The separatist leaders of Telangana frequently claim that, since the integrated
state’s formation, the region has suffered because of exploitation by the
people from the Kosta region. No evidence proves Kosta region’s deliberate
discrimination against Nizam Telangana. Saying that, from an economic
standpoint, there is no denying that the Nizam Telangana region is marginally
behind the Kosta region. The main reason for the region’s backwardness was the
severe beating that the economy took under Nizam’s rule. Ever since the formation
of the integrated state of Andhra Pradesh, the Nizam Telangana economy grew
at a faster pace than Kosta or Rayalaseema. However, separatist leaders hide
this fact to incite people of one region against the other. Instead of harnessing
the strengths of each region, separatist leaders of Telangana demand parity in
every aspect with the Kosta region, when there are variations in geographical
constitution of these regions making parity across different sectors an impossible
goal to achieve.
The former Vice Chancellor of Kakatiya University, Professor
Jayashankar, is often mentioned as the brains behind the separatist movement.
He wrote a paper titled “Telangana Movement — The Demand for a Separate
State” that is often cited by the Telangana proponents to make their case for
a separate state. In this paper, Professor Jayashankar blatantly distorts facts
to further his argument for a separate state. In this chapter, I will present
statistical data questioning the claims of separate state proponents. For this
socio-economic analysis, I primarily focus on education, irrigation, industries,
and financial sector data. I relied on statistical abstracts of Andhra Pradesh
for the data presented in this chapter. When I relied on other sources of data,
I have provided explicit footnotes.
To compare how each region performed since the state formation, I
used data for the 1956 and 2001. 1956 was the year when the state was formed,
and 2001 was the year when the last census data was collected. The Indian
government publishes a census every 10 years, and I used the 2001 numbers
as the most recent benchmark. Of course, 2011 census numbers, when they
become available, will certainly offer a more telling story.
In addition, as I present data for each region, where available, I offer
a separate category for Nizam Telangana, excluding the city of Hyderabad.
The capital city, Hyderabad, with its large population tends to skew the
results of our analysis. I, therefore, tried to provide readers a perspective on
how the Nizam Telangana districts perform economically when we exclude
Hyderabad city.
Without further ado, let us jump straight into the analysis that helps
us understand how each region performed over the past 50 years.
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