| Telangana తెలంగాణ | |
| — region — | |
 | |
| Coordinates | |
| Country | India |
| State | Andhra Pradesh |
| Largest city | Hyderabad, India |
| Population • Density | 35,286,757 (2011[update]) • 307 /km2 (795 /sq mi)[1] |
| Official languages | Telugu |
|---|---|
| Time zone | IST (UTC+5:30) |
| Area | 114,840 square kilometres (44,340 sq mi)[2] |
Telangana (Telugu: తెలంగాణ,Urdu: تیلنگانا,) is a region in Andhra Pradesh, India. The region borders the states of Maharashtra on the north-west, Karnataka on the west, Chattisgarh on the north-east, Orissa on the east, the Coastal Andhra region on the east and the Rayalaseema region on the south. Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema were part of the former Andhra state which was merged with Telangana to form the current state of Andhra Pradesh in 1956. The region has an area of 114,840 square kilometres (44,340 sq mi), and a population of 35,286,757 (per 2011 census). Telangana has 41.6% of Andhra Pradesh state population[3][4][5] per the 2011 census. The region lies on the Deccan plateau to the west of the Eastern Ghats range, and includes the northwestern interior districts of the Andhra Pradesh state. Telangana region has 10 districts: Adilabad, Hyderabad, Khammam, Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Rangareddy, and Warangal. The Krishna and Godavari rivers flow through the region from west to east. Of the 34 districts in India which face acute farm distress, nine are in Telangana.[6][7][8] In 2006, of the 31 districts identified in four states for the Prime Minister's package for watershed development projects, nine are in Telangana region and eight are in other parts of Andhra Pradesh.[9][10] On December 9, 2009, the Government of India announced that the process for the formation of Telangana state would be considered upon introduction and passage of a separation statement by the state assembly of Andhra Pradesh.[11][12][13] The Government of India constituted a five-member committee headed by Justice B. N. Srikrishna to study the feasibility of a separate Telangana state within the Indian Union.[14]
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[edit] History
Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE to 220 CE) originated from the lands between the Godavari and Krishna River. Kotilingala in Karimnagar was their first capital, before moving to Dharanikota. Excavations at Kotilingala revealed coinage of Simukha, the first Satavahana emperor.
The region experienced its golden age during the reign of the Kakatiya dynasty, a Telugu dynasty that ruled most parts of what is now Andhra Pradesh from 1083 to 1323. Ganapatideva was known as the greatest of the Kakatiyas, and the first after the Satavahanas to bring the entire Telugu area under one rule. He put an end to the rule of the Cholas, who accepted his suzerainty in the year 1210. He established order in his vast dominion that stretched from the Godavari delta in the east to Raichur (in modern day Karnataka) in the west and from Karimnagar and Bastar (in modern day Chattisgarh) in the north to Srisailam and Tripurantakam, near Ongole, in the south. It was during his reign that the Golkonda fort was constructed. Rudrama Devi and Prataparudra were prominent rulers from the Kakatiya dynasty.
Telangana came under the Muslim rule of the Delhi Sultanate in the 14th century, followed by Bahmanis, Qutb Shahis, and the Mughals. As the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate in the early 18th century, the Muslim Asafjahi dynasty established a separate state known as Hyderabad. Later, Hyderabad entered into a treaty of subsidiary alliance with the British Empire, and was the largest and most populous princely state in India. Telangana was never under direct British rule, unlike the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions of Andhra Pradesh, which were part of British India's Madras Presidency.
[edit] Telangana Rebellion
The Telangana Rebellion was a peasant revolt which was later supported by the Communists. It took place in the former princely state of Hyderabad between 1946 and 1951. This was led by the Communist Party of India.[15]
The revolt began in the Nalgonda district and quickly spread to the Warangal and Bidar districts. Peasant farmers and labourers revolted against the local feudal landlords (jagirdars and deshmukhs) and later against the Osman Ali Khan, Asif Jah VII. The initial aims were to do away with illegal and excessive exploitation meted out by these feudal lords in the name of bonded labour (Vetti Chakiri). The most strident demand was for all debts of the peasants to be written off.[16][17]
Among the well-known individuals at the forefront of the movement were leaders like [[Nalla Narasimhulu (Tiger}]], Anabheri Prabhakar Rao, Komaram Bheem, Puchalapalli Sundaraiah, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, Suddala Hanumanthu,Raavi Narayana Reddy, the Urdu poet Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Hassan Nasir, Bhimreddy Narasimha Reddy, Mallu Venkata Narasimha Reddy, Mallu Swarajyam.[17][18] [19]
The violent phase of the movement ended after the central government sent in the army. Starting in 1951, the CPI shifted to a more moderate strategy of seeking to bring communism to India within the constraints of Indian democracy.[20]
[edit] Post-independence
When India became independent from the British Empire in 1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad wanted Hyderabad State to remain independent under the special provisions given to princely states. Rebellion had started throughout the state against the Nizam's rule and his army, known as the Razakars. The Government of India annexed Hyderabad State on 17 September 1948, in an operation by the Indian Army called Operation Polo. When India became independent, Telugu-speaking people were distributed in about 22 districts, 9 of them in the former Nizam's dominions of the princely state of Hyderabad, 12 in the Madras Presidency (Andhra region), and one in French-controlled Yanam.
