Ratan Tata has unveiled the world’s cheapest car at the Ninth Auto Expo – the Nano. With a price tag of Rs 1 Lakh the media hype has already subsidised marketing costs for the Tatas, nevertheless this post is not about the small car, it is about smaller states. The Manmohan UPA Government has been blowing and hot cold for sometime now on the issue of smaller states with talk of a 2nd States Re-organization Commission, SRC doing the rounds once again. Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh has spoken out in favour of further splitting the state.
Offstumped has always been in favor of smaller states with the premise that they make for better delivery of public services, greater accountability and greater opportunities and access to opportunities. The experience of the recently created states by the BJP lead NDA however has been mixed. While Uttarakhand has seen a stable two party political system with a focus on governance, Jharkhand has brought out the worst in our Parliamentary democracy. Chattisgarh though producing a stable polity has been at the receiving end of the naxalite menace.
With Goa consistently producing split verdicts and legislative instability some have questioned the wisdom of creating smaller states.
But this is a disingenuous argument. If one traces the root cause for instability in Jharkhand and Goa it has more to do with the Congress’ shameful track record in respecting State’s rights and its utter lack of commitment to federalism.
Offstumped has in the past come out strongly in favor of Telangana, Vidarbha and a trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh.
Some excerpts from previous posts
A separate state of Telangana holds the potential for delivering on all of the above to provide the people of Telangana that much needed boost and confidence to realize their dreams and to eliminate the despair that has been exploited by Naxalism. Predictably there have been violent protests and considerable consternation within the rest of Andhra Pradesh on this issue. Specifically around the status of the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad if such a division were to occur. An important factor to be considered here for Andhra Pradesh is that a separate state of Telangana holds the promise for development and uplift of Tier 2 cities in both the Andhra and Telangana regions. The practice of concentrating the business and political capitals in the same cities has resulted in lop-sided development of Tier 2 urban centers through out India. Taking a leaf from the United States if Andhra and Telangana were to set an example by choosing Tier 2 cities like Vijayawada and Warangal as respective political capitals it would not just boost economic development in these cities but would completely neutralize the Hyderabad debate. Hyderabad could become a Union Territory like Chandigarh with equal access to Andhra and Telangana
A trifurcation of UP could be in the Congress’ interests as well holding out new hopes of a renewal. Smaller states have shown to be the death knell of one man, one woman show regional parties. Goa and Delhi have pretty much had back to back Congress BJP governments with the regional parties on the sidelines. Jharkhand weakened Laloo Yadav’s RJD in Bihar while pretty much reducing the RJD and the JMM to the sidelines until the Congress played dirty tricks backing Koda. Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal as well are pretty much a BJP, Congress affair with no role for either the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Samajwadi Party. The reasons for the Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury lead CPI-M to oppose statehood for Telangana is very easily understandable. It puts a spoke in the CPI-M’s grandiose plans for a 3rd front of motley regional parties. It is time the two principal national parties Congress and the BJP made common cause on the formation of smaller states.
Offstumped Bottomline: Linguistic division of states has resulted in administratively inefficient units. The emotive concept of linguistic basis for states is an idea past its sell by date. Economic development and Migration across the country is rendering language irrelvant. Offstumped endorses the move to create smaller states. The Vajpayee NDA Government showed how this could be done. It is time the Congress moved to act on this issue rather than take refuge in a States Re-organization Commission which will never see the light of the day.
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Good post.
I too am all for smaller, more manageble states.
And the small city as political capital idea thats worked so well in Yamrika, could very well work for us too.
At the minimum we get to see some half a dozen airports getting badly needed upgrades to meet their new status as state capitals. (Ranchi And Raipur airports are another story though).
I’m all for trifurcation of UP. But I don’t support the creation of Vidharbha and Telengana states. Its not clear, how these states are going to benefit by wasting money on more bureaucracy and symbolism.
If the state capitals could bring more development to nearby places, we could as well shift the capitals to Nagpur and say Warangal (as you quoted in the US model). We can even make capitals out of Madurai, Belgaum, Rajkot, Jalpaiguri, Amritsar, Kurukshetra etc.
We should aim for a two tier state system. A bunch of large states which have roughly 60 million population and hence around 40 Lok Sabha seats. And a bunch of smaller states with some 15 million population and some 10 Lok Sabha seats.
Another criteria should be cultural identity based on language (bhojpuri), history (avadh) etc. The traction such collective heritage brings is not insignificant. Ask Modi about Gujarati asmita!
And its time we abolish all union territories except Delhi. Over governance (to no use ofcourse!) at these places when some parts of the country have no semblance of govt is bizarre.
@Balaji
“Another criteria should be cultural identity based on language (bhojpuri), history (avadh) etc.
Yeah, sure, why not just divide India into a million different kingdoms, so we can yet again be ruled for another millenium by brutal foreign rulers ? Why further divide a population that is already prone to dividing itself in Language, Caste etc
“The traction such collective heritage brings is not insignificant.”
The collective heritage that India has, is it’s fading memory of being a grand hindu civilization, THAT’S IT. Maybe in the MARXIST, romila thapar history of India, there may be seperate collective heritage, where India was never really one country, Hindus never really one people, and that’s BS.
“Ask Modi about Gujarati asmita!”
Atleast Gujuratis have learned to be proud again of their hindu heritage, something macaulayized, marxised fools will never understand having learned their bastardized version of “indian history”.
Smaller states are good for India, but it should be done with no regard to language, or ‘collective heritage’. The only consideration should be administrative. A bunch of neatly drawn squares on the map of India wouldnt be such a bad idea.
Uttarakhand – Provided sanctuary for a peaceful/stable region away from chaotic UP.
