AP withdraws 3-capitals bill but caste wars it whipped up linger on

The two-year agitation by farmers in defence of the capital of Andhra Pradesh at Amaravati has got an elixir from the most unexpected quarters. Eighty-two—year-old farmer Nutanapati Venkatapathi, from the drought-prone Ananthapur district, Rayalaseema, has empathised with them.

The farmers are currently on a protest from nyayasthanam [court] to devasthanam [the shrine of Balaji at Tirumala], covering 500km. The march is scheduled to culminate in a rally at Tirupati.

Faced with protests against the capital in Amaravati launched by the Rayalaseema-based rival groups, an ageing Venkatapathi joined the walkathon on the borders of Nellore-Chittoor districts and donated ₹1 lakh for the capital cause. Incidentally, Venkatapathi comes from Illur, the birthplace of Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, former President of India, who, while in the Tanguturi Prakasam Panthulu cabinet as the deputy chief minister, played a key role in taking away the capital for his Rayalaseema region by sidelining the Andhra region at the time of the formation of Andhra state.

Also read: Why floods wrecked Tirupati? Planners, ecologists dig deep to find causes

Showdown

The anti-capital protesters dubbed those batting for the capital Amaravati “traitors of Rayalaseema.” Ahead of the rally planned by Amaravati farmers, the Andhra Pradesh Abhivrudhi Porata Samithi launched a demonstration favouring development of the backward Rayalaseema and Uttarandhra regions by having executive capital, legislative capital and judiciary in different places of the state — an agenda which Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy is struggling hard to push through weathering hostile judiciary and an aggressive opposition in the Teulgu Desam Party (TDP) of Chandrababu Naidu. Vijay Chaganti, TDP’s social media activist, alleged that the Rayalaseema groups opposing Amaravati as the state capital are a B-team of Jagan’s party. The Jagan government has proposed to build the executive capital at Visakhapatnam, situated at an extreme end on the coast in the north of the state, and judiciary in Kurnool in Rayalaseema at the other end while retaining legislative capital in Amaravati.

Venkatapathi has, of course, a valid reason to back the protesters favouring the capital in Amaravati. “I feel alienated if the capital is relocated in Visakhapatnam, around 800 km away. There is no adequate bus and rail connectivity either from our place, located adjacent to Karnataka, to access the capital in Visakhapatnam. I will have to spend almost one full day to reach the proposed capital in Visakhapatnam,” Venkatapathi told The Federal.

Capital hiccups

Hit by the roadblocks in the judiciary, the YSR Congress government last month took back its three capital bills. But the government, however, reiterated his commitment saying decentralised development in the state is possible only with its three capital proposal.

Andhra Pradesh, after bifurcation in 2014 from Telangana, has lost the capital and the location of new capital in Amaravati during the Naidu regime had assumed political and caste colours. Around 29,000 farmers offered 34,000 acres of agriculture lands for building the capital under the land pooling scheme at Amaravati.

Also read: Naidu banks on theatrics to win NTR family back — and voters

Naidu, though hailing from Rayalaseema region, has been accused by his rival Jagan Reddy of showering benefits on people of his caste by preferring Amaravati over the other areas as recommended by Sivaramakrishnan Committee for establishing the capital. The expert committee proposed Donabanda on the Kurnool-Prakasam district borders, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, among others, along with Amaravati.

After huge amounts of public money went into the project during the TDP government, the capital-in-progress was thrown out with the bathwater after the YSR Congress came to power early in 2019. The Naidu government was alleged to have put all eggs in one basket in the name of the capital in Amaravati, heart of  coastal Andhra region considered seat of economic power for Kammas. Incidentally, Naidu belongs to this particular community. By choosing Amaravati for capital building, Naidu was accused of being biased against the other two backward areas.

A victim of caste war

In what is perceived as an extension of a no-holds-barred war unleashed by Jaganmohan Reddy to erase the footprints of his rival in the administration, his government decided to rob Amaravati of the capital. The move has prompted farmers to approach the court and it even triggered an intense caste war between Reddys and Kammas. A similar Reddy-Kamma caste war was witnessed during the formation of Andhra state when Reddys led by Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy managed to get away the capital for his Rayalaseema region, the Kamma lobby led by NG Ranga lost out in the game.

Unable to take forward his three capitals move the Reddy government in the last two-and-a-half years rule has apparently failed to please any of the three reasons in the state.

People in Kurnool too are seemingly not happy over having a High Court in their midst. The Andhra region was bifurcated from the Madras Province and carved out as a new linguistic state in 1953 after the legendary freedom fighter Potti Sriramulu sacrificed his life. Rayalaseema has got the capital for Kurnool while high court went to Guntur, which includes Amaravati, as per the Sri Bagh Pact, arrived at by a group of eight elderly leaders representing Kadapa, Anantapur, Kurnool and Krishna districts  in 1937.

Smarting under bifurcation wounds

Euphoria for Kurnool turned out to be shortlived in a span of three years as the capital moved to Hyderabad after the emergence of Andhra Pradesh with the merger of Telangana in 1956.

Nothing short of capital will undo injustice meted out to Kurnool by successive governments, Bojja Dasaradharami Reddy, a Kurnool-based leader of Rayalaseema Prajasanghala Samanvaya Vedika, asserted. Besides the capital, allocations made in the Krishna waters for meeting the irrigation needs of Rayalaseema shall be legitimised by honouring the spirit of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, Reddy said.

Six years on and the state continues to smart under the pains of bifurcation and the political upheavals even worsened the situation. Historian and writer K Chandrasekhar Kalkura blamed the AP Reorganisation Act for the plight of the residuary state. “The Act failed to specify the capital location. Consequently, the state has remained like a torso without head and the capital became a bone of contention for the rival parties since the bifurcation,” Kalkura told The Federal. He even warned of another separatist movement in the absence of remedial measures from the powers-that-be. When the statehood movement under K. Chandrasekhar Rao was at its peak in Telangana, some sections from Reddys demanded separate state for Rayalaseema too. Leaders like Congress former ministers M.V. Mysoora Reddy and J.C. Diwakar Reddy pitched for the Greater Rayalaseema movement then.