The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has upped the ante on a separate Statehood setting a deadline for the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance government it heads at the Centre to come out with a firm commitment. The TRS which has already made known its protests in the past when its president K. Chandrasekhar Rao quit the Cabinet has every reason to feel slighted given that the Congress had agreed, during the 2004 elections, to consider the case for a separate State for the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh. The only concession given to the TRS was the constitution of a Cabinet sub-committee headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee for going into the Telangana issue. Regrettably, the committee has not yet given its report despite the genuineness of the claim as also the assurance. The Congress has simply been lackluster and not able to take a clear stand on the issue. If at all the Congress is wary of sticking its neck out at this juncture then it has the alternative of going in for a second State Reorganization Committee (SRC) to look into the entire gamut of issues relating to carving out smaller States and readjustment of inter-State boundaries, including in the Northeast States. The SRC like the earlier one set up in 1956 may be asked to evolve general criteria or formulation that can be used as a benchmark while considering demands for Statehood.
Interestingly, the CPI (M) a major constituent of the Left Front giving outside support to the UPA is of the opinion that substantial economic development is the solution for the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh and not statehood as such. While this is a valid point, the CPI (M) will also be aware of the fact that one of the core reasons for demand of new states is directly linked to the issue of the uneven economic development, the neglect of hinterlands, which ultimately leads to a desire for local control over resources. For instance, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh are rich in natural resources but decades of bad governance have ensured that they remain backward and poor. Hopefully with statehood they will be in a better position to make choices that allows the economic, political and cultural empowerment of the people.
As for the people of Telangana, the struggle will have to go on until their just demand is met. And if at all, the TRS were to take the decision of resigning en-masse from Parliament and the State Legislature, it cannot be blamed. They would have done the right thing by setting their own standards of accountability towards the people and the region they represent. As far as the Congress goes, by keeping the issue under wraps of the committee appointed to look into this specific demand, it has failed to honor its own promise to the Telangana people. The Congress appears to be deliberately delaying the process but this is sending the wrong signal to other regional allies that it cannot be trusted as a political ally. In this time of coalitions, the Congress should not underestimate the diversity of issues and peoples as also the pluralism of political forces at play.
