Formation of Telangana

[Sandeep]

Didn't know where to post this, so have created a thread. After years of indecisiveness, finally Telangana has been granted. But I am very angry with the manner in which this has been done. This is such a blatant misuse of power by Congress!! They didn't even consider the opinion of other half of Andhra Pradesh. Sad, purely a political decision. They should have appointed a second SRC and should have first asked both the regions if they agree to the recommendations and then form a separate state. It is opposite here, they declared a state and now they will be in the process of convincing both the sides. What the heck!!! Congress you do realize that this is because of one man who is sitting in jail and has freaked you out?

Congress has no clue on how to share the water, power, revenue etc. It is going to be a long arduous task in front, it will push people of both sides (RIP AP) into economic oblivion. Sad sad day

"Maa Telugu thalli ki Mallepuvvu Dhanda !!" This song now becomes History !! Well Done Politics !!!

[prasen9]

What do the people of Telengana want?

[Atithee]

I am more worried about the other separatist movements getting a wind in their sails (Gorkhaland, Vidarbha, and who knows how many more). How does one decide if the demand for one region is more justified than the others?

[prasen9]

Hold a plebiscite in a fair manner in each region. Whatever the majority wants in that region, that is what it should be. The centre should make sure that there is no creation of such a majority by killing the minority in that region or driving them away. Those who are driven away would still have a vote.

No peoples should be ruled by another. If their hopes and aspirations are not being attended to by a majority and there is a geographically contiguous region where a majority of the people think that self-rule is what they want, that is what they should have. There is no problem in having Gorkhaland, Vidharbha, etc. as states. Give them no subsidy. If they fail administratively, then the centre steps in and makes them an union territory or adds them back to the original state.

Telengana and Andhra was put together --- that was a historical mistake. It is just being undone now after 50-60 years.

There is a lot of imposition that curbs people's freedoms. Such as the attempted imposition of Hindi on the rest of the non-Hindi-speaking lands. Which would put people who do not speak that language at a definitive disadvantage. The Centre did see the folly of this and did not force things to the extent that would break the nation. The Gujarat High Court and other courts judiciously did not force such an issue by clarifying categorically that we have no national language. Excessive jingoism results in wars. Force used by majorities result in civil wars.

I am writing this sitting in a Balkan capital. I see the results of majority tyrannies. At least now there is peace and self-rule. For how long, I don't know.

[PKBasu]

There is no basis for the creation of Telangana. Andhra Pradesh itself was created after Pottu Sriramulu fasted to death, forcing the creation of Andhra Pradesh by taking the Telugu-speaking parts of Madras state and joining them with the former Nizam's territories (Hyderabad, now labelled "Telangana"). Hyderabad/Telangana was where Stalin wanted to start the communist revolution in India -- seeing the Nizam's exploitative system (mixed with the Hindu-Muslim discord) as the perfect breeding ground for revolution. Young communists like Mohit Sen came back from training in Moscow and Peking (Beijing) to help foment revolution in Telangana, and most of the future leadership of the CPI and CPI(M) got their grounding in this first "class struggle" in 1948-49. The Maoists are simply taking the baton and running with it.

[prasen9]

Basically, to me the only basis is what the majority of the people living there in a geographically contiguous area want.

[Atithee]

Prasen, you are a computational scientist -- how do you define majority? For elections and Science, is it the same?

[prasen9]

Conduct a vote. If there is at least one more vote for yes, then it passes. Allow whoever is proposing the referendum to choose the contiguous geographical area.

Alternatively, take a wide area, say, the whole of current AP. Ask the yes/no question. Ensure that there is a free and fair vote including a vote given to displaced minorities if any --- to the extent it is being held in the states currently. See if you can find a "substantial" cluster of towns connected together (adjacent) which (a) taken together has at least one more person voting yes than no, and (b) all cities in the border of the cluster have at least one person more voting yes than no. If a city in your border has more no votes, then exclude the city and do this recursively. If there are two large clusters connect them with a narrow strip of "no" cities. The only time it gets messy is if you get disconnected pockets (clusters) randomly scattered. Then you can't do much. In general, one can come up with reasonable heuristic solutions to the problem in most cases; in some it will, of course, fail.

In this case, I suspect that a large swath of area wants to be in Telengana.

[Atithee]

In science, would you also call a data set with one more datum on one side of a hypothesis as a proof for the hypothesis? Let's say in a clinical trial, 51 people are cured, and 49 die. Would you still approve the drug?

Is Science and People's likes different when defining majority?

[prasen9]

There are many variations of the issue in science. If you have a drug that cures 51 people and 49 people die, the regulators make a cost-benefit analysis. Without the drug, what would be the numbers? If everyone dies in two years without the drugs, then the drug would be approved. In fact, if the drug has no other side-effect and even 3% of the people are cured whereas the others are not, the drug may be approved with the caveat that this fact should be mentioned. In deciding whether a drug works, you compare with the placebo and check statistical significance.

If your problem here is that the 1 vote more test does not imply that the people want, we can use a minimal sample size, i.e., we can say that the margin should be large enough such that with the % of people voting, we can say with 95% or 99% certainty that the people in that area want the new state.