The Central Government appointed a civil servant, M. K. Vellodi, as First Chief Minister of Hyderabad state on 26 January 1950. He administered the state with the help of bureaucrats from Madras state and Bombay state. In 1952, Dr. Burgula Ramakrishna Rao was elected Chief minister of Hyderabad State in the first democratic election. During this time there were violent agitations by some Telanganites to send back bureaucrats from Madras state, and to strictly implement rule by natives of Hyderabad.[21]
Meanwhile, Telugu-speaking areas in the Andhra region were carved out of the erstwhile Madras state by leaders like Potti Sri Ramulu to create Andhra State in 1953, with Kurnool as its capital.[22][23][24]
[edit] Merger of Telangana and Andhra
In December 1953, the States Reorganization Commission was appointed to prepare for the creation of states on linguistic lines.[25] The States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) was not in favour of an immediate merger of Telangana region with Andhra state, despite their common language.
Paragraph 382 of the States Reorganisation Commission Report (SRC) said "opinion in Andhra is overwhelmingly in favour of the larger unit; public opinion in Telangana has still to crystallize itself. Important leaders of public opinion in Andhra themselves seem to appreciate that the unification of Telangana with Andhra, though desirable, should be based on a voluntary and willing association of the people and that it is primarily for the people of Telangana to take a decision about their future". The people of Telangana had several concerns. The region had a less-developed economy than Andhra, but with a larger revenue base (mostly because it taxed rather than prohibited alcoholic beverages), which people of Telangana feared might be diverted for use in Andhra. They feared that planned irrigation projects on the Krishna and Godavari rivers would not benefit Telangana proportionately, even though people of Telangana controlled the headwaters of the rivers. It was feared that the people of Andhra, who had access to higher standards of education under the British rule, would have an unfair advantage in seeking government and educational jobs.
The commission proposed that the Telangana region be constituted as a separate state with a provision for unification with Andhra state, after the 1961 general elections, if a resolution could be passed in the Telangana state assembly with a two-thirds majority.
The Chief Minister of Hyderabad State, Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, expressed his view that a majority of Telangana people were against the merger.[26] He supported the Congress party's central leadership decision to merge Telangana and Andhra despite opposition in Telangana.[27] Andhra state assembly passed a resolution on 25 November 1955 to provide safeguards to Telangana. The resolution said, "Assembly would further like to assure the people in Telangana that the development of that area would be deemed to be special charge, and that certain priorities and special protection will be given for the improvement of that area, such as reservation in services and educational institutions on the basis of population and irrigational development."[28] Telangana leaders did not believe the safeguards would work.[29][30] With lobbying from Andhra Congress leaders and with pressure from the Central leadership of Congress party, an agreement was reached between Telangana leaders and Andhra leaders on 20 February 1956 to merge Telangana and Andhra with promises to safeguard Telangana's interests.[31][32]
Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru initially was skeptical of merging Telangana with Andhra State, fearing a "tint of expansionist imperialism" in it.[33][34] He compared the merger to a matrimonial alliance having "provisions for divorce" if the partners in the alliance cannot get on well.[35][36]
Following the Gentlemen's agreement, the central government established a unified Andhra Pradesh on November 1, 1956.[22][37][38] The agreement provided reassurances to Telangana in terms of power-sharing as well as administrative domicile rules and distribution of expenses of various regions.
