CCSAP Report - Ministry of Home Affairs

7
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SOCIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL ISSUES
7.1 Introduction
7.1.01 The current demand for a separate state of Telangana has aroused
strong sentiments in the three regions of Andhra Pradesh. While the Telangana
region has expressed a predominant desire to form a separate state, the other
two regions, coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema, have expressed mixed
sentiments. A small section of the coastal Andhra population has claimed that it
is ready for bifurcation and would be happy with a separate Andhra state, yet the
majority sentiment in the region is for keeping the state united. Rayalaseema too
has expressed itself in favour of a united state; however, there are sections
which believe that if bifurcation is inevitable, then they would prefer a state of
their own, separate from Telangana and coastal Andhra, a Greater Rayalaseema.
7.1.02 Chapter 1 has captured the long history of the demand for a
separate state of Telangana. Andhra Pradesh was created in 1956 by
amalgamating the Telugu speaking areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad state with
the newly formed Andhra state. This union was brokered by the „Gentlemen‟s
Agreement‟. A similar agreement between coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema, in
1937, known as the Sri Bagh pact, had earlier ushered in Andhra State in 1953.
As pointed out in Chapter 1, the three regions of the state (with the city of
Hyderabad nearly counting as a fourth region), Telangana, coastal Andhra and
Rayalaseema have distinct regional identities, despite being subsumed within a
wider Telugu consciousness and identity from 1956 onwards. The present crisis
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