Jharkhand – Gave the tribal-dominated region controls over its rich mineral resources and industry from Bihar, but a smaller police-force is less effective in tackling Naxalism.
Chhattisgarh – Really the same as Jharkhand from Bihar and ditto on Naxalism. Area is more politically stable than Jharkhand.
So there are ups and downs…now for the proposed divisions:
Vidharba – Will keep the region from neglect of W. Maharashtra politicians, won’t be a miracle for poverty. Will likely be a stable BJP-Congress state.
Telangana – Another Jharkhand/Chhattisgarh. Will give power to the people, but Naxalism will be an increasing menace.
UP – Aside from making the state more manageable, political stability, law/order and the ecoomic situation are not likely to benefit much.
Small has its downsides, too, mostly that small assemblies become a horse-trading ground and the locals are merely looted by a new set of individuals. I am especially concerned by the Red Corridor. The Centre needs to do more to assist these states against the Naxals. They simply can’t handle it on their own.
I wonder if the we’re falling short of names for the new states. What kind of a name is Harit pradesh or Purvanchal? There doesnt seem to be any context available for these names, except for Awadh.
the western part has to be called “krishna pradesh” or “krishna dham” or “krishna rajya” taking into account the places and history (or mythology if u wanna call it) closely related to Lord Krishna. this harit pradesh sucks man – all of india is harit (green and furtile).
@ Aryan
>>Smaller states are good for India, but it should be done with no regard to language, or ‘collective heritage’. The only consideration should be administrative.
Smaller states aren’t necessarily good. One only needs to look at current inter-state disputes – for exampple – concerning water (AP, Karnataka, Karnataka/TN) or territory Karnataka/Maharashtra). You can very well imagine the number of disputes if you had 50 instead of 30 states.
Decisions on smaller states should made be on a case-by-case basis.
As far as heritage goes, although your point on foreign rule is well taken, you *cannot* wish away the reality of dozens of languages and hundreds of sub-cultures. It obviously doesn’t make sense to form states with disparate cultural and linguistic identities.
Forming states is not just a matter of ‘drawing boxes’ on the map – its about building viable political and economic entities within the Indian union.
@Photonman
“you *cannot* wish away the reality of dozens of languages and hundreds of sub-cultures. It obviously doesn’t make sense to form states with disparate cultural and linguistic identities.”
The point is not to wish away languages and ’sub-cultures’, but to minimize their role in the Indian nation. when you ask Indians who they are, they think of religion, language or caste first, and that’s dangerous. Looking at the history of India, starting from the Alexander, India has only lost when it has treated itself as a ‘dozens of languages and hundreds of sub-cultures’ instead of considering itself, one nation, one people. One can either think of India, they way we have thought about it for centuries, and suffer the same consequences, OR think different.
“Forming states is not just a matter of ‘drawing boxes’ on the map – its about building viable political and economic entities within the Indian union.”
Just for the record, the most powerful nation in the world, has a bunch of squares on it’s map as states.
I never thought that such a miracle could happen- but on this issue I almost completely agree with Balaji (except for his Lok Sabha comment which I have not thought through enough, I also disagree about relocating state capitals).
Where in India’s history has ANY state demanded a separate country because of language? The only spearatist demands are based on religion and pseudo-religion (Naxalism).
I do not think we did very badly against Alexander. We can definitely say that the disunity was a problem against certain (cough, cough) foreign invasions – but that disunity came about precisely because of a lack of an organized identity based on a coherent culture. Look how well Europe managed to fight back against those very same invaders. Check out the impact of Maratha nationalism on the entire Mughal empire. If just one more language group in India had woken up at the same tine…
“Just for the record, the most powerful nation in the world, has a bunch of squares on it’s map as states”
We should compare ourselves to Europe and not to the US. US has a completely different history population/culture/language mix. (eg. joke – What do you call a person who speaks two languages – Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language – American)
As long as we are a majority Hindu country we will remain one country whatever cat fights we have among ourselves. There is no need to feel so insecure.
@tota
“I do not think we did very badly against Alexander”
We lost =) not sure how much BETTER we could have done =)
“Look how well Europe managed to fight back against those very same invaders.”
exactly the point, we werent able to do that because we were divided into small kingdoms. Europe could because they have a pope, a single relegious authority, hindus never will.
“Where in India’s history has ANY state demanded a separate country because of language?”
I’m glad one can take comfort that no state has demanded independence on the base of language YET. But considering the great UNITY message that the likes of sonia, manmohan, mayawati, mulayam, karunanidhi, buddhadev propogate, we can rest in peace that it’ll NEVER happen, RIGHT ?
“We should compare ourselves to Europe and not to the US. US has a completely different history population/culture/language mix”
we can choose not to make that comparison because we dont want to, not because it is not warranted. Let’s see the facts, the US had the same ethnic germans, italians, dutch, english that came to it’s shores. what the US was able to do was ‘e plurubus unum’, “out of many, one”, something that we can emulate.
“As long as we are a majority Hindu country we will remain one country whatever cat fights we have among ourselves. There is no need to feel so insecure.”
I’m pretty sure, thats EXACTLY the thought the hindu rajas had before the ghaznavi hordes swept through. no chance of that threat ever again, right ? people who forget history, are bound to repeat it.
what do you call a people that have never lost a territorial war ? Americans =)
[...] should also not be interpreted as a referendum on the Telangana issue as the TRS made it out to be. Telangana remains a potent issue, and G. Venkataswamy’s much publicized tantrum at the Congress Working Committee, CWC, [...]
[...] regional disparities. As Offstumped has argued, a top priority should be forming the states of Vidharba, Telegana, and trifurcating Uttar Pradesh. Rayalaseema in Andhra is another candidate for statehood, while partitioning J&K into the [...]