Is breaking up the nation into smaller states the right thing? Smaller states definitely are easier to manage and have better accountablity. Comparing to a company for e.g., Intel will be in a chaos working as a one whole big group so there are teams, groups, divisions etc. But how small is small? Can each individual form his or her own team? Then, where to draw the line? Depends entirely on what can be managed better and accouted for easily. Smaller states are not such a bad idea as long as it makes sense.
However, in the case of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana movement has been on for four decades now. In fact when Coastal and Rayalaseema regions of the present AP were carved out of Madras Presidency (a fast unto death by Potti Sriramulu) in 1953, Telangana was not a part of it. States Reorganization Commission (SRC) report was against the merging of Telangana into the newly formed Andhra State. Central government went against the SRC report and merged Telangana into Andhra State and formed Andhra Pradesh in 1956, based on some gentlemen agreements. Ofcourse none of them have been met till date, so a disgruntled Telangana population has been brewing for the past few decades which did not want to be part of the AP in the first place. Telangana had been always been under developed as it was largely under the Nizam rule, while the people from Andhra were better educated because of the British influence.
When you take some unrest, annoyance, imbalance and give it to the Indian politicians you can trust them to blow it out of proportion. In the past 50 years no CM has taken any proactive interest in the Telangana region's development. If AP had an uniform development over the entire region and if the concerns/issues in the Telangana region had been addressed in a timely manner, probably it would have remained whole today. Minus Hyderabad, Telangana region remains under developed, arid, poor compared to the rich and affluent coastal Andhra. The worst fears of exploitation and oppression expressed by Telagana during the formation of Andhra Pradesh have been confirmed. Its hardly surprising that the people of Telangana have lost faith in the united Andhra Pradesh. In light of the ugly turn the Telangana movement has taken, real problems should not be ignored. The problems in Telangana are real, undeniable and indisputable.
However, all evidence for the lack of development in Telangana points to incompetence by the governing body and in part but not exclusively due to the integration with AP. KCR is cashing on the people's sentiment and his only agenda in the pro-Telanga is his own benefit. Trusting the state with someone like KCR is just moving the problem into different hands. The status quo of Telangana people will not change with the new statehood. Telangana development (either divided or integrated) is now tied entirely to the leaders governing it and it's very hard to see KCR working towards its betterment. Under leadership of KCR, if Telangana does benefit by breaking away from AP then its just accidental stroke of good fortune and the down side is that undeserved people get credited and undesired movements patronized. As always, thanks to our leaders, Telangana problem has burgeoned into a loose-loose solution. It now stands between the neglect of the past and uncertainity of the future with ofcourse unnecessary damage and destruction to lives and property at present.
References:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+in0075)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telangana
