State News And Discussion - 3

[Guest]

[url="http://www.dailypioneer.com/222235/Stable-Government-now-looks-weak.html"]My link[/url]

The Andhra Pradesh crisis is a self-inflicted wound. When Telangana leader K Chandrasekhara Rao began his fast unto death, or at least unto partition, he was treated with such supreme indifference that no Minister in New Delhi even bothered to treat it as a problem. The earth was warming in Hyderabad, but the statements and newspaper headlines were only about climate change in Copenhagen. Rao was dismissed as an irritant without a cause. After all, the Congress had just triumphed for a second time in the State. I suspect that the complete disconnect with New Delhi multiplied the anger and brought Osmania University’s students out. Youth provide critical mass to any momentum and, as we have seen in the past, there is enough volatility in the State to induce the ultimate sacrifice of suicide. Rao himself could no more have ended his fast than he could have abandoned his dream of a separate State; it would have been political suicide. Those with a memory know that the Telugu-speaking areas of Madras Presidency were merged into the Nizam’s Telugu domain as a result of a fast, by a Gandhian called Potti Sriramulu. Nehru allowed him to die, by December 15; but even the enormous credibility of Nehru and Congress in 1953 could not stop the realisation of the demand. Sriramulu achieved in death what he could not in life, and forced Nehru to accept the principle of linguistic States. Rao has achieved what he may never have obtained without a Russian roulette gamble. The Congress of 2009 had neither the wisdom to negotiate on the first day of the fast, nor the strength to let the fast continue. The high command succumbed with startling speed, signalling to Gorkhaland, Vidarbha, Harit Pradesh and Bundelkhand that if they keep their eyes open and focussed the Government will blink.



Is this the point at which the Manmohan Singh Government begins to bleed from an Achilles heel? Much depends on how well the Prime Minister and Ms Sonia Gandhi bandage the breach, but the Andhra Pradesh story is going to be in play for a while and will expose the contradictions inherent in a unitary national party that was unable to manage an epochal change. If the Andhra Pradesh Congress bleeds from a local civil war the stain will spread.



Tension is good for governance; taut nerves keep your body on its toes, and the mind alert. After this year’s general election, the tension fizzled out from Government, and rushed directly into the Opposition. Tension, by the way, is not good for Opposition, as is pretty obvious, isn’t it? If the Government does not recover its balance we could have a very curious dilemma: Authority is in disarray, and the Opposition spread-eagled. But the Indian people will be in array.