The Andhra Assembly

THE ANDHRA ASSEMBLY ¹

The Andhra State was inaugurated on the 1st of October. If the 15th of August was the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, the 1st October was the birthday of Dr. Annie Besant. It is good to remind ourselves that Andhra was carved out as a distinct Congress area in December 1917, at the Congress session in calcutta over which Dr. Besant presided. The initial fight for the linguistic re-distribution of India was fought almost single-handed by Dr. Patabhi Sitaramayya, till the Lokamanya came to his rescue at a late stage of that memorable debate. But at least an year earlier, Dr. Besant, as the founder of the Home Rule League, accepted Dr. Pattabhi’s suggestion to make Andhra a self-contained unit for organisational purposes. Sri G. Harisarvothama Rao was chosen as Secretary of the Home Rule League for Andhra, and Desabhakta Konda Venkatappayya was the first Secretary of Andhra Provincial Congress Committee.

All this is now ancient history. After forty years of struggle, the Andhra State is an accomplished fact. But the ship of State is sailing through rough seas. The veteran leader of Andhra, Sri Prakasam, is at the helm and he is assisted by men of ability and integrity like Sri Viswanatham and Sri Sanjiva Reddi. There is an efficient Secretariat, intent on achieving great things. The legislature, however, is a miscellaneous assortment of parties, groups, individuals–a veritable arena of warring interests, without principles or policies. The very first session revealed the dangers of group politics and divided loyalties. For weeks ahead, the entire Telugu Press and some sections of the public carried on a vociferous campaign for the shifting of the Capital from Kurnool to Vijayawada-Guntur. The men of Rayalaseema did not control newspapers; they were not adepts in the art of propaganda. But the younger men staged demonstrations in the Capital, molested the legislators and burnt the newspaper parcels. Orders under Section 144 had to be promulgated.

In the debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address, conducted in an atmosphere of strife and unreality, the Government were on the verge of a defeat. Dame Rumour has it that information was passed on to the Chief Minister from high quarters that, if any amendments to the address were carried, the Government would have to resign. As a last-minute compromise, a non-official day was allotted for the specific purpose of discussing the question of a permanent Capital. Once again the flood of oratory was let loose, amendments to the Congress-sponsored resolution were moved, debated and voted on, till finally conclusions were reached, as in Goldsmith’s Vicar, in which nothing was concluded.

The Chief Minieter’s official statement during the debate on the Governor’s address was an admirable one, conceived in the best interests of the State and seeking to reconcile different points of view. According to the Chief Minister, the Capital was to continue in Kurnool for three years, at the end of which steps would be taken to decide upon a permanent Capital. If, meanwhile, Visalandhra with Hyderabad as its Capital did not materialise, the choice was to lie between Waltair and Vijayawada-Guntur. It was not openly stated on the floor of the Assembly that the High Court was to be located in Guntur from July 1954, but it was well-known that the Government favoured this course. The mention of Waltair as a possible alternative to Vijayawada-Guntur was the signal for an outburst of anger, while the men of Kurnool wondered why Kurnool was not also mentioned as a possible permanent Capital, in case Hyderabad was not available. They were prepared to yield to the superior claims of Hyderabad and the interests of Visalandhra, but they refused to concede that Vjaywada-Guntur was a heaven compared to the hell of Kurnool, depicted with such vulgarity and insolence in the writings and cartoons in the Telugu dailies. So, between the conflicting groups, the Chief Minister’s statement and his appeal for unity went unheeded. And the Andhra Legislature presented a spectacle which was, to put it mildly, very unedifying.

