New States - Small States

Telangana has already opened the Pandora box of creation new states and criteria for organizing the nation into states. The states in United States of America are treated as independent indestructible units and USA is an indestructible union of indestructible units. That is, the federal legislature has no powers to alter the boundaries of states and states cannot leave the federation. The Soviet Union was a destructible union, i.e., the constituents can leave the union if they want. In this context, India is an indestructible union of destructible units. In India, the states have no separate identity from the nation, i.e., they are considered to be part of the union and there is no provision for separate citizenship for people living in a state other than national citizenship. There is only one type of  citizenship, that is, citizen of India(In USA, every person has two types of citizenship one as a citizen of USA and other as a citizen of corresponding state). Most states of present day India were non-existent in their present form 60 years ago. They were all created in the second half of 20th century. The parliament can alter the boundaries of existing states, create new states, merge existing ones with simple majority(1/2 of present and voting). So practically it can play with state boundaries in whatever way it like, not even requiring a special majority as is required to make a constitutional amendment. But, the parliament has sparingly used this power since independence keeping in view the larger interests of the nation. Also since it requires only simple majority, the reorganization of states has practically become a business of executive rather than legislature.

Though Hindi speaking areas were divided into many states, it was widely accepted that linguistic reorganization has strengthened the federation rather than weaken it as was expected by many people including Nehru, just after Independence. The creation of three states in 2000 is different in the sense that it legitimized the creation of new states based on criteria other than language(namely underdevelopment).

Though language was assumed to be a rational choice in organizing the administrative divisions(the PCCs were organized on language basis way back in 1920s), the leaders of newly independent India feared it might give rise to linguistic chauvinism and regionalism. It is the fast unto death of Potti Sriramulu, that forced the govt. of India to reluctantly concede to the demand of new states based on language. Contrary to what many at that time expected, the linguistic reorganization strengthened the nation. Yes, it is better that there is at least one language that everyone in the state understands, but is it required that all the same language speaking people be put in same state no matter how big the state becomes? Why cannot we have more than one state speaking same language just like in the case of Hindi?. I understand that there are other complicated things involved in this but what I want to say is that there is nothing wrong in having more than one state speaking same language.

The development priorities of people living in different areas in a single largest state will be different. For example, the priorities of well-irrigated western areas of Uttar Pradesh, where green revolution succeeded are different from eastern areas which are still facing problems of irrigation, low yield, subsistence farming, primitive machinery etc. Similar is the case with telangana in Andhra Pradesh. The Telangana region is in Deccan Plateau area where as the Coastal andhra is part of eastern coastal plains. The unit cost of irrigation in Telangana is much higher than that in Coastal andhra. Also there was a well developed irrigation network in coastal andhra  prior to independence. So it requires out of proportion investment in irrigation in telangana compared to irrigation in coastal andhra to bring the two areas at par with each other. In recent years the govt. of AP did spend more amount on irrigation in telangana, 55% of total funds allocated to irrigation sector even if population of telangana is only 40% of the state. Even after this out of proportion allocation telangana has under developed irrigation network. So, in the case of irrigation sector, the telangana region needs special focus which the influential politicians from coastal andhra region may not allow as it then becomes so many funds allocated, so much out of proportion to the population of telangana. This is only one example, there are many other sectors in which the difference in priorities of different regions require different policy making bodies. There is no logic in keeping a state united if it does not serve the purpose of keeping the people live a meaningful life. What has the larger states like UP, Bihar, Rajastan achieved other than producing an army of unemployed, impoverished, illiterate citizens. Is it not the inability and inefficiency of the governments of these states in providing employment and livelihood, that is forcing their own children to migrate to far-off areas. There are some who think that new states mean some more divisions in the country and hence is not a good sign for the unity of India. I can only say that they love the idea of India more than the people of India because when people are dying of hunger instead of searching for new ways to feed them, they are thinking of keeping everyone united. Note that the legitimacy and strength of Republic of India erodes day by day as it fails again and again in keeping its people away from dying of hunger.

The proponents of small states also give incorrect arguements. They say that the administration and governance becomes closer to people if the state is small. This is not true because,  the collector's(DM's) office, the revenue office, the police station, the hospital, the school(and in case of telangana the capital also), the zilla parishad office, the mandal parishad office, the MLA/MP, all remain where they were, almost the whole government apparatus remain where it was even after creating a new state. So where is the case of governance becoming more closer or more efficient?. If we really want to bring government and administration closer to people we have to empower the local governmental institutions like panchayats, muncipalities, mandal parishads, zilla parishads and give more power and funds to them and thus encourage people to participate in democratic politics in a more fruitful way. Democracy will not deepen its penetration by merely creating a new state. However it is true that a small state means, the state becomes more responsive to the voices of people. An MLA's voice has more strength in a smaller state than in a bigger state. It is also true that vertical hierarchy in administration becomes shallow in a smaller state. But that does not help much for common man as what matters much to him is the man of his immediate contact. So the arguement that administration becomes closer to people by creating new state is not entirely correct.

It is true that by creating new states based on a criteria that is not clearly definable such as underdevelopment opens door for new states based more on political opportunism than any logical reason. But refraining from creating new states is not the solution to counter this . As I already said if local governmental institutions like panchayats and muncipalities are given more power and funds many people would not find a need for separate state for them. I don't understand why the tax collected is taken all the way from Kattavarigudem(my place :P) to Delhi and then brought back to same place where it was collected and spent in a developmental activity. When we accepted Universal Adult Franchise, it means that we accepted that every man/woman is intelligent enough to choose what is good for him/her irrespective of his/her education, status. So we must leave it to the people to decide what is good for them by giving more powers and funds to local governments than leave it to some bureaucrat/politician sitting in New Delhi or Hyderabad.