On Ambedkar’s 57th death anniversary, Telangana owes him it’s statehood

Telangana sees a new dawn today on Dec 6, 2013, coincidentally the 57th death anniversary of the architect of our Constitution, BR Ambedkar, whose vision 6 decades ago has now become the lifeline for Telangana’s statehood. Telangana got cabinet approval for it’s Statehood yesterday and it’s draft bill is headed for President’s reference, after which it would come to Andhra Pradesh assembly for eliciting it’s ‘views’, as per Article 3 – the brainchild of BR Ambedkar.

There is a debate, even among intellectuals like P Sainath, on how important and mandatory Assembly resolutions are for carving out states. It is easy for an outsider, unaware of the regional and social divide within AP, to think that AP assembly resolution is necessary for the bifurcation in the spirit of democracy. If that were the case, Telangana would never become a separate state because it is in perpetual minority in representtaion within the AP assembly, having just 119 seats to Seemandhra’s 175. Avoiding these familiar pitfalls, it was BR Ambedkar who had the vision to foresee that a minority region could be a victim of ‘Tyranny of majority’ and in such cases, can take Parliament’s support for its reasonable demand for Statehood.

We can find these related deliberations in the Constituent Assembly Debates of 1948. While discussing BR Ambedkar’s draft for Article 3 which put the power to create a State within Parliament’s power instead of the related State assembly, there was a proposal by Prof. KT Shah that the legislation for creating a new state out of any region of an existing state should originate from its State Assembly. K Santhanam opposed such a proposal citing the then demand for Andhra Province out of erstwhile Madras State as an example. He said: “I wonder whether Professor Shah fully realizes the implications of his amendment. If his amendment is adopted, it would mean that no minority in any State can ask for separation of territory, either for forming a new province or for joining an adjacent State unless it can get a majority in that State legislature.”

He went onto describe the then current demand of Andhras to form a state of their own. He added, “Take the case of the Madras Province for instance. The Andhras want separation. They bring up a resolution in the Madras Legislature. It is defeated by a majority. There ends the matter. The way of the Andhras is blocked altogether. They cannot take any further step to constitute an Andhra province… Instead of democracy we will have absolute autocracy of the majority in every province and State”.

Eventually, the draft proposed by Dr. Ambedkar was adopted for Article 3. It was that foresight that rescued Telangana today. It is only apt every Telangana activist remembers him today, 57 years after his death, when he gave life to the 6 decade dream of millions of Telanganas!