CESS MONOGRAPH 11 A STATE IN PERIODIC CRISES Andhra Pradesh B P R Vithal CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STUDIES HYDERABAD March, 2010 CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STUDIES MONOGRAPH SERIES Number - 11 March, 2010 ISBN 81-88793-12-4 Series Editor : S. Galab © 2010, Copyright Reserved Centre for Economic and Social Studies Hyderabad Note: The views expressed in this document are solely those of the individual author(s). Rs. 200/- Published by : Centre for Economic and Social Studies Begumpet, Hyderabad-500 016 Ph : 040-23402789, 23416780, Fax : 040-23406808 Email : [email protected], www.cess.ac.in Printed by : Vidya Graphics 1-8-724/33, Padma Colony, Nallakunta, Hyderabad - 44 CONTENTS Sl. No Page no. Acknowledgments v 1. Introduction 1 2. Hyderabad State - Nizam's Government and the Govt, of India 5 March 1948 3. Police Action - September 1948 20 4. Muslims of Hyderabad 36 5. The Telangana Surpluses- A Case Study 44 6. Further Reflections on Andhra Pradesh 84 7. Looking Back at Planning and Development in Andhra Pradesh 106 Acknowledgements 1. Muslims of Hyderabad. Published by Economic and Political Weekly. July 13, 2002. 2. The Telengana Surpluses. A Case Study Published by Centre for Economic and Social Studies. As Working Paper No: 44 June 2002. 3. Further Reflections on Andhra Pradesh - The First Linguistic State. March 20, 1998 Revised March 21, 2007. Kuchibhotla Vasanthi Foundation. Kakinada. 4. Looking Back. FiftyYears of Andhra Pradesh. 1956 - 2006 December 2006. Centre for Documentation, Research and Communication. Himayathnagar, Hyderabad. CESS Monograph - 3 v About Author Born at Hyderabad on 30-11-1927 Studied at Madrasa-I-Aliya, Hyderabad and Madras Christian College, Madras. Joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) IN 1950. Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh in the Planning and Development Department, 1964-1974. Principal Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh, Finance & Planning Department, 1974-82. Fiscal Expert of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Worked as IMF Budget Adviser to Government of Sudan, 1982-1984. Deputy Chairman, State Planning Board, Government of Andhra Pradesh (rank of Chief Secretary) 1984-85. Retired from IAS 1985. IMF Budget Adviser to Government Malawi, 1985-86. Member, Committee on Taxation of Agricultural Wealth and Income, Government of India, 1972. Member, High Power Pay Committee for Public Sector Undertakings, Ministry of Industry, Government of India – 1986-88. Chairman, Expenditure Commission, Government of Kerala 1987-89 (with the status of Cabinet Minister of the State). Deputy Chairman, State Planning Board, Government of Andhra Pradesh – 1990-93 (with the status of Cabinet Minister of the State). Chairman, Expert Committee on Panchayati Raj Institutions, Government of Andhra Pradesh – 1991-92. Chairman, Research Programmes Committee, Planning Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh (with the status of Cabinet Minister of the State) – 1993-94. Member, Tenth Finance Commission (with the status of Minister of State, Government of India) – 1992-94. Chairman, Informal Advisory Committee on Ways and Means Advances to State Governments, Reserve Bank of India – 1998. Founding Member, Board of Governors and Honorary Senior Fellow, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. Awarded Honorary Doctorates by Osmania and Annamalai Universities. Has written extensively on Public Finance, Federal Financial Relations and Planning. “Fiscal Federalism in India” (Co-author M.L. Sastry), published by Oxford University Press, 2001. “The Gadgil Formula” (Co-author M.L. Sastry), Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), 2002. Introduction I can look back at the history of Andhra Pradesh with some authority based on a long, unbroken and, in all modesty, unrivalled experience as a civil servant. (Note attached. bprv) I have, therefore, collected together here some of my writings which throw light on the current history of Andhra Pradesh from its formation up to the year 2000. I start with the minutes of the last meeting between the Prime Minister of Hyderabad, Mir Laik Ali Khan and the Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten. I explain the unusual circumstances under which I came into possession of the record of such a historic meeting. Then I go on to the Police Action. It was some unique prescience that made me get back to Hyderabad from Madras by the last train that was allowed to come in. The Police Action was a climacteric event. The day after the Police Action, power changed hands in Hyderabad in a manner in which it had not changed in Delhi. I felt sad when I heard Prime Minister Laik Ali and HEH the Nizam on Hyderabad Radio (no longer Nasrgah- i-Hyderabad). I felt a moment in history was passing, which I did not feel on August 15, 1947! Nehru was after all Prime Minister before and for many years after that Midnight Hour. The Police Action changed the lives of everyone in Hyderabad, including