Telangana: Long and Sad Tale of Promises

ByN Venugopal

“Mine is a long and sad tale!”

Alice thinks the Mouse means its tail, which makes her imagine the poem in its twisted, tail-like shape: “It is a long tail, certainly, ...but why do you call it sad?”

And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking…

- Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

After a long and anxious wait following the statements of December 9, 2009 announcing the initiation of Telangana State formation process and January 5, 2010 forming a committee to go into the matter, which materialised on February 3, Government of India finally came out with the Terms of Reference (ToR) of Justice B N Srikrishna Committee (officially the Committee for Consultations on the Situation in Andhra Pradesh – CCSAP) on February 12. Even those who welcomed the constitution of the five-member committee as a necessary step in democratic process, felt disappointed with the ToR, since the latter was just against the spirit of Home Minister’s statement of December 9. In fact, Justice Sri Krishna Committee was the ninth such body to study the problem of Telangana, after the States Reorganisation Commission (1955), Kumar Lalit Committee (1969), Justice Vasishta Bhargava Committee (1969), K Jayabharath Reddy Committee (1985), Andhra Pradesh Legislature House Committee (2001), J M Girglani Committee (2001), Pranab Mukherjee Committee (2004), and K Rosaiah Committee (2009) and it was not surprising to find widespread skepticism in Telangana about the outcome this time round. The skepticism proved to be right as the report, submitted after ten months, failed to comprehend the real grievances of Telangana people as well as to suggest viable and just recommendations.

In the last five decades, there have been a number of scholarly studies, not to speak of many more journalistic pieces, voicing the apprehensions and aspirations of Telangana people and arguing the case for Telangana as a separate State. Though much has been written about the themes like regional inequality, exploitation, discrimination, regional identity, etc, a systematic study of promises made to Telangana in the last five decades and the way they were dishonoured is yet to be undertaken. This is a modest attempt to list out all the promises that were accorded to Telangana people in general and farmers, students, employees and politicians in particular, with a brief note on what happened to each of those promises.

1. The SRC Report, 1955 The States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) was the first official body to express its views on Telangana. The SRC, set up by the Union government in 1953, under the chairmanship of Justice Syed Fazl Ali, with H N Kunzru and K M Panikkar as

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members, submitted its report on September 30, 1955. After a careful enumeration of the arguments in favour of three available options then – keeping Hyderabad State as it was; trifurcating it on the basis of language but keeping Telugu-speaking areas separate; and merging the Telugu-speaking areas with Andhra State – the Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations of the SRC stated:

“28.4. Hyderabad – Apart from the districts of Raichur and Gulbarga, the Marathwada districts should also be detached from the Hyderabad State. The residuary State which should continue to be known as Hyderabad should consist of the Telugu-speaking districts of the present State of Hyderabad, namely, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Warangal (including Khammam), Karimnagar, Adilabad, Nizamabad, Hyderabad and Medak, along with Bidar district, and the Munagala enclave in the Nalgonda district belonging to the Krishna district of Andhra.

The residuary State of Hyderabad might unite with Andhra after the general elections likely to be held in or about 1961, if by a two-thirds majority the legislature of the Hyderabad State expresses itself in favour of such unification…” (Report of the States Reorganisation Commission, 1955, p. 257)

The Union government did not heed to this particular recommendation of the SRC and asked the leaders of the then Hyderabad State and Andhra State to accept merger to form Andhra Pradesh based on a negotiated instrument called Gentlemen’s Agreement. Even though several leaders from Telangana expressed apprehensions and the SRC report took note of them, the Union government acknowledged the contentions of integrationists within Congress and outside, in Andhra and Telangana, and a written agreement, followed by legal sanction, was seen as a means to assuage the feelings against unification.

Thus the formation of the State of Andhra Pradesh was based on a conditional agreement, conditions of which were never followed later, even though the agreement was accorded statutory position through various measures. The Union government did not take any positive steps to correct the violations either.

2. Gentlemen’s Agreement, 1956In fact, even at the time of the SRC deliberations, the idea of a negotiated settlement came up and the report responded adversely to the idea: “383. We understand that the leaders of the existing Andhra State may be prepared to provide adequate safeguards to protect the interests of Telangana in the event of its integration in Vishalandhra. These safeguards may take the form of a guarantee (presumably on the lines of Sri Baug Pact between Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra) of opportunities for employment for Telangana in the public services of the new State at least to the extent of one-third, that is to say, roughly in the proportion of population, and an assurance that particular attention will be paid to the development plans of this area.”

“384. We have carefully gone into the details of the arrangements which may be made on these lines. It seems to us, however, that neither guarantees on the lines of the Sri Baug Pact nor constitutional devices such as ‘Scottish devolution’ in the United Kingdom will prove workable or meet the requirements of Telangana during the period of transition. Anything short of supervision by the Central Government over the measures intended to meet the special needs of Telangana will be found

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ineffective, and we are not disposed to suggest any such arrangement in regard to Telangana.” (Report, p. 106-7)

Despite the SRC’s unfavourable comments, the Union government asked the leaders of both the States to come to an agreement and there are at least two personal accounts of what happened in Delhi between October 1955 and February 1956, in K V Ranga Reddy (1969), a staunch separatist and one of the signatories of the Gentlemen’s Agreement and Swami Ramananda Tirtha (1984), an integrationist and important leader of Hyderabad Provincial Congress Committee (HPCC).

