Agitations and political crises are not new to Andhra Pradesh, India's first linguistic state. The state was born as a result of an agitation, resulting in the first fast-unto-death that ended in a death, and its very existence has been challenged by repeated agitations. The more recent phase of separatism in the Telangana region has its origins in the unwillingness of the state's leadership to address the roots of an earlier agitation.

This book is a compilation of essays, speeches and an official note prepared by someone who has been intimately associated with the state's development from its very formation and, more importantly, played a key role in trying to address the problem of Telangana's grievances when they were first articulated in the late 1960s. Without taking sides on the question of the state's future, this book examines dispassionately the basis of the persistent sentiment of neglect in Telangana and examines the social, political, economic and emotional foundations of Andhra Pradesh's statehood.

BPR Vithal has been intimately connected with the economic development of Andhra Pradesh. Having joined the Hyderabad state as an IAS Officer in 1950, he worked as Collector of Medak and Karimnagar Districts. After the formation of Andhra Pradesh, he was Secretary, Planning and Development from 1969 till President’s Rule in 1972 after which he became Secretary, Finance and Planning.

He was a close advisor to all the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh—Brahmananda Reddy, who once described him as the “memory of Andhra Pradesh”, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Jalagam Vengala Rao and Marri Chenna Reddy. In this capacity, he also worked closely with the Telangana Regional Committee and its then Chair-man, J. Chokka Rao. By virtue of this, he was closely associated with the evolution of the Five-Point Formula after the 1969 Telangana agitation and the Six-Point Formula after the Andhra agitation of 1974, both of which formulae were called the Indira Gandhi Formulae. Thereafter, he was also the Finance Secretary and was the longest serving Planning and Finance Secretary in the country when he left the state to take up an International Monetary Fund (IMF) assignment as Advisor. He was Deputy Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh State Planning and Development Board till 1992, when he was appointed a member of the Tenth Finance Commission.