From: koneru@engin.umich.edu (Koneru V K S Srinivas)
Subject: Re: On the birth of Andhra Pradesh (was Re: I HATE TAMILS)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 12:12:50 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <2A91AAD9.11489@orion.oac.uci.edu> dsr@balboa.eng.uci.edu (D.Sreenivasa Rao) writes:
>vprasad@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes : 
>> In article <41552@ogicse.ogi.edu>, partha@mse.cse.ogi.edu (R. Parthasarathy)
>> writes:
>> >
>>> is right or wrong is to be discussed later. No, Tamils are not the ones
>>> who campaigned for linguistic division of the whole nation. Ever heard
>>> of Potti Sriramulu? He was a Telugu speaking man. He fasted to death
>....
>>> of men under EVR demanded a Dravida Nadu from the British even before
>>> our independence. Such a state was supposed to consist of the four southern
>>> states. [source: MJ Akbar's "India the Siege Within].
>>>
>>       I find it very irritating that people blame Andhra Pradesh for being
>>       the first linguistic state in the nation and thus "setting a chain
>>       of linguistic carvings of the country". And Potti Sriramulu is being
>>       very unfairly criticized. Ever think of the logic behind his demand? 
>>       Apparently not.
>
>
>Excellent article by Siva Prasad on the birth of Andhra Pradesh.
>Emotions apart, there is a crying need to examine relevant history
>as objectivley as possible. It is undeniable that the composite 
>Madras state was not exactly the beacon of tolerance and justice,
>atleast as far as Andhras were concerned. 
> 
>The following are excerpts from an article I wrote long ago that
>discussed this issue (in a much wider context, of course) that could
>perhaps enable some factual analysis :
>
>------------------Begin included article-----------
>
>[.....]
>   For whatever reasons, the British encouraged setting up of educational
>institutions in India and usually located them at places most convenient to
>their centres of administration. Consequently, Madras was lucky to have an
>University and other professional institutions in those early days. [....]
>Since education was closer home to the tamil speaking populace, it happened
>naturally that a lot of them made their niche in civil services and technical
>areas, and were a widely regarded intelligentsia in those days.
>[....]
>    For reasons explained solely by insensitivity and slavish attitude
>towards British legacies, independent India thought it fit to continue
>status quo with regard to administrative organization of the country. As
>a result, coastal Andhra and rayalseema became part of the composite state
>of Madras, and a long story of deprivation began. The state adminstration
>was predominantly controlled by tamil-speaking people (for obvious reasons), 
>while Andhra languished. Due to the difference in language and the resultant
>communication gap, discrimination against these areas was rampant and was, 
>regretfully, worse than during the British time. 
>
>[....] Despite healthy contributions to the state's economy, Andhra was 
>denied even basic educational facilities, and it seemed it was being 
>done for a reason - an imperialist reason. For example, whole of Andhra 
>had but one University, one engineering college, and one medical college.
>By then, there were some excellent and well established institutions in
>the tamil-speaking regions. Discrimination in all walks of life, ranging
>from education to governement jobs to developmental assistance was the 
>order of the day(1). Apart from education, the development of telugu language 
>and culture suffered. Developments such as railways, infrastructure
>for future growth, etc. were being to denied to telugu-speaking regions.
>[....]  The predominant public opinion at that time was
>running in favor of a draviDa nADu, the leaders of which so presumptuously
>included Andhra in their plans. Significant portion of the tamil leadership
>harbored sentiments and put forth arguments very similar to what the 
>British did when denying freedom to India : how can an illiterate bunch
>of people like the Andhras rule themselves? How can they survive at all
>without the benefit of superior tamil intellect? (2) Some of the leaders of
>the freedom movement were shameless perpetrators of this iniquity and were 
>virtually villains as far as the populace of Andhra was considered.
>
>[....] This general resentment, coupled with the able leadership, caused
>the movement to snowball and take the form of a popular uprising. The thick-
>skinned state administration, headed at that time by none other than Rajaji,
>denied it as a mass movement and tried to stifle it out by the most barbaric
>of means, with disatrous consequences. It was not until Sriramulu died that
>the central govt realised the gravity of the situation. Whole of Telugu-
>speaking parts were literally aflame and the situation was totally out of
>control. It was then that Nehru conceded the idea of language based
>reorganization of states. 
>
>[....] The birth of Andhra gave birth to the concept of linguistic
>states, which is by far the most far-reaching step the Indian Union has 
>taken after the British left. Naturally, there was a lot of governmental
>propaganda that projected this very idea as "unpatriotic", "belligerent",
>"short sighted" and "dis-establishmentarianist". Unfortunately, the leaders
>of separate Andhra movement had to put up with a lot of such obstacles,
>and had to contend with a powerful government machinery bent on painting a
>wrong picture of the movement. It was easy for people to get swayed by such
>propaganda, specially given the fact that those were the early days of
>independence and a sense of patriotism was running high among the common
>folks. For decades after this, the country was fed on the concepts of such
>nationalistic fervor, and movements such as the separate Andhra movement
>were projected more as an aberration rather than a genuine demand for 
>justice. The projection of history that we know today never speaks of
>the iniquities that existed in the composite Madras state, and the
>seperatist movement is mainly painted villainic. Our youngsters are
>told in their history books that being an Indian entails a messianic
>denouncement of such "seperatist" tendencies, and that since it was
>Andhras who started it, we have to somehow be the black sheep for any
>problem that the country faces due to such language-based administrative
>organization of the country. 
>[....] [as part of Epilogue]
>Indeed, it is not an
>exaggeration to say that Andhras were the ones who first stood up to the 
>nation and pointed out its multifariousness, and protested against the
>insensitivity of the Union to the aspirations of the regional people,
>which in itself constitutes a great service to the democratic and federal
>ideals on which India boasts of having been founded. 
>[....]
>
>Notes : (1) I have a close family member's personal experience to 
>            vouch for this. And several among older acquaintances.
>        (2) These are actual quotes by DK party officials as quoted
>            in "the Hindu". They are in turn quoted in "History of
>            Andhra Pradesh", by Dr. P. Raghunatha Rao.
>        (3) Apart from the above book, several books on Andhra 
>            history give this information and analysis. I can give a 
>            complete list of references later on, if there is any 
>            interest. 
>
>--sreenivas--
>
>
>
MOST OF THE CHIEF MINISTERS OF MADRAS STATE WERE TELUGUS.

SRINIVAS KONERU.


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