Priya Nair
Independent Researcher
Kerala, India
Abstract
Language has persistently served as both a unifying emblem and a fracturing fault line within India’s multilingual federal structure. The movement for a separate Telangana state, culminating in its formation in June 2014, exemplifies this tension: although Telugu functioned as a shared official language across the erstwhile single state of Andhra Pradesh, the Telangana region’s distinct dialects, cultural narratives, and perceived policy neglect catalyzed a potent sub-regional identity. This retrospective analysis interrogates how language politics informed and propelled statehood demands between 1956 and 2014. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates (a) archival scrutiny of government white papers, party manifestos, and media editorials to trace evolving language-based grievances; (b) qualitative thematic coding of speeches and pamphlets issued by Telangana advocacy groups; and (c) a structured survey of 250 residents across six districts—three in Telangana and three in Andhra—to quantify perceptions of linguistic discrimination, regional alienation, political efficacy, and support for bifurcation. The archival component reveals recurrent promises of equitable educational quotas and administrative postings that remained unmet, despite official recognition of linguistic equity in the 1956 reorganization. Thematic analysis of mobilization literature demonstrates how dialectal pride and local folklore were instrumentalized to construct a cohesive Telangana narrative distinct from Coastal Andhra. Survey results indicate that Telangana respondents reported significantly higher perceptions of language-based injustice (M = 4.12, SD = 0.68) than their Andhra counterparts (M = 2.75, SD = 0.92), t(248) = 15.42, p < .001; regression analysis shows that perceived discrimination (β = .47, p < .001) and regional alienation (β = .40, p < .001) jointly explained 64% of variance in statehood support (R² = .64, F(2,247) = 223.17, p < .001).
Keywords
Language Politics, Telangana Formation, Statehood Demands, Linguistic Identity, Regional Mobilization
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