Background
Background
The land
Geography
For much of the year the interior looks dry and desolate although the great delta of the Krishna and Godavari rivers retains its lush greenness by virtue of their irrigation water. Water is the state’s lifeblood, and the great peninsular rivers have a sanctity that reflects their importance. The Godavari, rising less than 200 km north of Mumbai, is the largest of the peninsular rivers. The Krishna rises near Mahabaleshwar at an altitude of 1360 m. After the Ganga these two rivers have the largest watersheds in India, and between them irrigate nearly six million ha of farmland.
Climate
Andhra Pradesh is hot throughout the year. The interior is in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats and receives less rainfall than much of the coast. The heaviest rainfall is between June and October, but the south gets the benefit of the retreating monsoon between October and December. Cyclones sweeping across the Bay of Bengal can wreak havoc in the flat coastal districts in November and December.
History
The first evidence of a people called the Andhras came from Emperor Asoka. The first known Andhra power, the Satavahanas encouraged various religious groups including Buddhists. Their capital at Amaravati shows evidence of the great skill of early Andhra artists and builders. Around AD 150 there was also a fine university at Nagarjunakonda. In 1323 Warangal, to the northeast of the present city of Hyderabad, was captured by the armies of Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Muslim expansion further south was prevented for two centuries by the rise of the Vijayanagar Empire, itself crushed at the Battle of Talikota in 1565 by a short-lived federation of Muslim States; the cultural life it supported had to seek fresh soil.
From then on Muslim rulers dominated the politics of central Andhra, Telangana. The Bahmani kingdoms in the region around modern Hyderabad controlled central Telangana in the 16th century. They were even able to keep the Mughals at bay until Aurangzeb finally forced them into submission in the late 17th century. Hyderabad was the most important centre of Muslim power in Central and South India from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It was founded by the fifth in line of an earlier Muslim dynasty, Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah, in 1591. Through his successors Hyderabad became the capital of a Princely State the size of France, ruled by a succession of Muslim Nizams from 1724 till after India’s Independence in 1947.
During the 18th century British and French traders spread their influence up the coast. Increasingly they came into conflict and looked for alliances with regional powers. At the end of the 18th century the British reached an agreement with the Nizam of Hyderabad in which he accepted British support in exchange for recognition of British rights to trade and political control of the coastal districts. Thus Hyderabad retained a measure of independence until 1947 while accepting British suzerainty.
There was doubt as to whether the Princely State would accede to India after Partition. The Nizam of Hyderabad would have liked to join fellow Muslims in the newly created Muslim State of Pakistan. However, political disturbances in 1949 gave the Indian Government the pretext to take direct control, and the state was incorporated into the Indian Union.
Culture
Most of Andhra Pradesh’s 78 million people are Dravidians. Over 85% of the population speak Telugu. However, there are important minorities. Tamil is widely spoken in the extreme south, and on the border of Karnataka there are pockets of Kannada speakers. In Hyderabad there are large numbers of Urdu speakers who make up 7 % of the state’s population.
Hyderabad, the capital of modern Andhra Pradesh, was the seat of government of the Muslim Nizams. Under their rule many Muslims came to work in the court, from North India and abroad. The Nizam’s capital was a highly cosmopolitan centre, drawing extensively on Islamic contacts in North India and in west Asia, notably Persia.
Andhra food stands out as distinct because of its northern influence and large number of non-vegetarians. The rule of the Muslim Nawabs for centuries is reflected in the rich, spicy local dishes, especially in the area around the capital. Try haleem (spiced pounded wheat with mutton), paya (soup) or baghara baigan (stuffed aubergines). Rice and meat biryani, nahari, kulcha, egg paratha, and kababs have a lot in common with the northern Mughlai cuisine. The abundance of locally grown hot chillies has led to a fiery traditional cuisine, for which ‘Andhra-style’ is a byword. Also grown locally, good quality grapes (especially anab- e-shahi) or khobani (puréed apricots) provide a welcome neutralizing effect.
