The proposed division of Andhra Pradesh, the first State to be carved out on a linguistic basis, is against the fundamental ideology of the Congress party, Andhra Pradesh Official Language Commission Chairman Mandali Buddha Prasad has said.
Talking to The Hindu here on Thursday, Mr Buddha Prasad said that a Congress party leader conceived the formation of states on linguistic basis as early as 1924. The Congress party endorsed the decision to form states on the linguistic basis in 1934. In 1946 the party decided that Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka would be formed on linguistic basis and the same was put in its election manifesto.
In 1948 the Constituent Assembly appointed the Dhar Commission to examine the issue of forming linguistic states, but the commission did not recommend linguistic states.
The Congress Party then appointed a three-member committee with Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhai Patel and Pattabhi Seetharamaiah to look into the matter. The committee, popularly called the JVP Committee, recommended the formation of Andhra Pradesh with undisputed Telugu areas. After that other states in South India were also formed on the linguistic basis.
The language of all the states in North India was Hindi and therefore it was made the national language. The proposed division of a State formed on linguistic basis had several ramifications on the development and protection of the culture and language. The Central Government through several programmes had protected and promoted Hindi. The Andhra Pradesh Government was doing the same for Telugu.
While six crore Telugus live in the State another two crore live in other States and other countries. The Andhra Pradesh government was conducting conferences and programmes till now. Who will do this in future? Unless steps were taken to protect and promote language they perish. History was full of examples, he said.
Mr. Buddha Prasad recalled how he entered politics in the peak of the Jai Andhra Movement when his father Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao was one of the three Ministers who opposed the division of the State.
His family was socially boycotted for that and his father was asked to stay in Hyderabad fearing attacks by Jai Andhra movement activists.