As a precursor to that agreement, Andhra State Assembly on November 29, 1955 passed a resolution in which it was said, “this Assembly would…like to assure the people in Telangana, that the development of that area would be deemed to be a special charge, and that certain priorities and special protection will be given for the improvement of this area (Telangana Region) such as reservation in services and educational institutions on the basis of population…”

Finally Andhra State chief minister B Gopal Reddy, Andhra Provincial Congress Committee president A Satyanarayana Raju, senior ministers N Sanjiva Reddy and G Latchanna as well as Telangana chief minister B Ramakrishna Rao, HPCC president J V Narsinga Rao, senior ministers K V Ranga Reddy and M Chenna Reddy were asked by the Union government to come to Delhi and sign an agreement on February 20, 1956 for the merger of two regions. Known as Gentlemen’s Agreement, consisting of 14 points, the document is basically a set of assurances given to Telangana region and the guarantees became necessary in the wake of apprehensions raised by Telangana leaders and people before Justice Fazl Ali Commission. (The full text of the Agreement can be seen in K V Ranga Reddy (1969) and K V Narayana Rao (1973), among many other publications). All the points in the agreement, one after the other promised a favour or a safeguard to Telangana and each of them was followed more in either violation or distorted implementation.

Development expenditure“The expenditure of the Central and General Administration of the State should be borne proportionately by the two regions and the balance of income from Telangana should be reserved for expenditure on the development of Telangana area…” said point 1 of the agreement.

This was necessitated by the fact that Telangana was a revenue-surplus region and Andhra was deficit region at the time of the merger. More over, Telangana needed additional funds for development due to the fact that the area was under feudal, autocratic rule unlike Andhra under the British, and lacked modern development.

However, from the beginning there were obstacles to implement this. Within four months, bureaucracy raised a query on what constitutes the “central and general administration” and several such queries were settled not in the spirit of the agreement, but against it. In another significant development, the Telangana Regional Committee in 1960 suggested that a separate fund be set up for Telangana and the government rejected the proposal. The issue of ‘Telangana surpluses for Telangana development’ was raised several times both in periodical reports of Telangana Regional Committee and speeches of legislators of opposition as well as ruling party.

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Both a scholarly study on Telangana Regional Committee (K V Narayana Rao 1972) as well as important speeches in Andhra Pradesh legislature (Akiri Media Research Publishing Pvt Ltd 2005) clearly show that the issue was raised a number of times on various fora. By 1969 this issue became explosive and the government had to appoint Kumar Lalit committee to assess the revenue, expenditure and surpluses in Telangana.

Education“The existing educational facilities in Telangana should be secured to the students of Telangana and further improved. Admission to the colleges including technical institutions in the Telangana area should be restricted to the students of Telangana, or the latter should have admission to the extent of one-third of the total admissions in the entire State, whichever is advantageous to Telangana students,” stipulated point 3 of the agreement.

But, except in Hyderabad, where educational facilities were to be shared by people from all the regions, no new or additional educational facilities were created in Telangana till the early 1970s, that too after 1969 agitation. The idea of restricting admissions to locals/natives was not respected and 1969 agitation was a direct consequence of this disregard.

Employment“Future recruitment to services will be on the basis of population from both regions,” (point 5) and “Some kind of domicile rules, e.g. residence for 12 years should be provided in order to secure the prescribed proportion to recruitment of services for Telangana area” (point 7) were specific safeguards with regard to the rightful share of Telangana in public employment. In fact, this was in continuation of the Mulki Rules protecting the interests of locals in employment, in operation since 1919, when the erstwhile Nizam’s government brought in the law to protect the employment opportunities of local people vis-à-vis non-locals. At least two times in history, in mid-1930s and again between 1948 and 1952, there were allegations of violation of the Mulki Rules and there were agitations by students and employees. In 1952, the agitation led to police firing and seven students were killed then. Thus the continuation of the Mulki Rules or some such protective measure was necessary for safeguarding the interests of Telangana people.

However, the categorical protection included in Gentlemen’s Agreement was violated in a number of devious ways. Though the government introduced a number of legislations, orders and notifications in the last five decades, each successive measure stood as a proof to the fact that the earlier measures were not implemented. The Andhra Pradesh Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Rules, 1959, G. O. No. 36 of 1969, G.O No. 610 of 1985 are some of the consequent actions but none of them was fully and properly implemented.

Land“Sales of agricultural lands in Telangana area to be controlled by the Regional Council,” said point 8 of the agreement.

This sounds strange but rooted in a particular history of Hyderabad State. The Asaf Jahi rulers have introduced jagirdari system where a lot of land, about 40 per cent of the total area of the kingdom, was granted to nobles and chiefs. More over, the rulers

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have given unto themselves 10 per cent of the land in the kingdom for private expenditure (sarf-e-khas) of the king’s family. Out of 82,700 sq miles of the state, 29,519 sq miles was under various kinds of jagirs till 1949, when sarf-e-khas was taken over by the government in February followed by jagir abolition in August. Even as the tenancy reforms brought in 1951 provided some of this taken over land to the existing tenants, much of the land remained in the hands of either the government or absentee landlords. These huge tracts of land were prone to be encroached or bought legally, since the small farmers thought it better to sell off their land without irrigation and remunerative agriculture.

As Golconda Patrika noted on July 25, 1954, there were already some apprehensions regarding the land transactions in Telangana: “They (Rayalaseema landlords and people from Krishna and Guntur districts) may buy all the lands from the poor Telangana peasants. There are people in Andhra who can now buy away all the lands which might be irrigated if projects like Nandikonda and Ramapadasagar materialise. The poor Telangana peasant might be enamoured of the money he gets now but might not realise the loss he might sustain (in future) by selling his lands to the Andhra landlords now.” (cited in K V Narayana Rao, 1973, p. 291).

