Land of Golden Opportunities

HYDERABAD: Torn between the demands of bifurcation and unity, people of both Telangana and Andhra regions are fast losing patience. As the possible split of the state opens up a Pandora's Box, the concerns of Andhra populace over the status of Hyderabad, sharing of river waters and a host of other issues have increased manifold.
People in Andhra region feel that the T-issue has been mishandled and that government cannot be bending over to appease a single political party or politician.
At the heart of this growing apprehension among people from Andhra is Hyderabad's location bang in the centre of Telangana. They say that the Telangana agitation is the only movement where the capital city is located in the region that is fighting for separation from the main state.
Besides, a good chunk of the income generated by the state comes from Hyderabad largely due to the investments of people from Andhra. "Over 42 per cent of the income in the state is generated by Hyderabad alone and Andhra has a big role in the income generation," says G Ramachandrudu, former director of Academic Staff College of Andhra University, who feels that Andhra people will never reconcile to losing Hyderabad completely.
Hence, it's not surprising that the bone of contention is the future of Hyderabad and the sharing of river waters. Pro-Telangana protagonists say Hyderabad is an integral part of Telangana and a Telangana state without Hyderabad as the capital is inconceivable. But the militant rhetoric of some political parties has made people of other regions feel insecure and has created an air of mistrust.
Analysts say slogans like 'Telangana waalon jaago, Andhra waalon bhago' give the impression of an exclusionist movement that wants to force people of non-Telangana region out of Hyderabad rather than a movement where people of Telangana want greater autonomy for their region.
These concerns are rooted in the fact that the benefits of economic progress have remained restricted to the state capital and have not trickled down to other areas in that state. The people of Andhra and Rayalaseema regions feel that the benefits reaped from Hyderabad must be accessible to all those who have been equal stakeholders in city's development.
Professor P Krishna Prasad of Andhra University, Vizag, feels there is not a single city in the three regions, including Telangana, that can be made capital other than Hyderabad because of the lack of foresight by the policymakers. Here he cites examples of Karnataka that has Mysore as an alternative to Bangalore, Kerala that has developed Kochi on par with Thiruvananthapuram and Maharashtra that has upgraded Nagpur and Pune along with Mumbai. "But AP has reduced its old capital of Kurnool to an ordinary municipal corporation. Kurnool doesn't even find a mention in the top seven cities list of AP," he says.
The development of cities apart, is the big question mark on the sharing of water resources between the two regions if indeed the state is split. The availability of water for irrigation is the lone concern of people from coastal districts. Over 14 lakh acres is cultivated in the Krishna delta spread over Krishna, West Godavari, Guntur and Prakasam districts. Another 10 lakh acres in Guntur and Prakasam districts are totally dependent on water from Nagarjunasagar. Water for both the major channels comes from Telangana districts and the farming community is understandably worried.
"Water has become very precious. We do not know what will be the fate of our fields if the state is bifurcated," says Narne Venkata Subbaiah, a farmer of Addanki in Prakasam district, which is at the tail-end of both Krishna delta and Nagarjunasagar ayacut.
Despite heavy inflows to the Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam reservoirs this year, the irrigation authorities are breaking their heads over whether or not to release water for the rabi crops. "Families of more than 25 lakh farmers and another one crore families of labourers depend on agriculture in the coastal districts. How can they sleep soundly if the state is separated," asks Polavaram Sadhana Samithi president Kolanukonda Sivaji.
With all major crops like paddy, red gram, cotton, tobacco, chilli, turmeric, maize and groundnut coming from Seemandhra region, former bureaucrat S Ahmed does not rule out the chances of the state facing a severe food grain crisis if the state is separated.
But there are some who are chanting the Jai Andhra slogan. "We can build our own state. We have wasted thousands of crores on Hyderabad and decades of time. Our children living abroad will make Seemandhra heaven if the state is separated," says former minister Vasantha Nageswara Rao, who was at the forefront during the Jai Andhra movement of 1974.
However such voices are few and far between. Most feel that dividing AP would be a step in the wrong direction and would fuel the demand for smaller states. "Separation of the state will spell doom for all. It will cripple the economy and commoners will suffer," says Professor C Narasimha Rao of Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur.
And then there are the scores of Andhra people who have settled in the Telangana region and have absorbed its cultural plurality and are not perturbed by the movement. This majority says they are not unduly worried about security of their properties and assets. "Chhavaina brathukaina ikkade (we will live and die here only). There is no question of leaving this place," says Jasthi Koteshwar Rao, a 68-year-old Andhra native who migrated from Tenali in Guntur district at the age of three and settled in Srinagar village in Varni mandal of Nizamabad.
"We have become part and parcel of Telangana. Nothing is left for us in Andhra region as we built our lives in Telangana," says 70-year-old K Krishnamurthy, who had migrated from Rajahmundry when he was 10 years old and settled in Armoor, Nizamabad. Does he fear attacks from the locals once the separate T-state is formed? "We did not fear the violent 1969 movement and run away. So, there are no worries now," he reveals.
Nonetheless there are questions being raised about a single regional party TRS deciding the fate of the state. "The party has no presence in Hyderabad and has only a handful of seats," argues O Naresh Kumar, CEO of IT player Symbiosis.
As TDP president Chandrababu Naidu put it "Telangana and Andhra are like squabbling sons and that a father cannot side with one and distance himself from the other," it remains to be seen which way the mother (read Sonia Gandhi) would tilt.