ANALYSIS When labour pangs become insufferable, doctors suggest a Caesarean section. The baby is extracted out of the womb. Doctors in India are often accused of forcing Caesarean section on a mother, to earn a quick buck, and deny the child a natural birth, besides putting the mother at risk.
The birth of India's 29th state is a case of precisely that. The time of Telangana's birth had come. The pain was at its peak. But spindoctors did not allow Telangana a natural birth. What happened in Lok Sabha was inevitable; the way it happened was totally avoidable.
The surgical subterfuge of the ruling party and the main Opposition is sickening. The essence of Gandhi's Satyagaha is that ends don't justify means, means have to justify ends. The means soiled a perfect cause in the end. In the age of Rahul Gandhi, Gandhi just adorns the Parliament's walls. In the darkness of the collective hearts of our parliamentarians, political gains and losses matter more than democracy itself.
Sonia Gandhi had promised Telangana. K. Chandrashekhara Rao, the man spearheading the movement, had promised in return to merge is Telangana Rashtra Samiti into the Congress. They, in fact, made their move way back in 2009 and then abandoned it for fear of the fury in the rest of Andhra Pradesh.
The issue, though on the backburner, stayed hot enough for anyone to touch. In this while, Jaganmohan Reddy's YSR Congress broke the Congress's back in Seemandhra. It became clear Sonia Gandhi would have to let go of a lost case. Telnagana had her only hope. She took that chance.
Predicting election results is a hazardous business, but the BJP is hazarding that guess. It feels Modi is tantalisingly close to the crown. The Telangana tangle could be a thorn in Modi's crown. It takes credit of creating three new states - Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh - in 2000. This time, the cost of the medal was too much to bear because BJP itself is a small player in Andhra Pradesh. It wanted Congress to take it away, the credit and the ignominy.
It colluded with the government in the darkness at day in Lok Sabha. Jagan called it a black day in India's democracy. Black is an absence of colour. The day, on the contrary, was colourful though blacked out for people outside that august house on a frazzling February day. BJP allowed it to happen. Most other parties, regional players, stayed away from the process. In that din of confusion and verbal violence, there was too much noise for a voice to be heard. Yet, a voice vote decided the fate of two new states.
Two, because generally in a partition the mother state doesn't die. Pakistan came out of India, India didn't die at childbirth. Uttarakhand came out of Uttar Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh lives on, so does Madhya Pradesh and Bihar after Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand respectively were surgically removed from their bodies. The birth of Telangana kills Andhra Pradesh.
Now we have twins - Seemandhra and Telangana. Two newborns, born out of an illegal marriage of interests in Lok Sabha between two parties that hate each other otherwise. Denying Telangana the legitimacy it deserved. Denying Seemandhra the affection and care it deserves. The Indian state has degraded itself by an act of parliament.
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