Given these apprehensions, it was proposed to have a monitoring agency to look after the sales and the authority was to be given to Telangana Regional Council, as per the Gentlemen’s Agreement. However, after four years, while the process of according statutory power to this item, Government of India told Government of Andhra Pradesh that it would be difficult to enact such legislation. Finally, the relevant provisions were removed from the proposed bill, which was passed in 1969.

Regional Council“A Regional Council will be established for the Telangana area with a view to secure its all-round development in accordance with its needs and requirements.” (Point 9)

“The Regional Council will be a statutory body empowered to deal with and decide about matters mentioned above and those relating to planning and development, irrigation and other projects, industrial development within the general plan and recruitment to services in so far as they relate to Telangana area…” (Point 11)

The provisions regarding the Regional Council were implemented half-heartedly and finally the committee thus formed was mutilated beyond the original idea. Beginning from the nomenclature (changing its name from the proposed Telangana Regional Council to Andhra Pradesh Regional Committee), to identifying its duties and functions (the Union government while tabling the relevant safeguards was so vague that it “propose to invite the attention of the chief minister of Andhra to this particular understanding and to express the hope it would be implemented”) and giving due respect to its reports (a little over 100 reports on various lapses and violations were submitted by the Regional Committee between 1958 and 1969, but not even 10 per cent of them were accepted by the government). A detailed study of the functioning of the regional committee is available in K V Narayana Rao (1972). (Of course, it is a different matter that the author, even after meticulously listing each and every violation of the agreement as well brushing aside and dismissal of the reports, concludes that the TRC functioned well!)

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Political power“The Cabinet will consist of members in proportion of 60:40 per cent for Andhra and Telangana respectively…”, said point 12 and “If the Chief Minister is from Andhra, the Deputy Chief Minister will be from Telangana and vice versa. Two out of the following portfolios will be assigned to Ministers from Telangana: a. Home, b. Finance, c. Revenue, d. Planning and Development, e. Commerce and Industry,” said point 13 of the Gentlemen’s Agreement.

This particular piece of agreement was violated on November 1, 1956, the first day of the existence of Andhra Pradesh itself. The then chief minister N Sanjiva Reddy was famous for commenting that deputy chief minister post is like the sixth finger and doing away with that, even though he himself was a deputy chief minister in the earlier Andhra state government. Later in some instances this agreement was followed but the spirit of the agreement – protection of Telangana interests – was not respected even by those ministers from Telangana.

Two other points, with regard to the name of the integrated State and the location of High Court, were also discussed but due to disagreement, not included in the agreement.

The State Reorganisation Act, 1956, the Seventh amendment to the Constitution of India, 1956 in the form of Art. 371, and the Andhra Pradesh Regional Committee Order, 1958 have all taken the Gentlemen’s Agreement into consideration and included the relevant items.

3. Safeguards to Telangana, 1956Subsequent to the Gentlemen’s Agreement, the same gentlemen were asked to prepare a note on safeguards proposed for the Telangana Area and this note was prepared in August 1956. This 10-point note talked about setting up a regional standing committee, consisting of legislators including ministers from the region, mandatory reference of legislation relating to specified matters (nine areas were listed), domicile rules, position of Urdu, retrenchment of surplus personnel in the new State and distribution of expenditure between Telangana and Andhra regions. The same was tabled in Parliament on August 10, 1956 and formed the basis for the Andhra Pradesh Regional Committee Order, 1958. The order specifically said “the advice tendered by the Regional Committee will normally be accepted by the Government and the State Legislature. In case of difference of opinion, reference will be made to the Governor whose decision will be final and binding.” However, neither the advices of the Regional Committee were accepted normally nor the Governor intervened to resolve the issue.

4. All Party Meeting, 1969Telangana people as well as the Regional Committees in the three successive legislatures anxiously waited for the implementation of the Gentlemen’s Agreement and the Safeguards in proper perspective and tried to complain whenever they got a chance to expose the lapses and violations. Even when there was an attempt on the part of the government to implement them, the notifications, provisions and orders remained on paper and did not really translate into practice. After witnessing this for more than twelve years, unemployed youth as well as the members of the Telangana Non-Gazetted Officers’ (TNGOs) Union began their struggle for protecting the

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safeguards in January 1969 and within three weeks it became a wide-spread movement all over Telangana districts involving students, youth and employees, culminating into a movement demanding division of the State.

In such a tense situation, the government of Andhra Pradesh called for an All Party Meeting on January 19, 1969 to seek remedial measures. The meeting attended by 45 legislators including chief minister, ministers and opposition representatives arrived at an agreement. The meeting accepted that “though it has been the settled policy of the Andhra Pradesh Government to implement faithfully the terms of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, lapses have arisen in the implementation of the policy.”

The agreement at the meeting included a provision: “All non-domicile persons, who have been appointed either directly, by promotion or by transfer to posts reserved under the Andhra Pradesh Public Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Rules, 1959 for domiciles of Telangana region will be immediately relieved from service. The posts so rendered vacant will be filled by qualified candidates possessing domicile qualifications and in cases where such candidates are not available the posts shall be left unfilled till qualified domicile candidates become available. Action on the above lines will be taken immediately. All non-domicile employees so relieved shall be provided employment in the Andhra region without break in service and by creating supernumerary posts, if necessary.”

The All Party Meeting also suggested an elaborate method to determine the Telangana surpluses and requested the Comptroller and Auditor General to depute a senior officer of the rank of an Accountant General to ascertain the Telangana surpluses and give his finding before February 28, 1969. “The Telangana surpluses so determined will be fully utilised for development of Telangana region during the next five years. Any Telangana surpluses accruing in future will be worked out at the end of each financial year and due provision will be made for its utilisation in the Telangana region in succeeding year…,” said the agreement.