The men of Andhra are intelligent, patriotic, and hard-working. As farmers and weavers, their record of achievement is un-equalled. The poets and artists have striven to uphold noble ideals; they have created things of great beauty. But the political leadership is pitiful. Years ago, the antagonism between Sri Prakasam and Dr. Pattabhi split up the political-minded sections of the Andhra public into ‘Prakasam’s men’ and ‘Pattabhi’s men’. The General Elections in Andhra in 1946 brought this schism to the fore. When Sri Prakasam became Chief Minister, the presidentship of the Provincial Congress Committee became vacant. rival groups gathered their forces at Chirala, and, with Sri Prakasam’s support, Sri N. G. Ranga was elected President. This new alignment introduced another disturbing factor into Congress politics, and Sri Ranga, whose powers of organisation are equaled only by his colossal vanity, imagined himself the virtual dictator of Andhra politics.

The Provincial Congress Committee and its subordinate organisations in the Districts and Talukas became hot-beds of intrigue, and the perpetual squabbles between the Ranga group and the Sanjiva Reddi group–the inheritors of the Prakasam-Pattabhi feud–became a major headache for the Congress High Command. At long last, the Provincial Congress Committee was dissolved, and after a period of what may be described, by way of analogy, as rule under Section 93, fresh elections were held. Once again a president had to be elected. Vijayawada was the scene and the followers of Ranga and Sanjiva Reddi were drawn up like the Kaurava and Pandava hosts. Sanjiva Reddi won by a narrow majority of 5, but being a man of peace he offered to accommodate a number of Ranga’s men on his Executive Committee, which was later to select the Congress candidates at the General Elections of 1952. But Ranga would have none of it and, therefore, Prakasam too would have none of it. They walked out of the Provincial Congress Committee and formed a new Party–the Kisan Majdoor Praja Party–which affiliated itself to the all-India Party of that name led by Acharya Kripalani. But Acharya Kripalani ignored the all-India status of the Acharya from Andhra and failed to nominate him to the Central Executive of the Party. He thought Prakasam was enough. And so, in protest, Ranga formed yet another party–the Krishikar Lok Party–which was also an all-India Party, but with no rival near the throne which was Ranga’s by inherent right.

Thus the ‘official’ Congress led by Sanjiva Reddi, the K. M. P. of Sri Prakasam, and the K. L. P. of Sri Ranga went before the electors, and poured forth their vials of wrath. And they succeeded, by this process, in returning the Communists in much larger numbers than the Communists ever hoped for. This was the muddle into which erstwhile Congressmen led the Andhra country.

The prospect was gloomy, and for a few days it looked as if Sri Prakasam and his new-found allies, the Communists, would form a Ministry for the State of Madras. But the advent of Sri Rajagopalachari on the scene changed the posture of affairs, and there was a stable Government for Andhra and for the rest of the Madras State till the 1st of October when the new State came into being.

But the splitting up of parties into groups, and the emergence of ‘splinter’ groups has gone on merrily. When the Socialist Party and the Kisan Majdoor Praja Party effected a merger on an all-India basis, the K.M.P. in Andhra under Sri Prakasam and Sri Viswanatham became the major section of the new Praja-Socialist Party in Andhra. But there were half-a-dozen K. M. P. men who stood aloof and functioned as a group. In the recent controversy over the ‘defection’ of Sri Prakasam from the Praja-Socialist Party, Viswanatham’s men and the Raja of Vizianagaram’s men are breaking up into two rival groups, each claiming to be the ‘official’ P. S. P. in the Assembly. The young Raja has announced that Viswanatham ceased to be a member of the Party, while the all-India Chief says, “No. Not yet.”

In the K. L. P. group itself, there are two sections–Thimma Reddi’s men and Latchanna’s men. The members of the K. L. P. at one stage enrolled themselves as associate members of the Congress Legislature Party. When the leader of the Congress Party, Sri Sanjiva Reddi, sought election to the Legislative Assembly of Madras from the Kalahasti Constituency in Chittoor District, Thimma Reddi and one or two others worked strenuously for Sanjiva Reddi, while Latchanna’s men acting under a partymandate openly canvassed against the Congress Chief. The K. M. P. leaders, Prakasam and Viswanatham, though they were not associate members, stood loyally by Sanjiva Reddi and went about the constituency addressing meetings in support of him.

