The curse of linguistic states; need for drastic changes in next state reorganisation

It may be an unpopular thing currently to say that the federal structure has harmed the unification of India more than anything else. However, I have thought about the ails of India since childhood, and had the opportunity to travel to most of the states and interact with people from different cultures and religions. This led to several pleasant and unpleasant experiences about the idea of India that I had grown up with.

My first shock was during my college days in a national institute in Dehradun about 25 years ago, when Internet was barely present and smartphones unheard of. During ragging, I was ordered by my senior not to discuss about ‘anything related to Kashmir’ with my Kashmiri batchmate who was supposed to join the hostel in a week. My “super” senior was a Kashmiri, and categorically said, Kashmiris are different so just accept it. He said that Kashmiris preferred rice over wheat, looked different, and had a different language, culture, etc, to justify the separatism there which I was not fully aware of.

Coming from Odisha, these differences were laughable, but I was stunned by the silence of my other seniors and classmates. I muttered, Odias also had a distinct culture, looks, language, ate rice and meat, and that all these differences were normal for an Indian. Appalled, my Kashmiri senior just asked me to not raise the topic again.

However, my Kashmiri batchmate went on to become my friend. He was overjoyed on seeing the commonalities with Odisha and said the culture in most of north India was different, which drove the wedge between Kashmir and India. His real lament however was about PoK (Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir), and lack of intent by any government to even say that it was a part of India and there will be efforts to merge it again with India. Indian governments lacked guts, he declared, and said Azad (Independent) Kashmir was the only solution then. This he claimed had the tacit support of the USA.

Those days opened my eyes to separatism in a different light. And there on, I noticed it simmering in several forms in various places across until my job in Chennai (2015-21), where it was actually the worst. Worst because it was carefully concealed from the rest of India using media, language, education, etc, as barriers, and under the perpetual garb of Tamil pride.

Sadly, most of us are Tamilians, Bengalis, Punjabis, etc first and Indian next, or sometimes not Indian at all, mostly due to the selfish divisive political class. The fact is that the very diversity that is the pride of India has always been exploited by politicians to sow the seeds of toxic separatism, and cage people within the state. All this while buttressing their political fortresses and bargaining power which allow them to continue looting people’s money freely.

This leads to the question: Were we right in forming states on rigid lines of language and not geography (on which most of the formidable kingdoms of the past were built) or even culture? Then there is the administrative angle: Wouldn’t it have been better to have had smaller states with better administrative access, right from Independence, and done away with the homogeneous clusters of Punjabi, Kashmiri, Bengali, Odia, Tamilian, etc? After all, the clusters were never cohesive.

Some states that chose to break away from the mother states – Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand, and later Telangana – did so mainly because of differences in culture and discrimination. But that is only a part of the story. To dig deep, we have to study the SRC (State Reorganisation Committee) of India, notably the first one.

It was the year 1953, when the Ministry of Home Affairs, helmed by Kailash Nath Katju (also former Governor of Odisha and West Bengal) was tasked to study and recommend all aspects of formation of states in India. The process took about two years.

The study was profound and traced the developments in India from as early as 1800, when the Britishers had taken control of all important tracts of Indian land, namely the major ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, apart from the fertile Punjab and the centre of power Delhi. From these tracts they had already carved out extensive provinces (states) largely driven by their imperialistic aims.

The same British empire sowed the seeds of division among Indians starting 1900 when stronger-than-ever Indian leaders had arrived on the scene to fight the Britishers. During this time, World War I was playing out and WW2 impending – and Great Britain was pushed to the wall.

The lessons from the SRC are immense and extremely relevant today, especially because the worst fears about forming states based on languages, as mentioned in the report, have come true, and are just on the precipice, threatening to blow out any day.

We take the cases of present-day Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, Bengal, and the Northeast (which actually are the “eastern” states of India), but they should be applicable to almost all states.

