This refers to Dorab R Sopariwala's article, "Welcome Telangana - but what next?" (August 2). The coastal Andhra region (by whatever name it was known then and now) faces the same problem today, while separating from the proposed Telugu Desam, which it did 60 years ago when it was separated from the erstwhile state of Madras - of finding a capital. Justice K N Wanchoo (then Chief Justice of Rajasthan) who recommended the creation of the Andhra state had suggested that Madras should remain the "guest capital" of the new state till Andhra builds its new capital. But the then Chief Minister of Madras, (and former Governor General of India) C Rajagopalachari did not agree to it. Andhra must move out of Madras, the moment it separates, he demanded; the visionary in him knew that the "guest capital" scheme, would not work. Andhraites had to, post-haste, identify the nondescript town of Kurnool as their capital and select an executive engineer's bungalow to be reconditioned as the new state's Raj Bhawan, where the formidable Chandulal Trivedi - its first governor - moved from the palatial Barnes Court in Shimla (the Raj Bhawan of then Punjab). Kurnool remained the capital till the city of Hyderabad came to Andhra three years later, along with 10 districts of what was once the Nizam's dominions, on the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission.
If we go by the much acclaimed wisdom of Rajagopalachari, we must accept that the proposal that Hyderabad remains the joint capital of Andhra and Telangana for 10 years, also will not work. There would be endless problems between the two states, negating the gain (pacifying Telanganites) attained by the creation of the new state. Andhraites must walk out of Hyderabad as peacefully as they did out of Madras six decades ago and build their new capital, an ordeal they escaped in the fifties.
R C Mody New Delhi
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