Craft industries
Andhra’s bidriware uses dark matte gunmetal (a zinc and copper alloy) with silver damascening in beautiful flowing floral and arabesque patterns and illustrates the Persian influence on Indian motifs. The articles vary from large vases and boxes, jewellery and plates to tiny buttons and cuff links. The name is derived from Bidar in Karnataka and dates back to the Bahmani rulers.
Miniature wooden figures, animals, fruit, vegetables and birds are common subjects of Kondapalli toys which are known for their bright colours. Nirmal toys look more natural and are finished with a herbal extract which gives them a golden sheen, Tirupati toys are in a red wood while Ethikoppaka toys are finished in coloured lacquer. Andhra also produces fine figurines of deities in sandalwood.
Hyderabadi jewellers work in gold and precious stones which are often uncut. The craftspeople can often be seen working in the lanes around the Char Minar – shops selling the typical local bangles set with glass lie to the west. Hyderabadi cultured pearls and silver filigree ware from Karimnagar are another speciality.
The state is famous for himru shawls and fabrics produced in cotton/silk mixes with rich woven patterns on a special handloom. Silver or gold threads produce an even richer brocade cloth. A boy often sits with the weavers ‘calling out’ the intricate pattern.
The All India Handicrafts Board has revived the art of weaving special ikat fabrics. Pochampally, a village about 60 km east of Hyderabad, is synonymous for its ikat fabric in cotton and silk. The world-famous textile has been awarded IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) protection to safeguard it from imitation and competition. Interestingly, oil is used in the process of dyeing the warp and weft threads before weaving in to produce a pattern, hence the fabric’s name teli rumal (literally oil kerchief).
Kalahasti, in Andhra’s extreme south, and Pedana, near Machilipatnam in coastal Andhra, produce distinctive Kalamkari cloth paintings (kalam refers to the pen used); the dyes come from indigo, turmeric and pomegranate. The blues stand out from the otherwise dullish ochre colours. Designed from mythology tales (Mahabharata and Ramayana), they make excellent wall hangings.
Modern Andhra Pradesh
Government
In 1953 Andhra Pradesh was created on the basis of the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras Presidency. This was not enough for those who were demanding statehood for a united Telugu-speaking region. One political leader, Potti Sreeramulu, starved himself to death in protest at the government’s refusal to grant the demand. In 1956, Andhra Pradesh took its present form; all Telugu-speaking areas were grouped together in the new state of Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh was regarded as a stronghold of the Congress Party until 1983 when a regional party, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), founded by the film star NT Rama Rao, won a crushing victory in the State Assembly elections. The Assembly elections on 5 October 1999 saw a repeat performance, with the highly-regarded modernizing Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu being swept back to power with nearly a two-thirds majority. Allied with the BJP in the governing coalition in New Delhi, the Telugu Desam had a reputation for pushing ahead with rapid economic modernization, particularly visible in Hyderabad, but Naidu, who borrowed heavily from the World Bank and took China, Singapore and Malaysia as his business models, won only 47 of the 295 seats in the State Assembly elections in 2004. The Congress and its newly formed regional party ally, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, with 226 seats, reclaimed power.
The Congress Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy (known as YSR) took charge of a state with high debts to the World Bank, where rural poverty was endemic and where suicide had become a major problem among poor farmers. The turmoil in Andhra’s countryside has only been amplified by the activities of notionally Maoist militias, most notably the Naxalites and the Peoples War Group. The Congress-led government has tried to negotiate peace settlements with the guerrillas, but talks have repeatedly broken down, and operating in some of the remotest areas of northwestern Andhra Pradesh, the PWG continues to murder, bomb, kidnap and execute summary penalties through the authority of ‘people’s courts’.
Recent elections have been dominated by the Telangana movement, which would see Andhra Pradesh carved into two or possibly three separate states. In 2009 YSR and the Congress defeated an alliance between leftist parties and the separatist Telangana Rashtra Samithi party having adopted a pro-Telangana stance in his campaign, but the Congress promptly abandoned the policy upon securing re-election. It won an overall majority (158 out of 294 seats) in the State Assembly and 33 out of 42 seats in the Lok Sabha. The much publicized political debutante, the film star Chanjeevi, with his Prajjaya Rajjam Party, won only 18 seats in the Assembly and none in the Lok Sabha elections.
