A brazen betrayal of AP people

"To observations which ourselves we make/We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.- Alexander Pope

Whoever said politics is simple? Yes it is essential in building societies, good or bad. The second one – a bad society – is often a result of the failures of those practising politics...not so good politics. Trust-deficit under these conditions develops fast and leads to discontent and, thereof, to anarchy.

Andhra Pradesh is not in the throes of a chaotic civil unrest as yet, but the shortsightedness of those at the helm could ignite such a situation. People of the land have been brought up on a diet of dreams in the last two years in the residuary State of Andhra Pradesh. Much of the content of the dreams was dictated by the promise of the Special Category Status.

The promise was made by the very same parties that are in power now, as allies, both at the Centre and at the State. They made this promise at the foothills of Tirumala during their election campaign in 2014 in a meeting addressed jointly by the present Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and the Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu.

The promise was also given on the floor of the Parliament by the present Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, M Venkaiah Naidu. In fact, it was he who sought the same for 10 years instead of the five promised by the former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, during a debate on bifurcation Bill.

As a Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, referred to 15 years of Special Category Status. Shuttling in between Hyderabad and Delhi (or Vijayawada and Delhi as the case may be), Naidu has been consistent in claiming Special Category Status as the only panacea for all the bifurcation ills.

People believed in them. After all, they have reposed their trust in these leaders and elected them to govern them out of distress, both emotional and material. The youth have been told that they would land jobs if the Status is accorded. The absence of the same would mean a bleak future, it was parroted day in and day out.

So why not the Status now? Why should people be told that an equivalent package would be better for the State that offsets the loss faced by the State by the denial of the Status? If those who advocate the theory are a different set of people, then, perhaps, it makes some sense. Not so when the same faces switch the remedy.

People do have a right to get restless at the display of such crass opportunism that offends their senses and morals. Secondly, this unabashed switchover is so brazenly being defended by the powers that be, both at the Centre and the State, that it has already – not even a day into the announcement that AP would be getting a special assistance package – started sounding bizarre.

An argument is being developed to convince people using "friendly media," a term loosely used to describe media owned by a particular social strata, that this special assistance package is much better than the Special Category Status. A status is a status, and a package, just that. A status entitles you to benefits. You can demand the benefit as a right if you are entitled to, which is the case in Special Category. In the absence of the same you are just an heir of entail.

Whatever the people get in the latter case – under special assistance package – is at the discretion of those giving. In this instant, the Centre. This could change, any time. Once the alliance breaks, this 'entailment" could stop. Once the mood swings the other way, the benefits may vanish. The day Modi says "look I don't like your face" to AP's Naidu, Arun Jaitley would simply tighten his purse strings.

The other Naidu at the Centre will be in no position to help his alter-ego in AP. It is as simple as it is. Or, for that matter, if the colour of the ruling dispensation changes at the Centre, there would be a change in its attitude too towards AP and so the benefits could evaporate easily.

The talk of according legality to the assurances of the special assistance package is really silly. It is so shocking to hear this one from the Chief Minister himself as if he is not aware of the fact that every provision of the AP Reorganization Bill has become an Act following the nod of the Parliament.

Here is what the Centre said after the announcement of the package. The Centre's commitments emanate from four basic documents, namely, “the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, the report of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, the statement of the then Prime Minister before the Parliament on 20.2.2014, and the report dated 1.12.2015 of Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, on Developmental Support to the Successor State of Andhra Pradesh under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014."

If that be the case, which part of the package announced now is not legal or legitimate? Or for that matter what is new to the latest announcement. Venkaiah Naidu, himself submitted "out of a total funding that could amount to Rs 2.25 lakh crores, Rs 1.65 lakh crores are already sanctioned, earmarked, approved or released to AP in the last two years," while defending the day-old special assistant package on Thursday. He was honest enough to state that the money had gone in to implement assurances given in the Reorganisation Act.

If the Centre has been just implementing the assurances incorporated in the Act, where was the need to quantify the funds separately now? What is, then, so special about the assistance package? Again, how does one quantify the benefits that would accrue to Andhra Pradesh if the Special Category Status is to be accorded?

AP has the potential to develop super fast with a SCS tag unlike the other North Eastern or Hill States of the country. To claim that the benefits under the special assistance package are equivalent to the benefits that would accrue to the State under the SCS provision is imaginary. The second does not exist to be compared. Hence, it is not justifiable, or even logical, to say it is an equivalent.

Shakespeare says "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet/Are of imagination all compact.” Do we need to add one more category to those who conjure?

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling/Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven/And, as imagination bodies forth/The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen/Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name". That is "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for us.

In the end of the play, after all the other characters leave, one of the key character's, Puck, "restores amends" and suggests to the audience that what they just experienced might be nothing more than a dream. Throughout, all the characters watch something, and wake up to realise that all of it was a dream. The audience is finally told that it was all about a dream and nothing more finally.

If you have not read it, go ahead and pick up the Shakespeare. Falling back on literature gives us solace. One could heartily laugh away troubled times, or, the times when a realisation dawns on us that we have been fooled.

Much celebrated Lamb once said: "I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief." Replace the smuggler with a politician and the thief with a liar, lo you have, the present crop!