Sribagh Pact

Sribagh Pact is an agreement made between the political leaders of Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions during the separate Andhra in 1937. But historically the Sribagh Agreement has been such an important subject matter to the people of both the regions as far as developmental issues are concerned.

Signatories

The signatories to the agreement were K. Koti Reddy, Kalluri Subba Rao, L. Subbarami Reddy, Bhogaraju Pattabhi Seetharamayya, Konda Venkatappyya, Pappuri Ramacharyulu, R.Venkatappa Naidu, H. Seetharama Reddy'

History and background

Since the takeover of South India by the British in late 18th century, Andhra had been merged with Madras State. When the separate Andhra movement started, the Coastal Andhra leaders urged for the support of Rayalaseema leaders to strengthen the issue. But Rayalaseema leaders were not ready to go hand in hand with coastal leaders, as they had their own doubts of development of their region. On 16 November 1937, the leaders of both the regions sat for an agreement in the house of Kashinathuni Nageshwara Rao, well known media owner and of Amrutanjan, known as Sribagh. Hence this agreement came to be known as the Sribagh Agreement.^[1]

The main points of the pact were:

• Whenever an Andhra state is formed, the capital city would be located in Rayalaseema region^[2][3][4]
• The High Court will be located in Coastal andhra region^[5]

Gentlemen's agreement

People always get confused with Sri Bagh and Gentlemans agreement though they are different. while sri bhag agreement is between Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema leaders, Gentlemen's agreement is between Andhra and Telangana leaders. In 1956, when the states were reorganised based on language, Telugu speaking areas of Hyderabad state are proposed to merge with Andhra state. But Hyderabad state leaders had some apprehensions on these merger. So gentlemans agreement is signed between Hyderabad and Andhra state leaders where in some special provisions are guaranteed for the Hyderabad state people. These provisions are called Mulki provisions.

References