However, except issuing an order with regard to non-domicile employees and appointment of an officer of CAG to ascertain the Telangana surpluses, no other promise of the All Party agreement was fulfilled. Even the two honoured promises have ultimately become irrelevant.

5. G.O. No. 36, 1969Following the All Party agreement the Government of Andhra Pradesh passed G. O. No. 36, on January 21, 1969. The order was to relieve before February 28, 1969 all non-domicile persons appointed on or after November 1, 1956 to certain categories of posts reserved for domiciles of Telangana under the Andhra Pradesh Public Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Rules, 1959. At that time it was estimated that the number of non-domicile employees would be about 22,000.

In fact, by that time more complicated related developments were taking place and the mere issuance of the order would not have served any purpose. One of the major developments was a batch of litigations before the High Court and a single judge in January, a division bench in February and a majority in full bench in March in their judgments not only set aside some sections of the AP Public Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Rules and G.O. No. 36 but also questioned the validity

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of the Mulki Rules. This litigation reached Supreme Court also and a division bench struck down the order, as well as Section 3 of the Public Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Act, 1957 as unconstitutional on March 28, 1969. Though the government went in for appeal in Supreme Court and the apex court ultimately upheld the Mulki Rules in October 1972, the G. O. No. 36 of 1969 was not implemented and by that time it became superfluous.

6. Kumar Lalit Committee on Telangana surpluses, 1969Ever since the formation of Andhra Pradesh, there has been a debate on Telangana surpluses, meaning the unspent amount of Telangana and half the overspent amount of Andhra area, or to put it simply the unspent rightful share of Telangana. The TRC raised this issue several times between 1958 and 1968 and finally the government had to take measures to calculate this during the heat of 1969 agitation. An officer of CAG, Kumar Lalit was appointed to determine the Telangana surpluses between November 1, 1956 and March 31, 1968. Lalit reported that the surpluses on Revenue Account as far as the state excise duties were concerned amounted to about Rs. 102 crore in the Telangana region. The net surplus on Revenue Account was estimated by Lalit to be Rs. 63.92 crore. When the excess expenditure on Capital Account (including Loans and Advances) of Rs. 13.66 crore and on corporations of Rs. 12.07 crore were deducted from the initial net surplus, the final figure of net surplus arrived at by Lalit was Rs. 38.20 crore.

However, this calculation was scrutinised by the Regional Committee in detail and the committee thought that the tentative figure of Telangana surpluses should also include half of the revenue deficit of the Andhra region to the extent of Rs 29.62 crore and Telangana share in the erstwhile Hyderabad government securities to the extent of Rs. 13.59 crore. Thus according to the Regional Committee the total Telangana surpluses would go up to Rs. 107.13 crore.

Even as the differences on the quantum of Telangana surpluses arose, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made a statement in the Lok Sabha on April 11, 1969 wherein she announced the appointment of a ‘high-powered committee to examine varying estimates made of Telangana surpluses’ and Lalit Committee’s report was consigned to ignominy. 7. Eight-Point Formula, 1969When Telangana region was burning with an unprecedented popular movement, with educational institutions and government offices remained closed for months, Prime Minister’s statement, famous as Eight-Point Formula, was made with an intention to “finding urgent and positive solutions which will further the objective of providing immediate as well as long term answers to the needs of people in the Telangana region… The overall aim is to ensure that the pace of development and the expansion of employment opportunities in Telangana is accelerated”. The statement made a number of promises regarding determining the Telangana surpluses, implementing accelerated development programmes in Telangana, providing appropriate constitutional safeguards in the matter of public employment in favor of people belonging to the Telangana region and periodic review of the problems of the Telangana region. The Prime Minister ended the statement with assuring “the people of Telangana as well as those of other parts of Andhra Pradesh that their genuine

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problems will receive the continuous and sympathetic attention of the central government”.

However, despite the tall promises of continuous and sympathetic attention, the Prime Minister’s statement was translated into a single step of constituting a committee under the chairmanship of Justice Vasishta Bhargava with three other members. 8. Committee on Telangana Surpluses, 1969As a follow-up of the Eight-Point Formula, on April 22, 1969 the government of India constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Justice Vasishta Bhargava to ascertain Telangana surpluses between November 1, 1956 and March 31, 1968.

The committee determined the revenue surpluses of Telangana – the difference between revenue income and revenue expenditure. It also decided that the fair share of Telangana in the development expenditure of the State should be one third. If the amount spent on the development in Telangana exceeded its fair share, the committee held that this excess was utilised out of the revenue surpluses of Telangana. If, on the other hand, the amount spent on Telangana in any year fell short of its fair share, the committee concluded that Telangana was deprived to that extent of fair share and the difference was added to the revenue surplus of the year to determine the amount which should have been reserved for the development of Telangana with accordance with the Gentlemen’s Agreement.

Ultimately, the committee worked out the unspent Telangana surpluses to be Rs. 28.34 crore for the period from 1956–57 to 1967-68. Though Bhargava Committee arrived at a different figure than that of Lalit, it noted that “the object, namely ensuring that the backward Telangana region received special treatment in order that the standards of education, living, etc., in that region may rise so as to enable the residents of Telangana to come up to the standards attained in the Andhra region, has not yet been achieved”. The committee expressed the hope that apart from complying with the terms of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, the State government would keep in view the object of that agreement and take appropriate measures in future to ensure that Telangana is allocated adequate funds to speed up its development so as to enable it to make up the deficiency.

