The Union government’s decision to amend the
Constitution to provide a comprehensive solution to the backward
Hyderabad Karnataka region is historic. However, the backwardness of the
region is historic too,” said historian and academic B.R. Konda.
“Places
like Bidar and Gulbarga were among the most important cities in
medieval India. But they got a raw deal in modern times. This region
that has been far behind old Mysore or coastal Karnataka on various
human development indicators never received the attention it deserved.
It was discriminated against in every sector and failed to get its share
of resources too,” said Prof. Konda. He points out that when Mysore
University was established in 1916, the whole of Hyderabad Karnataka had
just one high school. Students of my generation had to go to private
teachers in madrassas, maths or temples to learn the alphabet and
arithmetic. The first government schools in Bidar were started in 1954,”
he said. English education did not arrive in the district till the late
80s, he added. He explained that there were historical reasons behind
this. The Nizams were not focused on education, healthcare, employment
generation or industrialisation till very late in their regime.
Administration reforms and welfare measures started only after 1900.
“But we can only say they had little time to implement their plans,” he
said. The type of government and the objectives of politics in Hyderabad
were very different from British India or progressive States like
Mysore or Travancore. Neither was the administration benevolent, nor was
the political awareness among our people high as the anti-British
movement did not spread to this region. The only thing we can blame is
our destiny,” he said.
On linguistic basis
“To
start with, the State reorganisation committee, led by Justice Fazal
Ali, had recommended that the Hyderabad Karnataka region should be made
into a separate state, with Hyderabad as the capital, and not be merged
with the Mysore state saying “development should be the criterion for
unification and not emotional issues like language”. However, the Union
government decided on linguistic division of states after the fast unto
death of Telugu leader Potti Sriramulu. Secondly, we were never welcome
in the Mysore state. A committee, headed by the then Diwan Sheshadri
Iyer, said that joining Hyderabad Karnataka would be a burden on the
state. Even the Union government’s decision to merge HK region with
Mysore was met with resistance. Members of the Mysore Assembly debated
for three days before passing a resolution of conditional approval,” he
said.
“Thirdly, when the Union government introduced
amendments to the Constitution to grant special status to Telangana and
Marathwada in 1956, the HK region was left out. The argument that these
backward regions needed special treatment, would naturally apply to HK
region. These three regions were earlier part of the Nizam state and
suffered the same fate. It is easy to see that when the Hyderabad Nizam
state was broken up into three parts, each part had to be dealt with in
the same manner, in equal measure. All the benefits and facilities
available to the people of Telangana and Marathwada should have been
made available to the residents of Hyderabad Karnataka. But neither did
the government extend the same benefits to this region, nor did any of
our legislators or leaders demand it. The level of political awareness
found in Telangana was not found in HK. Thus we lost the first
opportunity for special status,” he said.
He said the
idea of a development board for Hyderabad Karnataka was mooted by a
committee for development of backward areas, headed by N. Dharam Singh
in 1982. But the Hyderabad Karnataka Development Board was not formed
till 1992. “The demand for a special region was officially made only in
1996, when the former Minister Vaijnath Patil raised the issue in the
form a private member Bill in the Assembly in 1996. Similar efforts were
made by K.B. Shanappa in the Rajya Sabha in 2009. The Hyderabad
Karnataka Horata Samiti, led by Vaijnath Patil, carried out a sustained
campaign for special status and now the movement seems to have come to
its logical end,” Prof. Konda said.
More:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article3856540.ece