Anti-Nehru politics emerged with the repression of the Telengana movement; many within the Congress Party extended their hands to leftist causes. Feroze Gandhi was among them.[39]
[edit] Separate Telangana state movement
[edit] History of the movement
In the years after the formation of Andhra Pradesh state, the people of Telangana expressed dissatisfaction over how the agreements and guarantees were implemented. Discontent intensified in January 1969, when the some of the guarantees that had been agreed on were supposed to lapse. Student agitation for the proper implementation of the agreement began at Osmania University in Hyderabad and spread to other parts of the region.[40] This agitation came to an end in September 1971 when people realised that the Prime Minister was not inclined to towards a separate state of Telangana.[41] Due to agitation in the Seema-Andra region in 1973 protesting the protections for Telangana, the central government diluted the protections in Gentlemen's agreement by initiating the Six point formula.
Various political parties were formed with a platform of pursuing statehood for Telangana, including the Telangana Praja Samithi political party in 1969, which won 10 out of 14 Parliamentory contituencies in 1971.[42][43] In the 1990s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) promised a separate Telangana state if they came to power.[44] A new party called Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), led by Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), was formed in 2001 with the single-point agenda of creating a separate Telangana state with Hyderabad as its capital.[45]
For the 2004 Assembly and Parliament elections, the Congress party and the TRS had an electoral alliance in the Telangana region that promised a separate Telangana State.[46] Congress came to power in the state and formed a coalition government at the centre. TRS joined the coalition government in 2004 and was successful in making a separate Telangana state a part of the common minimum programme of the coalition government.[47] In September 2006, TRS withdrew support from the Congress-led coalition government because of their failure to deliver on their promise to create an independent Telangana state.[48][49][50]
In July 2008, Devender Goud and other leaders such as E. Peddi Reddy resigned from Telugu Desam Party(TDP) and formed a new party called Nava Telangana Praja Party (NTPP) with Telangana formation as its main goal.[51] After extensive internal discussions, the TDP, the main opposition party in the state, announced its support for the creation of Telangana on 9 October 2008.[52] The Telugu Desam Party promised to work for Telangana statehood. The Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), newly founded by film star Chiranjeevi, supported Telangana statehood.[53] The Nava Telangana Praja Party announced that it would merge with PRP after it concluded that there was not enough political space for two sub-regional Telangana parties that had Telananga statehood as their main agenda.[54][55]
On 29 November 2009, TRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) started a fast-unto-death, demanding that the Congress party introduce a Telangana bill in Parliament. He was arrested by the government of Andhra Pradesh.[56][57][58][59][60] Student organizations, employee unions, and various organizations joined the movement.[61][62] [63] General strikes shut down Telangana on 6 and 7 December.[64] Student organizations planned a massive rally at the state Assembly on 10 December. The government warned that the rally did not have permission and deployed police troops throughout Telangana.[65] All opposition parties in the state favoured creation of Telangana state at an all-party meet held on 7 December.[66]
On 9 December 2009, Union Minister of Home Affairs P. Chidambaram announced that the Indian government would start the process of forming a separate Telangana state, pending the introduction and passage of a separation resolution in the Andhra Pradesh assembly.[67] KCR ended his 11-day fast, saying from his hospital bed that this was a "true victory of the people of Telangana."
Pro-Telangana supporters celebrated the central government decision, while those from the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions (Andhra region) protested.[68][69] Due to protests in the Seema-Andhra region, On 23 December, the Government of India announced that no action on Telangana would be taken until a consensus was reached by all parties.[70] Rallies, hunger strikes, and suicides continued throughout Telangana to protest against the delay in bifurcating the State.[71] The all-party Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) started relay hunger strikes and threatened the resignations of all legislators on 28 January, demanding that the Centre spell out its intentions and create a timetable for change.[72] On 3 February the government announced the five-member Srikrishna committee on Telangana that would look into the issue,[73] with a deadline of 31 December 2010.