Despite the Government of India’s advice to the Government of AP to accept the recommendations of Bhargava Committee, nobody knows what happened later and within three years another formula removed Telangana Regional Committee as well as the idea of keeping separate accounts for Telangana making it impossible to determine the Telangana surpluses.

9. Use of force to crush the movementAcknowledging the injustice meted out to Telangana and proclaiming democratic solutions to the problem from the high offices on one hand, the government indulged in ruthless repression to crush the questions and aspirations of Telangana people on the other. While independent sources claim that 370 students and youth were killed in police firing all over Telangana during January 20 and August 7, 1969, the government account puts the death toll at 57 in 96 incidents of police firing. Imposition of Section 144 prohibiting the assembly of more than four persons, refusing public meetings, lathi charge and firing tear gas shells on agitators, and

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curfews have become the order of the day. Thousands of people were arrested and tortured and hundreds of cases were booked against them. The repressive measures coupled with co-opting the leaders of the movement as well as internal bickering among the leaders resulted in apparent termination of the movement, but the underlying fire could not be extinguished.

10. Electoral victories of Telangana Praja Samiti, 1970-71That the fire in Telangana people was not suppressed became visible in the by-elections to legislature in 1970 as well as mid-term polls for Lok Sabha in 1971. In June 1970, Telangana Praja Samiti candidate won Khairatabad assembly seat securing 65.5 per cent of polled votes while Congress got 27.9 per cent only. Victory in this urban constituency was followed by much more favourable result in a rural constituency of Siddipet in November 1970 when TPS nominee received 62.9 per cent votes, defeating his Congress rival who got 23 per cent. Then in March 1971 mid-term elections to Lok Sabha were held and Telangana elected 10 TPS candidates out of 14 seats with a combined vote share of 47.5 per cent, that too in an atmosphere of resounding victory of Indira Gandhi’s Congress (R). However, within six months, in September 1971, the TPS merged with Congress and thus the mandate of Telangana people in favour of separate State was smashed by Congress. The only apparent pro-Telangana overture was the replacement of the chief minister K Brahmananda Reddy with P V Narasimha Rao, a Telangana person. However, even that appointment did not last long with the imposition of President Rule in January 1973. The short-lived government under P V Narasimha Rao also did not initiate any steps to implement any of the promises given to Telangana.

11. Supreme Court Judgment, 1972In the meanwhile, a five-member bench of Supreme Court delivered a judgment on 3 October 1972 and upheld the validity of the Mulki Rules. “The whole history of the legislation, its object, title and the Preamble to it, point to that conclusion (validity of continuing Mulki Rules), Further, the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956, substituting new article 371 for the old also shows that it was intended to give special consideration to the Telangana region,” said the judgment.

However, immediately after this verdict, there were attempts to nullify it in the form of a political agitation. “The Andhra political leadership argued that if the Mulki Rules were enforced and the Andhras denied employment in the state services in the capital city, there was no longer any reason to keep the State intact, and two separate States should be created” (Myron Weiner, 1988, p. 249) and thus began Jai Andhra movement and a second phase Jai Telangana movement. The movements were so intense that not only the judgment could not be enforced, but also, the government had to fell down.

12. Six-Point Formula, 1973As an attempt to pacify both Jai Andhra and Jai Telangana movements of 1972-73, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi negotiated with the leaders of both the regions and made them issue a statement called Six-Point Formula. “Accelerated development of the backward areas”, enabling adequate preference being given to local candidates in the matter of admission to educational institutions and establishment of a new Central University of Hyderabad to augment the existing educational facilities,” giving local candidates “preference to specified extent in the matter of direct recruitment”,

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constitution of a high-power administrative tribunal to deal with the grievances of services, suitable amendment to the Constitution to avoid litigation and consequent uncertainty were the first five points in the formula and the sixth point was “the above approach would render the continuance of Mulki Rules and Regional Committee unnecessary.”

While the sixth point was a conditional derivative of the earlier five, it was immediately implemented even without thinking about the implementation of the previous ones. Thus the Mulki Rules and Telangana Regional Committee were done away with, even before the other promises were executed. Out of the five only two – setting up a Central University and amendment to the Constitution – were implemented nominally and the other three beg for realisation even now.

13. Constitutional amendment, 1973The statement of objects and reasons of the Constitution (Thirty-Second) Amendment Act, 1973, clearly mentioned why such legislation was needed. “When the State of Andhra Pradesh was formed in 1956, certain safeguards were envisaged for the Telangana area in the matter of development and also in the matter of employment opportunities and educational facilities for the residents of that area. The provisions of clause (1) of Article 371 of the Constitution were intended to give effect to certain features of these safeguards. The Public Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Act, 1957, was enacted inter alia to provide for employment opportunities for residents of Telangana area. But in 1969, the Supreme Court held the relevant provision of the Act to be unconstitutional in so far as it related to the safeguards envisaged for the Telangana area. Owing to a variety of causes, the working of the safeguards gave rise to a certain amount of dissatisfaction sometimes in the Telangana area and sometimes in the other areas of the State. Measures were devised from time to time to resolve the problems. Recently several leaders of Andhra Pradesh made a concerted effort to analyse the factors which have been giving rise to the dissatisfaction and find enduring answers to the problems with a view to achieving fuller emotional integration of the people of Andhra Pradesh. On the September 21, 1973, they suggested certain measures (generally known as the Six-Point Formula) indicating a uniform approach for promoting accelerated development of the backward areas of the State so as to secure the balanced development of the State as a whole and for providing equitable opportunities to different areas of the State in the matter of education, employment and career prospects in public services…”

This amendment in the form of inclusion of clause D in Art. 371 (special provisions with respect to the State of Andhra Pradesh), provided the President an opportunity to make special orders.

