We have seen this shameful spectacle of K Chandrasekhara Rao going in a fast-unto-death and statehood for Telangana has been accepted. This is commerce at its worst. Go on a fast unto death and get a state in return. This is a fantastic bargain for the political class.
Are we going to see a renewed balkanisation of our country. A concept of an united India having braved many odss in its six decade old journey faces yet another crisis. I feared the worst as our unscrupulous political class would go to any extent if they sense a chance to further their interests. This is our worst nightmare come true. Suddenly, everyone seems to have a grievance or two and statehood seems to be the only solution.
Telangana has 119 representatives in the Andhra assembly. I find it very difficult to believe that for the last fifty five years these MLAs and 11/12 MPs never worked or could not work for the development of Telangana. M Chenna Reddy, a Telangana leader was the Chief Minister of the state and should one believe that he was powerless in this respect and could do nothing for the region. Now, with statehood being considered, is it possible that this political class can weave their magic and a backward region would suddemly become developed.
Gorkhaland in West Bengal has been the first off the block. The later has been vocal and violent to get their goals. They have an autonomous arrangement within the states of West Bengal. If backwardness is the criteria then every district in West Bengal should be asking for statehood.
Vidarbha, an arid part of the Maharashtra has been poor and backward for many decades. It shot to fame due to its poor farmers committing suicides. If the politicians from Western Maharashtra were enriching themselves, what were the Vidarbha representatives doing. Could they not further the interests of that region. They were voted to do that in the first place.
Carve out
UP into Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh and Purvanchal.....
AP further into Rayalseema and coastal Andhra,
Karnataka into Mysore, Coastal Karnataka and Belgaum-Hubli-Dharwar and Bijapur / Bidar into separate states,
Maharashtra into Mumbai as UT, Konkan, Western Mah, Khandesh, Marathwada and Vidarbha....
MP, Rajasthan, Bihar (whatever is left of it), Tamil Nadu also have undeveloped areas.
It took the genius of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and his tireless assisstant Mr Menon to put all apples in one basket. The genius of our current politicians seems to break the country back into the original 550 fiefdoms.
Jharkhand has been a complete disaster and we are seeing the manifestations. Chattisgarh has been battling the Naxals and Uttarakhand has not made any great impact either way.
This is a dangerous trend and must be put down by national level parties at the earliest. Congress has made its move and is looking very foolish now.
The contributing factors of poor governance, lack of transparency, massive corruption, ineffectiveness of our political representatives need to be tackled with more citizen activism. There are other ways to do all this. Claiming and getting statehoods is clearly not one of them.
