How the formation of Tamil Nadu was a relatively smooth affair

Though not without controversies, the sagacity of the then leaders ensured that the process was peaceful for the most part

A few weeks before the State government celebrated Tamil Nadu Day on July 18, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s floor leader in the Legislative Assembly, Nainar Nagenthran, floated the idea of bifurcating the State.

Even though the BJP leader’s idea was a reaction to the call of DMK MP A. Raja for greater State autonomy, the row highlighted in a nuanced way that Tamil Nadu remained the largest State in the southern region of the country. The process of carving out the State began in 1953 and concluded in 1960. The period was not without controversies, but the sagacity of the then leaders ensured that it was a relatively peaceful process, unlike in the Maharashtra-Gujarat belt, where widespread violence broke out in 1956 during the reorganisation of States.

The borders of Tamil Nadu were shaped by two broad events — the formation of Andhra State in October 1953 and the transfer of areas such as Kanniyakumari and Shencottah to the State in November 1956 at the time of creation of Kerala.

In the early 20 th Century, when large areas of the present Andhra Pradesh had formed part of the erstwhile Madras Presidency, the demand was first made for Andhra State, comprising Telugu-speaking areas. In 1917, the Congress leadership allowed the creation of the Andhra Provincial Congress Committee.

Three years later, during the 1920 Nagpur Session under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the party decided to restructure its network on the basis of linguistic territories, according to an article written by A. Kaleswara Rao in The Hindu, published on October 1, 1953, the day on which the new State came into being. The demand for the Andhra State received fresh momentum after freedom fighter Potti Sriramulu’s death in Mylapore, Chennai, on December 15, 1952 after a 58-day fast.

“There was also a demand for the division of Madras City - the northern half to go to Andhra and the southern half to the Tamilians. Rajaji [C. Rajagopalachari] wanted to avoid partitioning of the city,” recollects the then Finance Minister of the State C. Subramaniam in his memoirs, Hand of Destiny (Volume I).

Sriramulu’s death was followed by “three days of rioting, demonstrations, hartals and violence all over Andhra,” according to historians Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee in their work, India After Independence: 1947-2000. On December 19, 1952, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced that steps would be taken for the establishment of Andhra State. Proponents of the new State had eventually agreed to give up their claim over the city.