14. Presidential Order, 1975 In exercise of the powers conferred by clauses (1) and (2) of Art. 371-D of the Constitution, the President issued an order with respect to the State of Andhra Pradesh, known as the Andhra Pradesh Public Employment (Organisation of Local Cadres and Regulation of Direct Recruitment) Order, 1975. The Presidential Order defined local areas and divided the state into 6 zones for the purpose of deciding local cadres, and provided reservation in the matter of direct recruitment.

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However, the Presidential Order was misinterpreted, wherever it was put into practice, from the beginning. While the order was necessitated by the grievance of Telangana people about not getting their rightful share in employment, the order divided the State into six zones with Telangana getting divided into two zones. The order was effectively used against Telangana people if they belong to one zone and employed in the other zone. Similarly, while the order reserved a certain share for locals, it was implemented as if it reserved the remaining share for non-locals. Further, the definition of local removed the spirit of the Mulki Rules, by diluting the eligibility to be called a local. Making use of exemptions provided in the Presidential Order for gazetted positions and offices of heads of departments, quite a few non-gazetted posts were elevated and departments were divided to increase HoDs from 51 to 204. Thus the Presidential Order which was introduced to allay the fears of Telangana was essentially used to further the discrimination against them and it only exacerbated the apprehensions of Telangana people.

15. Officers’ Committee, 1985With the realisation of non-implementation or misinterpreted execution of the Presidential Order there was a lot of agitation among the employees and unemployed in Telangana and as a response N T Rama Rao government in 1984 appointed a committee to look into the anomalies. Consisting of three senior IAS officers under the chairmanship of K Jayabharath Reddy, (the other two being K Umapati and C R Kamalanathan) the committee found that 58,962 non-local employees were appointed between 1975 and 1985, in violation of the Presidential Order. The committee also recommended immediate repatriation of the non-local employees. The government appointed one-man commission of another retired bureaucrat V Sundaresan “to further examine the alleged violations in the implementation of the Six-Point Formula and to suggest corrective steps taking into consideration the report of the Officers’ Committee”.

16. G.O. No. 610, 1985Based on the recommendations of both the committees as well as a representation from the Telangana Non-Gazetted Officers’ Union, the government brought in G.O. No. 610 on 30 December 1985, which among other measures, categorically stated, “the employees allotted after 18.10.1975 to zones V and VI in violation of zonalisation of local cadres under the Six-Point Formula will be repatriated to their respective zones by 31.3.1986 by creating supernumerary posts wherever necessary”.

However, even after 25 years the G.O. remains on paper and subsequently there are at least two dozen other orders, rules and notifications and half a dozen official and non-official committees but actual implementation has not taken place.

17. BJP’s Kakinada Resolution, 1998While the response of the two political parties that ruled the state was ambiguous, if not dubious, towards redressing the grievances of Telangana people, the Bharatiya Janata Party raised their hopes in creating three new states. A little earlier, the BJP in its state executive meeting at Kakinada in 1997 before the election passed a resolution supporting the creation of Telangana State and the same was incorporated in its manifesto of 1998 Lok Sabha elections. It gave an election slogan of ‘one vote two states.’ However, the BJP joined hands with the Telugu Desam Party in 1999 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, and the promise of Telangana State was put on

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backburner. Even though the BJP-led NDA ruled the country between 1998 and 2004, the BJP never raised the issue of Telangana. It was only in the past-2004 scenario, the BJP declared that it could not take up Telangana issue due to its dependence on the TDP for continuing in power. “During its six-year term in office (1998-2004), the NDA Government could have carved out Telangana as a separate state along with Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. We could not do so because of our tie-up with the TDP during the NDA rule. Since the TDP was then opposed to the formation of Telangana, we could not act in this matter,” admitted L K Advani in September 2008.

18. AP Legislature House CommitteeBased on a calling attention debate in AP legislative assembly on December 29, 2001 on the implementation of G.O. No. 610, a House Committee was constituted with R Prakash Reddy as chairman and 14 legislators as members and 5 legislators as special invitees. The committee was given three months time. However, the committee, submitted its interim report, based on the information from 10 departments and state level employees associations, and the report was tabled in AP legislature on March 17, 2003. The committee’s recommendations include repatriation of the non-locals who were appointed in the posts earmarked for the locals against the Six Point Formula with immediate effect. This “immediate effect” has not seen the light of the day and the committee submitted its second report on November 14, 2003. Again it recommended the same immediate repatriation but no action was taken. Then, setting up another House Committee was necessitated since the legislators’ term came to an end in 2004. Again in the new legislature, another House Committee was formed under the chairmanship of N Uttam Kumar Reddy in 2006 and the committee could not function, except holding a couple of meetings, due to resignations of some of its members.

19. Girglani Commission, 2001Following a debate on the implementation of G. O. No. 610 in State Legislature, Government of Andhra Pradesh appointed a one-man Commission with J M Girglani, a retired IAS officer, on June 25, 2001. The committee submitted its interim report on October 6, 2001 and a three-volume 716 page final report on September 30, 2004.

Before going into the recommendations of the Girglani Commission, it should be remembered that this official commission could not get all the required information from various departments and content itself with information from 52 out of 204 departments. Critics contend that it was not simple lethargy on the part of the non-responsive departments, but the heads of the concerned departments did not want to divulge the information on the implementation of G.O. No. 610. More over, identification of local or non-local was based on self-declaration done during 2001 Employees Census, rather than on the entry in personal service register.