With this ground of strife, it was difficult even for a top ranking leader like Sri Prakasam to form a stable Government. It was only the fear of the Communists that brought various sections together. Till the midnight of September 30, no one knew who were to be Ministers, though there were a few ‘certainties’ and a large number of ‘probabilities’. Sanjiva Reddi was opposed to the inclusion of Latchanna and favoured Thimma Reddi, while Ranga insisted on his inclusion, for he was the accredited representative of the K. L. P. Both Thimma Reddi and Latchanna are now in the Cabinet, holding divergent views, favouring divergent policies, and never knowing which way they should vote in a division.

On the question of the Capital, the part played by the K. L. P. has assumed queer shapes. It was the K. L. P. that gathered the legislators of Rayalaseema at a meeting in Gokhale Hall, Madras and got them to pass a resolution claiming the Capital for themselves, and not the High Court, in terms of the Sri Bagh Pact. And Tirupati was to be the favoured spot. Once the members of the Assembly from Rayalaseema insisted on their rights under the Pact, Sri Prakasam and Sri Sanjiva Reddi had to yield to their demand, if only to avoid a Circars-Rayalaseema split over the formation of the new State. And they wisely preferred Kurnool to Tirupati or any other place in Rayalaseema. But the K. L. P. chiefs found the ground slipping from under their feet. There were powerful interests in the Vijayawada-Guntur region which had to be placated, if the K. L. P. was to face the electorate at the next General Election. So, they switched round to Vijayawada-Guntur, and were more zealous in their advocacy than even the Communists. After Latchanna came into the Cabinet, Sanjiva Reddi and Latchanna made contradictory statements in the Press and on the platform regarding the location of the Capital. People doubted if the Cabinet had a mind of its own on important issues.

The happenings during the hectic week in Kurnool have convinced the Andhra public that no progress is possible–no, not even normal efficient administration–unless groups like the K. L. P. are dissolved. They are a danger to our public life. If a parliamentary Government is to function successfully in Andhra, these groups have to merge themselves in the Congress from which they have seceded for personal and not ideological considerations, and allow the country to choose between the Congress and the Communists. It must be a straight fight between these two, in the Legislature as well as the country.

The leaders of the ‘democratic’ political groups have let down the Andhra public. They have made stable administration an impossibility. Men who have watched with pain and weariness of spirit the antics of these leaders should not be blamed if, in utter disgust, they exclaim, “why not Governor’s rule ?” But “that is a cry of despair. We want the Andhra Government to establish democratic rule, and enable Andhra to take its rightful place in the Indian Union. The leaders must take heed before it is too late.

With regard to the resolution of the 30th of November, which favoured the choice of Visakhapatnam (Waltair) as permanent Capital after 1st October 1956, the voting was an example of political legerdemain. The amendment altering the date to the 1st of April 1956 was carried by a majority of only three, some members of the amorphous groups remaining neutral. Then was carried an amendment in favour of shifting the Government offices now in Madras to Vijayawada-Guntur within six months. This amendment ought to have been excluded by the Speaker when lots were drawn to decide priority. It related to a matter of administrative detail, and had no relation to the main issue of the location of the permanent Capital, which was to form the sole subject of discussion on the 30th. Having admitted it, he could not refuse to let the House divide on it. But even with this amendment, the main resolution ought to have been passed by the Assembly. There was no inherent contradiction between it and the amendment carried earlier. The Capital could remain at Kurnool till April 1956, and shifted to Visakhapatnam (Waltair) after that date. And yet, the offices in Madras might be shifted to Vijayawada-Guntur almost immediately. The failure to pass the resolution as amended left the House without any substantive proposition before it–a situation rather unusual in parliamentary history!

The Chief Minister’s earlier statement, therefore, holds the field for the present. The same controversies will be pursued endlessly, and the new Government of Andhra denied all chance of settling down to constructive work in an atmosphere of tranquility.

¹Dec. 6, 1953