‘war room’ to look into the grievances of the Telangana employees.

Shankarambadi Sundarachari gave the Telugu People their state anthem, Maa Telugu Talliki, Malleypu Danda.  The song has been the official song of the Andhra State.  The song sung by Tanguturi Suryakumari for theTelugu film Deena Bandhu in (1942) starred Chittor V. Nagaiah, but was released as a private label by the artist. The song gained popularity and it is sung at the start of social functions in state of Andhra and was ultimately made the official song of Andhra Pradesh.

Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 commonly called Telangana Bill is an Act of Indian Parliament proclaiming the bifurcation of the Andhra Pradesh state into two states, Telangana and residuary Andhra Pradesh. The Act consists of all aspects of division of assets and liabilities, finalize the boundaries of the proposed new states and status of Hyderabad. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 18 February 2014 and in the Rajya Sabha on the 20 February 2014. The bill is attested by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on 1 March 2014 and published in the official Gazette.Appointed day of the new states is 2 June 2014.

Some may celebrate the birth of new State ‘Telengana’ – but in many ways such separation is not good for the Nation perhaps.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

26^th May 2014.