INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON ANDHRA PRADESH (IRAP)

The year 2014 marked the culmination of a contentious six-decade phase in the history of linguistic state formation in India, during which the Telangana region of the erstwhile Hyderabad State and the Andhra State were united to constitute Andhra Pradesh. Formed in the context of post-independence linguistic reorganisation, Andhra Pradesh represented both an experiment in regional integration and a site of enduring political and economic contestation. While the unified state facilitated forms of cultural convergence — reflected in cinema, language, patterns of migration, and the transformation of Hyderabad into a shared metropolitan space — it simultaneously generated persistent conflicts concerning irrigation, distribution of state resources, public employment, regional development, and political control over Hyderabad.

Over several decades, Hyderabad emerged as the principal centre of capital accumulation, higher education, skilled employment, intellectual production, and political influence for large sections of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. This process was accompanied by significant migration of economic, professional, and cultural activity from towns and smaller urban centres of the Andhra region into the expanding metropolitan landscape of Hyderabad. Consequently, the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 into the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh represented not merely an administrative reorganisation, but also a profound economic, institutional, and symbolic rupture for the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh.

In the aftermath of bifurcation, the construction of a new capital city, Amaravati, emerged as the central political and developmental imperative of the new Andhra Pradesh. Amaravati was envisioned not only as an administrative capital but also as a strategic project intended to compensate for the loss of Hyderabad and to establish a new centre for governance, investment, economic growth, and regional identity. The capital city project therefore became deeply intertwined with broader questions concerning land acquisition, urbanisation, infrastructure-led development, regional inequality, agrarian transformation, and the restructuring of state power in post-bifurcation Andhra Pradesh.

Although these transformations have attracted media attention and limited scholarly engagement, several critical intellectual questions remain insufficiently examined. How should the historical emergence of the new Andhra Pradesh be understood? What forms of political economy are being consolidated in the post-bifurcation period? How are caste relations, migration patterns, regional aspirations, agrarian change, and urban development being reorganised within this new socio-political context? What are the defining cultural, economic, and institutional features of this emerging formation? Most importantly, what pathways may enable the construction of a more equitable, democratic, and inclusive Andhra Pradesh?

The Institute for Research on Andhra Pradesh seeks to address these questions through interdisciplinary research, critical analysis, and sustained public engagement. By examining the structural transformations shaping contemporary Andhra Pradesh, IRAP aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the state’s evolving political economy and to facilitate informed debates concerning its future trajectories.