Visalandhra Movement Andhras hoped that their dream of Visalandra would be realised since the people of Hyderabad state were Unanimous for the trifurcation of their state. Further Andhras thought that all the out lying Telugu areas in Mysore, Orissa, Tamilnadu and Madhya pradesh would be incorporated in Visalandhra. In fact this movement was not formed after the formation of Andhra State. It started as early as the beginning of the 20th century The Communists propagated the idea of ‘Visalandhra’ from 1946. A daily news paper called ‘Visalandra’ was started by the Communists in June 1952. Communist leader Puchchalapalli Sundaraiah wrote a book called ‘Visalandhralo Prajarajyam’.
Visalandhra Mahasabha (1949)
After the completion of police action in Hyderabad state, the demand for Visalandhra gained ground in circar districts. In November 1949, A. Kaleswara Rao formed the Visalandhra Mahasabha at Vijayawada. Slowly the demand for Visalandhra gained acceptance in Telangana also. After the appointment of SRC, the demand for Visalandhra received a big boost. The protagonists of separate Telangana also intensified their efforts. K.V. Ranga Reddy and his nephew M. Chenna Reddy, though originally favoured Visalandhra, changed their stand and became very articulate in their support for separate Telangana.
The SRC submitted its report on 30 September 1955. It recommended the disintegration of Hyderabad state and formation of a Visalandhra sate including Telangana. It also favoured the formation of a separate Telangana state meanwhile. In 1950 and in 1954 two conferences of the Visalandhra Mahasabha were held at Warangal and Hyderabad respectively and demanded the formation of Visalandhra state with Hyderabad as its capital.
In the 1950 meeting of Hyderabad state Congress and 1953 conference of AICC, resolutions were moved for the disintegration of the Hyderabad state and the merger of Telugu, Kannada and Maharashtra districts into their respective provinces. This strengthened the demand for Visalandhra. In the 1952 elections, though Communists won more seats in Telangana, the Congress had gotten majority and Burgula Ramakrishna Rao became the chief minister. The SRC report favouring the creation of Telangana led to intensive lobbying by both the advocates of Telangana and Visalandhra. But a majority of the Congress legislators from Telangana and 7 out of ten district Congress committees supported Visalandhra. In the Hyderabad legislative assembly, the issue was raised. In the 174 member house, 147 members expressed their views. Of this 103 members supported Visalandhra and only 29 wanted a separate Telangana and 15 remained neutral. In Andhra almost all leaders favoured Visalandhra. The recommendations of the SRC were not well received by the public of India. Finally the congress High command accepted the demand for Visalandhra. The hardcore Telangana protagonists like K.V. Ranga Reddy and Marri chennareddy however stuck to their demand for a separate Telangana.
Gentlemen’s Agreement
In order to prevent misunderstandings between the two regions of Andhra and Telangana, the Congress high command arranged a meeting of the leaders of the regions at Delhi on 20 February, 1956. Andhra was represented by B. Gopalareddy (CM of Andhra state), N. Sanjeevareddy, G. Lachchanna, A. Sathanarayana Raju (President of AICC). Telangana was represented by Burgula Ramakrishna Rao (CM of Hyderabad state), K.V. Rangareddy, Marri Chenna Reddy and J.V. Narasingarao. The meeting resulted in an agreement over the formation of Visalandhra by providing certain safeguards to Telangana. All the eight participants signed an accord. This agreement is popularly known as the Gentlemen Agreement .
Terms of the agreement:
1. The expenditure on the administration of the state should be borne proportionately by the regions and the balance of income from Telangana should be reserved for the development of the region. The arrangement will be reviewed after 5 years and can be continued.
2. Existing educational facilities in Telangana should be secured to the students of Telangana and further improved. Admission in technical institutions in Telangana to be restricted to Telangana students or they should have l/3rd seats in the whole of state, which ever is more favourable to Telangana.
3. Retrenchment in services should be proportionate from both regions if it became inevitable due to integration.
4. Some kind of domicile rules, eg: residence for 12 years should be provided in order to assure the prescribed proportion to recruitment of services from Telangana areas. (This is called as the Mulki).
5. The position of Urdu in the administration and Judicial structure existing in Telangana may continue for 5 years when the Regional council will review the position.
6. Sale of agricultural land in Telangana area to be controlled by the Regional council. A Regional council, with 20 members (9 members from MLAs, one each of each district, 6 members of the Assembly or Parliament from Telangana and members from outside) to be set up for Telangana for its all round development.
7. The Regional council will be a statutory body empowered to deal with and decide about matters of planning and development of Telangana area. Unless revised, this agreement will be reviewed at the end of 10 years.
8. Cabinet ministers should be in proportion to 60: 40. Out of Telangana ministers one will be a Muslim.
9. If the chief minister is from Andhra, Deputy chief minister should be from Telangana and vice versa.
10. Two out of the following five portfolios should go to Telangana 1. Home, 2. Finance, 3. Revenue, 4. Planning and Development and 5. Commerce and Industry.
From the above agreement, it will be seen that the Andhra leaders went more than half way to meet the genuine demands of Telangana people. The government of India gave statutory support to the provisions of the Agreement and the draft bill named the new state as ’Andhra Telangana. When objections arose, it was amended as ’Andhra Pradesh’. On November 1, 1956, the new state was inaugurated by Nehru. Neelam Sanjeevareddy became the first chief minister, K.V. Ranga reddy the first deputy chief minister and C.M.Trivedi the first governor.
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