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| Demand for new states | | Centre has to evolve criteria | |
AT a time when it is fashionable to trash all that is Nehruvian, if there is one legacy of free India’s first Prime Minister that endures as a symbol of Shining India, it is the linguistic states that were created under his leadership.
True, the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines was not Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea; nor was he enthusiastic about it. The fact that it was advocated by Mahatma Gandhi and adopted as an article of faith by the Indian National Congress did little to make Nehru change his mind. Nehru’s party had formed Pradesh Congress Committees on the linguistic principle some 25 years before the report of the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) was implemented on November 1, 1956.
Although Nehru had strong and valid reservations about the Congress party delivering on this pre-Independence promise made by Gandhi, he bowed to the demand; in fact, after Potti Sriramulu fasted unto death for the creation of Andhra, the political upheaval that followed left Nehru — for all his reluctance — with little choice in the matter. In opposing the creation of states on the basis of language, Nehru - as also other Congress leaders — based their reasoning on the effects of the Partition. They felt that it would be ruinous for the unity of new India to compound the religious division with a linguistic demarcation.
Against his better judgment, Nehru acted on the SRC report; had he resisted, he could have counted on the support of a number of other stalwarts, and it would never have been implemented. Therefore, the credit for the reorganisation of states is owed to Nehru, and Govind Ballabh Pant.
Fifty years on, the constitutional and federal structure founded on linguistic states, as the great equaliser that unified British India and Royal India as one political entity remains unquestionably vindicated by history. Fears that the linguistic states would spawn fissiparous tendencies and lead to balkanisation of the country have been proved to be wrong. Far from fomenting divisiveness, the states have deepened democracy and strengthened the Union as well as its federal content.
The sons-of-the-soil policy may be seen as the domestic variant of the protectionism that every economy seeks for those in a particular cultural habitat. This is more the result of uneven development and skewed distribution of the benefits of industrialisation and growth. This is not “ethnification” in any parochial sense but a struggle for the rights — and fruits - of development. An implicit acknowledgement of this being so is manifest in the creation of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal in 2003.
There was no linguistic criteria applied for creating these states, which were the result of the most significant change made to state boundaries after 1971, when the North-East was reorganised. The reorganisation of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh was primarily intended to address economic issues. No doubt, cultural distinctiveness was also an argument to justify the demand for new states as being essential to overcome the neglect they had suffered as part of the larger states from which they were carved out.
These states being the result of popular movements has revived other demands for separate states in a more aggressive manner. The demand for Telengana has gained as a serious political and electoral issue affecting national and state parties. Similar articulations may catch on for Vidharbha (Maharashtra), Bodoland (Assam), Harit Pradesh (UP) and Gorkhaland (West Bengal) if it is perceived to hold the promise of political dividend.
In the absence of a defined criterion for creating new states, the Centre and national parties may find themselves in a bind. Before events overtake the Centre and popular pressure makes it give in to these demands, it should set up a second states reorganisation commission to draft a policy that would lay down the basis for new states. The demands for new, and smaller, states are bound to gather momentum, sooner rather than later. Whether as a response to popular demand or a containment strategy, the Centre can no longer ignore these aspirations until they explode, with disruptive consequences, on the national agenda.
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