Odisha was the first state to be recognised based on language. In 1936, the Britishers recognised the importance of carving out Odisha (Orissa), which had largely merged into Bihar, Bengal, and Central and Madras provinces. This came after decades of struggle by leaders of Odisha who had to convince that the language, culture, etc, of the region around Mahanadi were unique. This was heavily contested by leaders of Bengal, especially because there were no particular leaders from southern Odisha which was under Madras then, and because the few that were there were outnumbered because of minor cultural differences.

The report, “State Reorganisation Commission”, 1955, (SRC), asked some vital questions, made key recommendations and had startling revelations.

Excerpts:

“The existing structure of the States of the Indian Union is partly the result of accident and the circumstances attending the growth of the British power in India and partly a by-product of the historic process of the integration of former Indian States. The division of India during the British period into British provinces and Indian States was itself fortuitous and had DO [NO] basis in Indian history. It was a mere accident that, as a result of the abandonment, after the upheaval of 1857, of the objective of extending the British dominion by absorbing princely territories, the surviving States escaped annexation. The map of the territories annexed and directly administered by the British was also not shaped by any rational or scientific planning but “by the military, political or administrative exigencies or conveniences of the moment?”

It further states: “The provincial organisation of British India was meant to serve a two-fold purpose: to uphold the direct authority of the supreme power in areas of vital economic and strategic importance, and to fill the political vacuum arising from the destruction or collapse of the former principalities. Of these two, the first was obviously the primary objective, and it required the suppression of the traditional regional and dynastic loyalties. This was sought to be achieved by erasing old frontiers and by creating new provinces, which ignored natural affinities and common economic interests.

The administrative organisation of these provinces was intended to secure their subordination to the Central Government, which was the agent and instrument of imperial control exercised from London. This process inevitably led to the formation of units with no natural affinity.’

However, the following extracts show how administration started getting increasingly difficult for the Britishers.

“During the early phase of the rise of the British power in India, the accretion of territories was gradual and the need for the rationalisation of administrative units was not seriously felt.

British dominion in India started with small settlements in the coastal regions established at different times during the 17th century. From the middle of the 18th century, they provided the bases from which British authority expanded inwards by the acquisition of further territories which were attached to one or the other of the three presidencies.

The special case of Bengal Presidency:

“The Presidencies of Madras and Bombay had practically acquired their final shape by 1801 and 1827, respectively. Accretion of fresh territories to the Bengal Presidency, however, continued up to the year 1865.

The Charter Act of 1833 had provided for the creation of a fourth presidency out of the overgrown Presidency of Bengal, to be called the Agra Presidency. It was, however, considered expedient later to set up a less expensive form of government for the new province, and accordingly the North-West Provinces were set up under a Lt. Governor in 1836 by detaching from Bengal all British territories west of Bihar. The Punjab, annexed in 1849, was the next province to be formed. It extended at that time up to the then north-west frontier of India. Placed first under a Board of Administration and later, in 1853, under a Chief Commissioner, the Punjab was made a Lt. Governor’s province on the transfer of Delhi to it in 1859.
Oudh, annexed in 1856, constituted a Chief Commissionership until it was joined to the North-West Provinces in 1877. The Central Provinces were formed in 1861 by taking the Saugor and Narbada districts out of the North-West Provinces and joining them with the territories of the Raja of Nagpur that had been acquired in 1854.
Assam, attached to the Bengal Presidency on its acquisition in 1826, was made a separate Chief Commissioner’s province in 1874. In 1901, the strategically important north-west frontier regions were detached from the Punjab and constituted into a separate Chief Commissioner’s province. This also resulted in the North-West Provinces and Oudh being renamed the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
Thus far, the formation of provinces had been mainly governed by considerations of administrative convenience and economy and by reasons of military strategy and security. To the extent, therefore, there was a conscious or deliberate design behind the demarcation of the territories of administrative units; it was grounded in imperial interests or the exigencies of a foreign government and not in the actual needs, wishes or affinities of the people.
Administrative convenience itself required compact units with some measure of homogeneity. In some cases, therefore, various factors conducive to the growth of natural units operated in the background. They were, however, subordinate to the prime considerations of administrative and military exigencies.