However, with whatever little information made available to him, Girglani arrived at a number of findings and made wide-ranging recommendations. The report has pointed out quite a lot of instances where the Presidential Order was ignored, skirted, bypassed or circumvented through improper application of some provisions. The commission listed 18 varieties of 126 instances of deviations, contraventions and violations, between 1975 and 2001. The commission had identified seven sources of these violations and suggested 35 types of remedies and 3 major recommendations.

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The commission recommended that there should be immediate and effective action to put an end to the various deviations so that in the future, the Presidential Order would not be subverted either deliberately or through unpardonable ignorance. Also, strong deterrent action should be instituted against officials if there was any indication of gross lapse, mala fides, bias, favouritism or recalcitrant persistence in deviations on their part.  The Commission also noted that a very important cause for the violations of Six Point Formula and Presidential Order has been the absence of any mechanism for either ongoing control or monitoring system or inspections, lack of post-factor monitoring system and absence of a nodal agency to guide and control the implementation of the Presidential Order. The Commission has suggested that the fundamental safeguard for the Presidential Order would be to categorically declare through a government order the sanctity and immutability of local character of a post or category of posts as on 18.10.1975. The Commission has spelt out the framework of safeguards and suggested immediate and impact measures as well as long-term measures.

The government tabled the report in Assembly on February 16, 2005 and appointed a seven-member Group of Ministers to examine the report. The GoM in turn appointed a committee of bureaucrats to study the report and identify the key elements. Based on the report of this officers’ committee G.O. No. 72 was issued and when it was pointed out that the G.O. went against the spirit of the Presidential Order, it was repealed through G.O. No. 116. Then the second House Committee was constituted and when it could not function due to resignations of some members, G.O. No. 399 was issued in 2007. However, this latest G.O. spoke in a diametrically opposite language than the Presidential Order. On the whole, caught in this web of red tape and procrastination the major purpose of protecting the interests of locals in employment was lost.

20. Congress Election Manifesto, 2004The popular demand in Telangana for statehood had come handy for the Congress in its bid to oust the TDP from power in 2004 elections. Having been outside power for two terms, the Congress was willing to do anything for regaining power at that time and seeing the mood of the people in Telangana, it entered into an electoral tie-up with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti. Even earlier, the Congress Legislators Forum for Telangana made representations to Sonia Gandhi and several Congress leaders from Telangana were vociferous on creation of a separate State.

Continuing that mood, the Congress election manifesto 2004 said: “The Congress Party recognises the growing emotions and aspirations of the people of Telangana Region. The Congress Working Committee considered this issue in proper perspective and resolved that ‘while respecting the report of the first States’ Reorganisation Commission, the Congress Party notes that there are many valid reasons for formation of separate States in Vidarbha and Telangana. However, the reorginisation of existing States raises a large number of issues. The Congress Party feels that the whole matter could be best addressed by another States Reorganisation Commission to look into all the issues involved.”

21. UPA’s Common Minimum Programme, 2004Not only making a promise in election manifesto, the Congress saw to it that its promise entered the UPA’s Common Minimum Programme, announced in May 2004,

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though in a convoluted way. The CMP said: “The UPA government will consider the demand for the formation of a Telangana State at an appropriate time after due consultation and consensus.”

While this statement made the consideration of the demand for the formation of Telangana state, conditional on “due consultation and consensus” no action was initiated to do so, except setting up Pranab Mukherjee committee. The committee collected the opinions of some political parties but the whole exercise ended at that.

22. President’s Address, 2004President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in his address to Joint Session of the Indian Parliament on June 7, 2004, said, “the Government will consider the demand for the formation of a Telangana State at an appropriate time after due consultations.” This statement preceded a detailed comment on regional imbalances and the need to redress.

With regard to this statement also, even after the President’s promise to have consultations, no attempt in favour of consultations on the part of the government was done.

23. Pranab Mukherjee Committee, 2004Perhaps as a consequence of the CMP’s cautious (dubious?) wording of “consultation and consensus”, the UPA had constituted a three-member committee under the chairmanship of Pranab Mukherjee in November 2004. The committee was asked to ascertain the views of all political parties with regard to Telangana State formation. More than two dozen political parties, though some of them do not have anything to do with Telangana or Andhra Pradesh, sent their opinions to the committee and till now nobody knows what happened to the committee’s report.

24. PRP’s Samajika Telangana, 2008The year 2008 saw a new political formation in Andhra Pradesh and many people expected that the new party under the leadership of a charismatic matinee idol Chiranjeevi, would destabilize the monopoly of both the entrenched parties and bring in a fresh air in promises, political stances and implementation. Quite naturally Telangana people sought a categorical assurance from the Praja Rajyam Party for their demand of statehood. Chiranjeevi avoided the question at the maiden press conference on August 18, 2008, but supported the Telangana cause at the first public meeting on August 26, by saying the Telangana movement was a movement for self-respect. Similarly, during the pre-election road show, he said his party favoured a saamaajika (social) Telangana. Though he did not define it in as many words, several intellectuals who joined his party at that time described it as a pro-dalit-bahujan Telangana. However, the PRP changed its stand officially on December 16, 2009 and said it would support the status quo.

25. TDP’s Telangana Resolution, 2008Ever since it was formed, the Telugu Desam Party was a party of Telugu national unity and it never entertained any sentiments of deprivation of Telangana or division of State. In fact, the current phase of Telangana movement began when it was in power between 1994 and 2004 and the party bosses did not even allow the echoes of movement to reverberate in their party. Even on the floor of the legislature, the

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speaker belonging to the TDP did not allow the members to use the word Telangana, and in stead suggested them to use “backward area.”