Also, notice here that the issue is not whether to take a drug or not. Not taking the drug has no side-effect on the population. But, in this case, not granting a state means that that state is not free. By allowing status quo, you are consigning the Telengana people to minority status in a state where they are not free to realize their self-rule aspirations.

In our political system, we use a one vote measure for all elections and policy decisions except perhaps constitution amendments. I see no reason to do anything different with statehood.

If you want to use statistical significance and avoid small sample effects, then you need to have quorums for all decisions and elections. I am willing to listen to a better way of running an election. The only thing I am ruling out is status quo. Not running an election is not a better measure, imho.

[PKBasu]

Your definition about how to decide whether to create a state is pretty absurd, if you take it to its logical conclusion: If 3 people living in a house (a geographically contiguous area) decide they don't want to be part of a state (ie, if 2 of them say so, regardless of what the third says) they should be allowed to form a state. Democracy is a system to choose representatives who then make policy decisions on behalf of those who elected them. Extreme democracy of the sort you advocate is not practiced anywhere. The US had a civil war to prevent some states from seceding (in order to maintain slavery in those states). The closest to your form of plebiscite democracy is Switzerland and its cantons, which have referenda on lots of issues. In most other democracies, the representatives of the people take policy decisions through majority-voting systems within the representative legislatures.

So, the proper way to create Telangana is to take a vote in the Andhra Pradesh assembly to see if there is majority support for it. Once approved there, it can be taken to the Lok Sabha for additional approval. Similarly for Gorkhaland. The problem with the latter is that even Darjeeling district does not have a Gorkha majority. Siliguri town (with a strong Bengali-majority) is the dominant part of Darjeeling district; the hill areas of Darjeeling have a population of about half a million, while Siliguri has 1.6 million people (up from 764 in 1901!). The latter is the dominant part of the district demographically, and so even the district of Darjeeling is unlikely to give majority support for Gorkhaland.

[prasen9]

PKB, I know that in reality it is somewhat untenable. I would be fine with putting a minimum size threshold. For example, 10 million people (for India). Or whatever. Yes, the Swiss model is what I like the best. I am not saying that that is the best method. I do not think that voting in the legislature is the right thing. The slaving minority would then depend upon the magnanimity of the lording majority to grant them their independence.

[prasen9]

This is a complex matter. A few more expansions. The minimum size of a state can be the size of the smallest current state: Goa. Also, I am not an anarchist. I actually want a world government and governments at different granularities. Nationalistic jingoism sounds artificial to me. (I am guilty of it in the sporting arena.) Why not state jingoism or continent jingosim? Is it because of armies? Armies are typically tied to nations and provide security; hence people are ra-ra about nations? I am a minimalist. Whatever can be pushed down to local levels, push them down. Create a set of human rights for the whole world and that should be upheld. No country should be free to go and kill a bunch of people in another just because they wish as they do now without repercussions. Federalism should not mean anarchism. For example, a family should be free to decide what their kids should learn. But, you can make education required for a certain number of years or some core world-wide curricular guidelines. Localities should conduct their business in whatever language they want to and when two localities differ wrt their language, they should choose whatever language they want to transact in. There can be armies, militias, and police at different levels providing security. Inter-state highways can be the center's doing whereas state roads are the work of the state and local roads of the municipality. Etc. There have been reams written about forms of government and I cannot do justice to provide a coherent answer in limited time on this forum. I am just trying to state the principles that I believe (and no one needs to agree) should be the basis of governance.

[Sandeep]

The greatest irony of contemporary India is that something did work in Andhra Pradesh. Y S Rajashekhar Reddy, a Congress chief minister, was able to eliminate the substantial threat of the country’s oldest Communist insurrection, and where else but in Telangana itself. In the process, he also marginalized the demand for a separate state. Within four years of Reddy’s death, appalling administration has undone Reddy’s finest achievement. He healed wounds that had become chronic. There was a cure in the clinic of a Dr Reddy. But in the workshop of a Dr Frankenstein, problems have again begun to magnify in the waiting room.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.co ... fertilized

[Sandeep]

People who are interested can join

Friends,

Loksatta Party welcomes the decision of the UPA and the Congress to respect the long-standing aspirations of Telangana people. We have always welcomed the formation of Telangana as part of a comprehensive and amicable solution that protects the interests of all regions.

The problem is not about creating a new state, the problem is that this is becoming a case study for "How NOT to create a new state"

The way Delhi took the decision rather than the decision itself hurt people in other regions. The center will be violating the spirit of the Constitution and harming the federal set-up by saying it doesn't matter what the Andhra Pradesh state assembly says and by imposing its decisions.

This is the first time a linguistic state is being divided and the first time where, a major metropolitan city, not merely a capital (we must recognize that Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad stand on a different footing!) is part of the separation and that has implications in current economic climate.

When political and administrative boundaries become social and economic barriers, that's a tragedy.

You cannot have a situation where one region burns today and another region burns tomorrow!

There CANNOT be winner and losers, there have to be people who partially win and partially lose.

Join me tomorrow, Wednesday August 7th at 8pm Live on Twitter to discuss more.

Please use #loksattanow to post your tweets. Follow me on http://twitter.com/jp_loksatta