The rise of nationalism in India, and the resulting divisive policies of the British.

With the emergence of nationalism as a new factor in the last quarter of the 19th century, the policy of balance and counterpoise began to override purely administrative considerations in making territorial changes, though on such occasions, arguments based on administrative needs and other principles were also put forward. Thus, Bengal, undoubtedly unwieldy as it included at that time also Bihar and Orissa, was divided with a view at least as much to dispersing revolutionary elements as to securing more manageable administrative units.

In 1905, Bengal was divided to form, along with Assam, the provinces of (a) East Bengal and Assam and (b) Bengal, which included the western part of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur.
The change in the outlook regarding provincial boundaries was reflected in the famous Resolution of Lord Curzon, dated 19 July, 1905, which, while providing for the partition of Bengal, also commented on the proposed territorial realignment of areas between Madras, the Central Provinces and Bengal. Thus, “reasons of administrative expediency, arising out of the peculiar linguistic and racial conditions and the geographical conformation of Ganjam and the Agency tracts of Vizagapatam” were cited against the transfer of these areas from the Government of Madras. “Commercial considerations” were relied upon for the continued retention of the districts of Chota Nagpur under the Bengal Government.
The linguistic principle was mentioned in support of the transfer of certain Oriya-speaking tracts from the Central Provinces to Bengal; and the principle of close contact between the governors and the governed was put forward to justify the concentration of the “typical Muhammadan population” of Bengal in a separate province of East Bengal and Assam.
Six years later, the partition of Bengal was annulled, though it was considered impossible both on “political and on administrative grounds” to revert to the status quo ante. In 1912, Assam was reconstituted into a Chief Commissioner’s province and the eastern and western parts of Bengal were rejoined to form the province of Bengal. At the same time, Bihar, with Orissa and Chota Nagpur, was constituted into a separate province of Bihar and Orissa.
These changes were made in order to provide convenient administrative units and to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the people of Bengal. At the same time, they sought to give the Muslims “a position of approximate numerical equality with or possibly of small superiority over the Hindus” in the new Bengal, formed after the detachment of Bihar and Orissa, which province was intended to give the Hindi-speaking population “a fair opportunity for development”. The settlement was supposed to be so clearly based upon broad grounds of political and administrative expediency as to riegative [negate] any presumption that it has been exacted, by clamour or agitation”.
The shape of the provinces and the principles underlying their formation, before and after 1905, continued, however, to be very far from satisfactory. As late as 1930, British statesmen themselves, admitted that there were in India “only a number of administrative areas” which had “grown up almost haphazard as the result of conquest, supersession of former rulers or administrative convenience”.
The desirability of a reorganisation of provinces on a rational basis was pointed out earlier by the authors of the Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, 1918, who had observed: “We are impressed, with the artificial, and often inconvenient character of existing, administrative units”.’ The Indian Statutory Commission, 1930, endorsed this view and observed: “Although we are well aware of the difficulties encountered in all attempts to alter boundaries and: of the administrative and financial complications that arise, we are making a definite recommendation for reviewing, and if possible resettling, the provincial boundaries of India at as early a date as possible”. The Commission recommended the examination of the question by a Boundaries Commission under a neutral chairman.

Odisha and birth of linguistic divide.

The Commission made a special mention of Orissa. “An urgent case for consideration and treatment”, it observed, “is that of the Oriya-speaking peoples, most, but not all, of whom are now included in Orissa, because we consider that so close a union as now exists between Orissa and Bihar is a glaring example of the artificial connection of areas which are not naturally related”.
The province of Orissa was created in 1936 by joining together the Oriya-speaking areas of the provinces of Bihar and Orissa, the [Central] Provinces and Madras.

After independence:

The administrative units of British India have remained virtually intact after the achievement of Indian Independence. The only changes which have been made so far as these units are concerned are the formation of a separate Andhra State and the merger in these units of some of the territories of the former Indian States.