[edit] Srikrishna Committee report
The Srikrishna committee on Telangana submitted its report in two volumes to the Home Ministry of India on 30 December 2010.[74] In an all-party meeting on 6 January 2011, the Home ministry made the 505-page Srikrishna committee report public. Section 9-3 (page 440) of the report[75] discusses six solutions.[76][77]
The Committee announced that they were recommending keeping the State united, and advised constitutional and statutory measures for socio-economic development and political empowerment of Telangana region through the creation of a statutorily-empowered Telangana Regional Council. Telangana leaders say the best option from the Sri Krishna committee report is the formation of separate Telangana state with Hyderabad as its capital. They plan to pressure the Central government to zero in on this option as the only workable one.[78][79][80][81]
On March 23, 2011, Justice L Narasimha Reddy of Andhra Pradesh high court ordered central government to make contents of 8th chapter of Sri Krishna Committee, so called 'secret report'. Justice in his 60 page judgement said "The Committee travelled beyond the terms of reference in its endeavour to persuade the Union of India not to accede to the demand for Telangana". The judgement (in para 75, 80 94) also quoted the SKC report's 8th chapter which advised central govt on how to manage Telangana political parties, how to manage Telangana public opinion using local media virtually owned by Seema-Andhra industrialists and what kind of law and order methods to be used. The justice further said(in para 103) "The maneuver suggested by the Committee in its secret supplementary note poses an open challenge, if not threat, to the very system of democracy."
[edit] Geography
Telangana is situated in the central stretch of the eastern seaboard of the Indian Peninsula. Of the three regions of the state of Andhra Pradesh,[82] Telangana has the largest area, with 114,800 square kilometres (44,300 sq mi). The Deccan plateau is drained by two major rivers, the Godavari and the Krishna. 69% of the Krishna River and 79% of the Godavari River catchment area is in Telangana. Tthere are other rivers such as Manair, Bhima, Dindi, Kinnerasani, Manjeera, Munneru, Moosi, Penganga, Praanahita, and Peddavagu and Taliperu.
The area is divided into two main regions, the Eastern Ghats and the peneplains. The surface is dotted with low depressions. The region has very valuable coal mines in Ramagundam.
[edit] Natural resources
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45% of the forested area in the state is in Telangana region, spread across five districts. 20% of the coal deposits in the country is in Telangana region. The Singareni Collieries Company excavates coal for industrial purposes and for thermal power stations. The power generated is supplied to the entire of South India. There are limestone deposits in the region, which cater to cement factories. Telangana has other resources such as bauxite and mica.
[edit] Demography
9 out of 10 districts in the Telangana region are recognized by the Government of India as backward. The only exception is Hyderabad district. According to the Backward Regions Grant Fund 2009–10, 13 such districts are located in Andhra Pradesh; 9 are from Telangana and the rest are from other regions.[83][84][85] Telangana(inc. Hyderabad) has 86% Hindu, 12.4% Muslim, and 1.2% Christian population. Hyderabad city has 55.4% Hindu, 41.2% Muslim , 2.4% Christian population. Telangana districts outside of Hyderabad district have 8.4% of the Muslim population.[86][87]
More than 90% of Telangana people speak the Telangana dialect of Telugu, which is primarily Telugu with Urdu influences.[citation needed] About 11% of Telangana people speak Hyderabadi Urdu. Urdu speakers are mostly Muslims, though people of other ethnicities also use Urdu for day-to-day life.[88] [1] Hindi is spoken by people from other states of North India and Central India like Gujarat and Maharashtra. Kannada and Marathi are also spoken.
[edit] Culture and identity
Telangana has its own distinctive culture and identity. Most prominent is the Hyderabadi culture, also called Deccan culture.[89][90]
[edit] Festivals
Bonalu, Bathukamma, Diwali, Dassera, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Milad un Nabi, Christmas and Ugadi are prominent festivals in Telangana. Other festivals of Hindus and Muslims such as Holi, Raksha Bandhan, Eid-ul-Fitr and Milad un Nabi are also celebrated with equal enthusiasm as in rest of India. The national festival Sankranti is celebrated at the beginning of harvest season, on 14 January every year. Bathukamma and Bonalu are regional festivals of Telangana.
[edit] Literature
BammeraPothana is the poet who composed the classic SriMad Maha Bhagavatamu, a Telugu translation of Sri Bhagavatham, authored by Veda Vyasa in Sanskrit. Muhammed Quli Qutub Shah had the distinction of being the first Saheb-e-dewan Urdu poet and is credited with introducing a new sensibility into prevailing genres of Persian/Urdu poetry . Other prominent poets of the early era include Kancherla Gopanna or Bhakta Ramadasu, Gona Budda Reddy, Palkuriki Somanatha, Mallinātha Sūri, Hulukki Bhaskara. Modern poets include Padma Vibhushan recipient Kaloji Narayana Rao, Sahitya Akademy (the Indian National Academy of Letters) Award winner Dasarathi Krishnamacharya and Jnanpith Award recipient Dr. C. Narayana Reddy.(copy of wikipedia)
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