When Chidambaram made history

History has its own way of replicating itself. At the stroke of midnight, in 1947, a young member of the British royal family formally handed over charge to a what was considered a dapper young person Jawaharlal Nehru.

Some 60 plus years later on a chilly night stood Palaniappan Chidambaram equally dapper with a paper in his hand and made a statement that would change the course of history of what was once touted as India’s richest state – at least the man who once owned it was the richest man in the world. The irony cannot be missed, history is always made or unmade around midnight.

That terse statement about the initiation of the process of formation of Telangana was greeted with disbelief both the proponents and opponents, many of whom were still awake. Frankly, no one expected this, but they knew something was cooking. Otherwise, why would a man like Rosaiah, who does not normally know-tow before the monarchs in Delhi land up to wish Madam on her birthday . It turns out that he did not go there on his own, he was asked to be there. Rosaiah was supposed to be there in the morning and then afternoon, but finally landed up only in the evening. Talk of bad timing.

Chief Minister, Rosaiah was having his baptism by fire, with a fasting KCR on one hand and restive students from the old cauldron of state politics, Osmania University on the other. On the other side of the mess was KCR who was caught between the Devil and deep sea. He had broken his fast in Khammam, but was soon forced to start fasting again when the OU students threatened to make him irrelevant. The students has learnt bitter lessons from the experience of 1969 when Chenna Reddy and his Telangana Praja Samithi sold the T movement for the sake of power. Chenna Reddy incidentally went on to become one of the most corrupt Chief Ministers in the country, during those times.

So on a day when drum beaters and sycophants make their bee line outside 10 Janpath to wish Madam, there was lot of tense faces. Intelligence reports that filtered in from Hyderabad indicated that KCR was on his last legs with slipping into coma, becoming a reality. But what was worrying the Union government was the next day’s rally by the students to the State assembly would turn violent. Lumpen elements in the thousands from Rayalaseema were said to been transported to the twin cities. Last but not the least was the news that KVP and Jagan were fishing in the troubled waters.

It was nothing new, as the then Chief Minister Chenna Reddy had on the floor of the assembly accused YSR who was then a junior leader of bringing goondas from Seema and setting of riots in the old city in a bid to unseat him. So the Core Committee met and met again and decided to create a state of Telangana. The only problem was the wording, for Rosaiah to his credit wanted the word ‘passed’ to be replaced with ‘introduce’. So the final sentence read, “The State Government shall introduce an appropriate resolution in the state assembly”. In a way, Rosaiah had read the smoke signals right.

And the onus on announcing the creation fell on the normally erudite Chidambaram. In a way he would felt like Lord Mountbatten, when he stepped out to read out the operative part of the decision.