One of the geniuses of multilingual India is that it is not unusual to find middle class families especially, who will speak Hindi in formal meetings, a local dialect to servants and tradesmen and English as part of a mix of all three languages. It is also likely that such families will also have a good working knowledge of the language of any prominent local minorities. Foreigners who can appreciate the difference between languages, have frequently remarked on the ease with which an Indian will switch between different tongues, depending on who they are speaking to. Indeed multiple conversations in different languages are not unusual and are possible because such Indian families are hardly conscious of their multilingual dexterity. It was the diversity of languages that India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru sought to protect and encourage in the geographical shape of the new India. However it was inevitable that a number of states would define their borders in purely linguistic terms. In the often-heated post-independence negotiations that set out the compass of states, the Telugu speakers in the then-Madras State argued successfully to be joined with the largely Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh. The irony is that now the single Telugu linguistic community has this week split to form two separate states, the new arrival being Telangana, India's 29th state. There are those who bemoan this development, who have criticized it as a political power play by the man who has become the first chief minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, leader of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party. Nevertheless, the moment for complaint has passed. It is time for everyone to live with new new reality. Telangana's first government faces some very daunting challenges. With the exception of the high-technology Hyderabad, the new state is predominantly agricultural. As part of the old Andhra Pradesh, it suffered economic neglect. Indeed it was this lack of productive focus by successive chief ministers that kindled the support for the breakaway. The majority of the population of what is now Telangana took the view that only through independence could they achieve prosperity. In the short-term at least, these people seem doomed to disappointment. There will be few sustainable financial benefits and certainly no magic wand that the Rao administration will be able produce that will have any transformational impact on ordinary people. Indeed, it has long been argued that the creation of the new state's administration and bureaucracy will consume valuable financial resources. Thus the hopes of overnight prosperity will be dashed and the chief minister could well find himself facing a backlash. The last thing he and his party will want to hear in the coming year or two will be complaints that after all, everyone was actually better off in Andhra Pradesh. And there is one key issue where Telangana and Andhra Pradesh could fall out badly. Both states are to share Hyderabad as their capital for the next ten years, at which point it is envisaged that Andhra Pradesh will have built up a new capital for itself. The physical and administrative division of the existing civil service and constructive and cooperative workings between two separate and sometimes rival organizations is going to be hugely complex. Rows, which could disrupt the proper development of the new state, seem inevitable. It will call for considerable statesmanship on both sides, not least to heal the political wounds caused by the bitter debate over the separation.