mine. The greatest apprehensions, however, were naturally of the Muslims of Hyderabad. As my father pointed out, the British transferred power and physically left India by symbolically marching through the Gateway of India! But the Nizam transferred power and continued to live here, among his people till he died at a ripe old age! The leaders of the Muslims had thoughtlessly involved the ordinary Muslims by calling them "the body of his (Nizam's) kingship". These people did not have the wealth or influence to insulate them from events after the Police Action to the extent the rich and powerful had. I have, therefore, included next an article of mine on the "Muslims of Hyderabad". I have tried to look at the various issues with understanding and sympathy. I claim some privilege for my witness of this period. I grew up in the Muslim localities of those days - Red Hills and Nampally. I was through-out a student of Madrasa-i-Aliya, where all my classmates were children of the higher civil servants of the State. At home, our constant visitors were the students of the Nizam College, children of nawabs and rajas and of the CESS Monograph - 11 2 Andhra middle-classes of Secunderabad, whose favourite professor my father was. At that time, during the twilight of the nawabs, I lived, moved and had my being in this ethos.. The State of Andhra had a number of firsts to its credit. It was alphabetically the first. It was recommended by the JVP (Jawaharlal, Vallabhai, Pattabhi) Committee, but rejected by a Cabinet headed by Jawaharlal, where Vallabhai was the Home Minister. It was conceded due to the first Fast Unto Death that really resulted in death! It was the first to then disappear! Like a good South Indian boy of those days it was betrothed on birth to Vishalandhra and waited patiently for his cousin to grow up. Again, like any rich South Indian family, this marriage was consummated in controversy regarding properties, continued through them, and is still threatened by them. The logic of the original British Provinces was the progress of British conquests and the need thereafter to consolidate them and establish a settled administration.. That many of them were multilingual by virtue of their previous history did not matter because the language of administration was English. On the other hand, each of the Indian Princely States mostly represented one culture and one language. Nizam's Hyderabad State was an exception to this because it also represented the extension of the rule of the Delhi Mughals and the Nizam was their Viceroy, till he declared his independence. It was the fate of the Telugus that they were divided between two imperial dispensations. The only way to deny this fact to themselves and to restore their self-respect was to claim that they were two different cultures. In 1956, however, for reasons which I briefly touch upon in these papers, they were brought together in what is called, in Western Movies, a Shot Gun Marriage! The marriage started with a quarrel about name. The composite State could not be called Andhra because that sounded like annexation. The old romantic name Vishal Andhra could not be used because this would sound expansionist in the new free India. Telugu Nadu sounded too much like Tamil Nadu. Finally, someone argued that we should not lose our alphabetical primacy and Pradesh had already been used; so came Andhra Pradesh! Little did they imagine then that alphabetical primacy is all that will remain with us! The first Telengana agitation started with the striking down of the Mulki Rules. The Centre however deftly settled it by giving some well-justified protections about finances and development. This resulted in some historic and unprecedented budgetary procedures authorised by a Presidential Order. The Regional Committee of Andhra Pradesh Assembly also set a model of legislative control of such procedures. The Andhra agitation of 1974 arose out of the revival of the Mulki Rules by the Supreme Court. In settling this agitation these entirely unrelated protections given earlier were also withdrawn. I have included here my Working Paper of June 2002, published by the CESS which deals with these developments at some length. 3 A State in Periodic Crises - Andhra Pradesh That brings me to my Memorial Lecture delivered at Kakinada in March 1998, "Andhra Pradesh - The First Linguistic State ". I began this lecture by quoting St. Paul, who had claimed the privileges of two cultures - of being a 'trueborn' Jew and of being a Roman Citizen. I too was claiming a knowledge of two cultures; one derived from my grandparents who then still lived on the Godavari Bund in Rajahmundry and the other from my own life shaped initially in the Madrasa-i-Aliya, widened in the Madras Christian College, planted in the governance of Hyderabad, transplanted to the State of Andhra Pradesh! When I and my wife, Seshu, were living on the Bund of the Nile, at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, it struck us that we had similarly lived on the banks of the Musi and the Godavari.