At the time of 2004 elections, the TDP supremo N Chadrababu Naidu challenged the Congress for supporting the State division and tying up with the TRS. He was on record saying that the 2004 election was a referendum between the forces that wanted to divide the State and those that maintain unity. Even in the post-election scenario, the TDP had given its letter against the State division to Pranab Mukherjee committee.

However, as the 2009 election was approaching, the TDP set up a brainstorming ‘core committee’ consisting of leaders from three regions (Telangana, Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema) to study and make a decision on Telangana. The committee examined the issue for five months and finally gave its report to the politbureau in favour of Telangana. The politbureau discussed the report for four days and consequently the TDP officially made a resolution. The party president announced the resolution in October 2008 paving the way for an electoral understanding with the TRS. The resolution unambiguously supported the formation of Telangana as a separate State. 26. Rosaiah Committee, 2009At a public meeting in March 2009, part of Election campaign, Sonia Gandhi said that the Congress does not have objection to announce Telangana, provided some critical issues were resolved. Within hours the State government constituted a joint committee of legislators under the chairmanship of finance minister K Rosaiah. The ToR included examining the concerns of minorities in the proposed Telangana set up, the facts relating to employment and exploitation of resources etc, identifying the economic issues, the status of Hyderabad metropolitan area taking into consideration the migrant population, the concerns of the migrant population in the rest of Telangana (excluding Hyderabad), the issues relating to Maoist and terrorist activities in the context of proposed Telangana set up, working out the modalities for sharing river waters vis-à-vis the existing situation, examining the issues pertaining to existing demands for separate States by other regions of the State, and working out a strategy for the overall and harmonious development of all regions in the event of formation of Telangana State and infrastructure and service facilities at State capital — both State and central governments — relocation and consequential issues.

While the ToR covered everything under the sun, the committee was not given any specific time frame. All the opposition parties - TRS, CPM, CPI and BJP - refused to nominate their representatives to the committee and the committee was constituted by seven legislators from Congress and one from MIM. Four of them were from Telangana, three from Andhra and one from Rayalaseema. One doesn’t know what the committee had done, except that the committee’s name was used in the election speeches.

27. Election Manifestos of major parties, 2009During the 2009 elections, the Congress Party as well as the TDP and its electoral allies promised Telangana State. The Congress reiterated no-objection to Telangana stand and said: “in fact, Congress Party basically does not have any objection for the formation of a separate State of Telangana. However, at the same time, the Congress

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Party feels that it has to take a specific path in this regard….after the (Rosaiah) committee submits its report, further action will be taken immediately.”

However, Telangana people thought the Congress deceived them by making similar promises and reneging in 2004 and this feeling was translated as an electoral alliance between the TRS and the TDP. The Telugu Desam Party, with a latest resolution in favour of Telangana in its hand, promised in its manifesto: “After a detailed discussion in the Party Politbureau on the report submitted by the core committee appointed by the party on the issue of separate Telangana State formation, respecting the sentiments of Telangana people, the party announced its favourable decision for the formation of separate Telangana. Already the party has conveyed its opinion to Pranab Mukherjee committee. In this context, immediately after taking over power, the Telugu Desam Party will take all the necessary political and legal measures for creation of Telangana State.”

The Praja Rajyam Party’s election manifesto said: “The Praja Rajyam Party is going ahead with the aim of building up a Social Telangana. Respecting the popular will, the Praja Rajyam Party will take all the necessary legislative actions for creating separate Telangana.”

28. All Party Meeting, 2009Two independent developments in September and October 2009 - the Supreme Court’s observation in favour of Hyderabad being “free zone” and exposure of the encroachment of lands, around Hyderabad, assigned to Scheduled Castes by persons from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema – led to anxiety among Telangana people and by November there were sporadic agitations all over Telangana. K Chandrasekhara Rao, president of Telangana Rashtra Samiti announced that he would sit on a fast-unto-death demanding resolution of these problems as well as formation of Telangana State. The fast was scheduled to begin on November 29 and he was obstructed and arrested a few hours before. He continued his fast in jail and later in hospital. On December 7, when his health condition was grave, the government invited all the political parties in the State to find out a solution. The All Party Meeting resolved that they do not have any objection if a bill was introduced in Parliament to form Telangana State.

However, when the Union Home Minister, announced that “the process of Telangana State formation is being initiated” on December 9, all these parties which accepted that, divided vertically and again the promise given to Telangana was dishonored.

29. Home Minister’s Statement, 2009 In his statement on December 9, 2009 Union Home Minister P Chidambaram made three promises: initiating the process of formation of Telangana State, asking the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh to move a necessary resolution in State legislature and asking the State government to withdraw cases on students and agitators booked between November 29 and December 9, 2009. Out of these three promises, the first one is in suspended animation, the second one was not necessary as per the Constitution, (of course, the CM on record denied having any such information) and the third one did not take place even after three months.

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Indeed this long tail has many more fatiguing twists than elaborated here, with every turn being a blind curve or ending in a sad note. That’s why there is a mass upsurge in Telangana right now and the people say they do not believe in any other new twist in the tale and seek nothing short of creation of a State. What is the guarantee that a new promise would be kept and how long should we wait for another deception after accepting another promise, asks any ordinary person from Telangana now.

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Venugopal, N (2004): Telangana Nunchi Telangana Daaka (Hyderabad: Devulapalli Publications)

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