Feb 14 : Passionate protagonists of a course of action tend to speak in extreme, maximalist, terms and typically exhibit little patience with the possibility of points of view emerging that may diverge from their own understanding of an issue. This appears to

be the reason why Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao has responded so negatively to the terms of reference of the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee which is to examine the demand for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the formation of a new state. In the January 5 meeting of political parties of Andhra Pradesh held in New Delhi, Union home minister P. Chidambaram had promised to set up a "mechanism" that would take forward the process of exploration of establishing a new state of Telangana. The seven-point terms of reference of the Srikrishna Committee announced on Friday are consistent with this objective. The remit of this committee could have been confined to a single-track examination of the method of trifurcating the existing composite Telugu-speaking state — and apparently only this would satisfy TRS — if the AP Assembly had been able to pass a resolution in favour of setting up a separate Telangana. But that  clearly did not happen. In the event the committee is obliged to examine the situation on the ground in its entirety. This means looking at the picture in the Telangana districts of the state as well as the other districts in relation to the Telangana demand. That stands to reason.

The Srikrishna Committee has been charged with identifying "optimal" solutions to an existing problem. This suggests that it cannot take a one-dimensional view unless there is state-wide endorsement of such a proposition. To be fair, the committee has also been asked to make any suggestions or recommendations that it may deem fit in meeting the objective placed before it. The matter before the Srikrishna panel is delicate and  complex. It has social, political, economic as well as historical dimensions. In all fairness, political parties and lobbies in the state should afford the panel the right atmosphere in which to discharge its responsibility. If this does not appear reasonable to any of them, the entity concerned should have ab initio spoken up against the formation of such a committee. If democratic legitimacy is deemed to accrue to a political agitation by virtue of its vociferous nature alone, then the dispassionate examination of an issue is ipso facto ruled out. In that case, every demand made for a separate state would have to be acceded to without discussion. Such a method does not look to be democratic, whatever else its other merits.

The Srikrishna panel would do well to give some weight to considerations of history. Key questions are: In 1956, what led to the Telugu-speaking Telangana districts to accept merger with the newly established state of Andhra Pradesh formed out of the 11 Telugu-speaking districts of the erstwhile Madras State in 1952? Has that logic been annulled by circumstances that have prevailed since then? Why did the Telangana movement of 1972 not bear fruit? Another line of enquiry may also be pertinent. if, citing distant history, pro-Telangana agitationists lay claim to Hyderabad, then that logic can also be extended to other areas of the former Nizam’s domains that now happen to be attached to other states of the Indian Union. Prudence demands that no reasonable angle of enquiry or shade of opinion be excluded from the ambit of the Srikrishna Committee’s framework. If we are unable to strike the right balance in dealing with difficult questions, we risk opening a Pandora’s box.