A prose of division

Province, Region - these divisions have become more political than sociological and ethnical and Andhra Pradesh has been the worst causality of it. The very formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1952 based on language proved to be atrocious as it left half of its people living in the entire south India in a lurch.

After the establishment of Andhra Pradesh, it became customary to identify three regions in it, Telangana, Coastal and Rayalaseema. Slowly Kalingandhra emerged as the fourth region. When Telangana fought for a separate State the remaining three regions demanded a combined State but the inevitable took place.

Now the cry for a separate Rayalaseema is slowly gaining strength, which should make all of us to introspect to discern the ultimate truth and to pose ourselves the question what is regionalism. And I will take the help of literature to find out a plausible answer.

Although a collection of stories based on a region was first compiled by Chaganti Somayajulu, ‘Kalinga Katha’, the real beginning was that of ‘Seema Katha’ edited by Singamaneni Narayana as it included the stories reflecting the life of the people concerned in an authentic way.

Then separate anthologies of the stories of Telangana were published afterwards. All these anthologies prove that stories based on region come out only from the backward areas. But the critics point out that better story flourished in Rayalaseema and Kalingandhra after the 1980s.

But the regionalism became a dominant force during the Telangana movement and those movements originated in the urge for social justice transformed into political movements and its tremors are quite visible in the literature of that period.

Now the question is, if there is an identical existential consciousness called Rayalaseema? The four districts of Rayalaseema reacted differently during the division of the State. Some people from Kurnool tried to have Seema Telangana, some from Anathapur demanded a separate State and a few from Chittoor thought of going back to Tamil Nadu and Kadapa was the only district who was in a fix.

Then we had to search for an identical force that united the people of the four districts into a single fold. In his socio-political-economic analysis of the literature of Rayalaseema, Vallampati Venkatasubbaiah, the renowned critic observed that the unifying factor of the four districts of Rayalaseema is that of the scanty rains and water problem, which has different shapes in different districts.

The district of Chittoor, may be the only district in south India without a single notable river and its peasants depend on the tanks for irrigation. The stories of this district deal with the digging of the wells and strengthening the embankments of the tanks. (‘Pathala Ganga’- K Sabha, ‘Moogavani Pillanagrovi’- Kesava Reddy, ‘Musalamma Maranam’- Mahendra).

The life of the farmers became a farce (Vinoda Pradarshanam-Madhuranthakam Rajaram). The check dams constructed on the rivulets stopped the little water flown to the downstream and consequently the groundwater level went pathetically deeper and deeper. (Bangaaru Sankellu- Pulikanti Krishna Reddy, Munikannadi Sedyam- Namini)

Kadapa district has two small rivers, Penna and Cheyyeru, which become sandy heaps except during the rainy season. So the writers here are more obsessed about rains (‘Okka Vana Chaalu’-Kethu Viswanadha Reddy) and they too join their voices with Vidwan Viswam who sings, “This is Penna, this is merely a desert, dear brother.

”(‘Penneti Kathalu’-P Ramakrishna, ‘Vaana Chinukulu’ - Sannapareddy Venkatrami Reddy)
Singamaneni Narayana laments that the life of the farmer of Ananthapur district has become a lottery and Swami heaves a sigh saying that how can a place devoid of water become cultured. The peasant there has to eat mud alone.(‘Mannu Thinna Manishi’-Devaputhra) KC canal stretches its branches to some places in Anantapur district but those fertile lands were bought by the Coastal people long before.

Kurnool district has the advantage of having two rivers, Handri and Thungabhadra and the writers of that district wrote stories about the floods they had recently. (Stories by Venkatakrishna and Harikishen)
The second characteristic feature of Rayalaseema, faction politics, also has different versions in different districts.

It is absolutely absent in Chittoor district and so here writers still describe the cruelty of feudal lords (‘Ambapaluku’ - Rajaram) as well as their magnanimity. (‘Rathilo Thema’ - Rajaram). But the Kadapa writer portrays its ordeals (Stories of Ramakrishna, Sannapareddy) and the Ananthapur writer voices the same anguish. (Singamaneni and Devaputhra). The Kurnool writer is silent regarding factions. But the reasons behind those feuds are not the same and it is not a mistake to surmise that the drought and poor crops inflame the scuffles.

The other characteristic feature of Rayalaseema is that of its dialect but it is different from one place to the other. The influence of Tamil on Chittoor is obvious and similar differences are easily noticeable in other districts. When the writers of Rayalaseema began to write in their dialects there was huge hue and cry though no opposition was there when writers of Kalingandhra wrote in their dialect.

Then some critics argued that it is not right to build barriers in the name of dialects and hamper the basic duty of communication in literature. Moreover the two anthologies published recently, ‘Morasunadu Kathalu’ and ‘Thondanadu Kathalu’ proved that the Rayalaseema is only a recent political division as it overlaps and encapsulates many places of the bordering districts.

Although the mother tongue of many people of those regions is Telugu, but they wrote in other languages as the linguistic bifurcation that developed fanaticism victimised them. The irony is that we are fighting for separate States when our fellow Telugu people are crusading to retain their mother tongue and culture in a hostile place and the hostility was due to the unwise people who craved a separate State on linguistic basis without realising the spread of Telugu people throughout south India.

The ordeals of the poor and downtrodden are the same everywhere though they might have different shapes at different places. The plight of Dalits, women and minorities is also the same in spite of differences in wealth and culture. The impact of globalisation has been creating the same havoc in Rayalaseema as elsewhere.

While discussing the methods of the study of the literature of Telangana, Kathyani Vidmahe proclaimed the struggle of native writers caught in the mire of the culture and literature of two districts of Coastal region. But at the same time, she rightly pointed out that the region of a person did depend upon the birth of that person alone as his forefathers might have migrated to that place from many other regions. A theory of Anthropology asserts that no family can stay at one place for five generations. Regionalism should not curtail the freedom of any individual in any way.

We should have a glance at the way that the States are divided in the USA and a comparison of our map with it makes the difference obvious. The division of a country into States is only meant for the convenience of the governance and it should not create problems to any person irrespective of the caste and creed. If it is happening otherwise, it implies that something is wrong with our political stance.

By: Madhurantakam Narendra
(The writer is a bilingual short story writer, novelist and poet, writing in both Telugu and English)