So far, however, as the former Indian States are concerned, the period immediately following the transfer of power to India saw a revolutionary change come over them with dramatic speed. Of about six hundred units known as Indian or princely States, (a) 216 States having a population of a little over 19 millions were merged in the provinces; (b) 61 States having a population of about 7 millions were constituted into new Centrally-administered units; and (c) 275 States with a population of about 35 millions were integrated to create new administrative units, namely, Rajasthan, Madhya Bharat, Travancore-Cochin, Saurashtra and PEPSU.’ Only three States, namely, Hyderabad, Mysore and Jammu and Kashmir, survived these processes of integration, but the internal, structure of these States as also their relationship with the Centre were cast into a new mould so as to fit them into the constitutional structure of India.
While factors such as linguistic and ethnic homogeneity or historical tradition were taken into consideration to the extent practicable in the process of integrating these diverse units with adjoining provinces or constituting them into separate administrative units, the compulsion of the dynamic urges of the time necessitated prompt decisions. A number of settlements, therefore, made in respect of these States had to be in the nature of transitional expedients.
The princely States, as they existed at the time of the transfer of power, were themselves in varying phases of development. Their integration into the new democratic Constitution of India involved many problems, both administrative and political. So far as the political structure was concerned, in most States it was a form of direct personal rule; and even in the States which had introduced, some of the forms of democratic government, the personal authority of the Ruler was hardly affected. So far as administration was concerned, while some of the larger States had developed a fairly ‘efficient machinery, in most cases it was of a rudimentary character.
It was, therefore, inevitable that some of the features of the old order should be found in the Indian Constitution and leave an impress on the administrative and political structure of the units comprising territories of the erstwhile princely States.

The problem:

Disparate status of the constituent units –

A peculiar feature of the Indian-Constitution is the disparate status of the constituent units of the Union. The Constitution recognises three categories of States and gives each category a pattern and status of its own. The status of the first two categories of States, i.e., those specified in Parts A and B of Schedule I of the Constitution, is based on the concept of federalism.
Apart from the institution of Rajpramukh, the main feature that distinguishes Part B States from Part A States is the provision contained. in Article 371, which vests in the central executive supervisory authority over the governments of these States for a specified period. This provision is, no doubt, un-federal in character, but it does not alter the basic relationship between these States and the Centre, which essentially rests on the principle of a clear division of powers between the Centre and the States. Part C States, which rank lowest in the hierarchy, are, however, administered by the Centre on a unitary basis. The devolution of powers to the legislatures and governments of some of these States under the Government of Part -C States Act, 1951, does not detract from the legislative authority of Parliament over these States or from the responsibility of the Union Government to Parliament for their administration.
Apart from the States of the Union, there are also territories specified in Part D of Schedule I, which form part of India. In respect of such territories as also of any territory comprised within the territory of India but -not specified in this Schedule, the Central Government has not only full executive authority but also regulation-making power?

Historical background of the classification of States:

If the present alignment of the boundaries of States has been largely determined by the vicissitudes of British rule in India and the integration of the former Indian States, the same holds true also of their existing constitutional classification into different categories.
Even before the Act of 1935 was introduced, to a limited extent, the federal principle in the governance of this country, the relative status of administrative units vis-a-vis the Central Government had varied from one category to another. This was to a certain extent due to the historical reason that different parts of the country were acquired and their administration organised by the British at different times, so that they could not be patterned as units of an administrative structure constituted on a systematic and rational basis. Considerations of economy and administrative expediency also led the British rulers to give to newly-organised and smaller provinces less expensive and simpler government than that of the older, more settled, and, developed provinces.
By the close of the nineteenth century, there were in existence three different forms of provincial governments, namely, those under a Governor and Executive Council; those administered by a Lieutenant Governor and those administered by a Chief Commissioner. Many of the British Indian provinces, such as Assam, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces, the North-West Frontier Province, the Punjab and the United Provinces, passed through one or both of the earlier stages before acquiring the Governor-and-Council form of government.
The difference in the form of government of a province carried with it a difference in status. It is, no doubt, true in a sense that, after 1833, all the provincial governments became agents of the Central Government. Still the different categories were clearly distinguishable in their status. A broad distinction was made between territories which were under the immediate authority and management of the Central Government and those which were not. To the former category belonged all territories not included in Governorships, or Lt. Governorships, i.e., the provinces administered through Chief Commissioners.
A distinction was also made between “major provinces” and “minor administrations”. In the first category were included the Governors’ provinces, Lt.-Governors’ provinces and the two largest Chief Commissionerships, i.e., Assam and the Central Provinces, whose Chief Commissioners were, in practice, entrusted with powers nearly as wide as those of a Lt.-Governor. All the other Chief ‘Commissionerships were called “minor administrations” and were „administered under the direct control of the Central Government acting, except in the case of Ajmer-Merwara, British Baluchistan and C) the North-West Frontier Province, mainly through the Home Department. The North-West Frontier Province and British Baluchistan constituted a special class because of their strategic importance and special political problems. Central control over these, as well as over Ajmer-1VIerwara, was exercised through the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India.’ It was these “minor administrations” which, on account of their geographical position and other special characteristics, continued to be centrally administered, while the territories which were initially placed under a Chief Commissioner mainly because of administrative expediency, acquired more advanced forms of government in course of time.

– The Government of India Act, 1935, recognised, in the circumstances in which it was formulated, three categories of component its, namely, Governors’ provinces, federating Indian States and Chief Commissioners’ provinces. This classification is reflected in the grouping of the States of the Indian Union as Parts A, B and C States, except that not all the former Indian States are now represented. by Part B States, a number of them having been merged in the provinces or consolidated into centrally-administered areas. A departure, however, from the old classification is the recognition under. the Constitution of two categories of centrally-administered areas, namely, Part C States and Part D territories, as against only category recognised under the Act of 1935.

States not pre-existing sovereign units:

Another important feature of the States of the Indian Union is that none of them represents a pre-existing sovereign unit. The, units corresponding to the Part A States, namely, Governors’ provinces, were administered until 1937 on a unitary basis, although from 1919 there was a certain measure of devolution of powers to the provinces. With the enforcement of the provincial part of the, federal scheme embodied in the Act of 1935, certain subjects were assigned to the provinces on a federal basis, but the federal principle was heavily circumscribed by the special powers of the Governors, in the exercise of which they were answerable to the Governor-General. The Chief Commissioners’ provinces, although recognised as constituent units of the federation, continued to be administered on a unitary basis. It was only in the case of the former Indian States that the, right of accession on a negotiated basis was conceded. Rulers of these States, no doubt, claimed a measure of sovereignty, but this sovereignty was severely overborne by the paramountcy of the, British Crown, not only in the field of external affairs but also in respect of internal administration. Whatever the content of the sovereignty of the rulers, it was surrendered by them to the national Government of India before the commencement of the Constitution.
Thus, none of the constituent units of India was sovereign and independent in the sense the American colonies or the Swiss Cantons – were before they decided to pool their sovereignty to form federal ‘unions. Accordingly, the Constituent Assembly of India, deriving its power from the sovereign people, was entirely unfettered by any previous commitment in evolving a constitutional pattern suitable to the genius and requirements of the Indian people as a whole. ‘Consequently, unlike most other federal legislatures, Parliament, representing the people of India as a whole, has been vested with ‘the exclusive power of admitting or establishing new States, increasing or diminishing the area of an existing State or altering its boundaries, the legislature or legislatures of the States concerned having only the right to an expression of views on the proposals.’ It is significant that for making such territorial adjustments it is not necessary “even to invoke the provisions governing constitutional amendments. Unlike the United States of America, therefore, the Indian Union is ‘not an “indestructible Union composed of the indestructible States” in that the Union alone is indestructible but the individual States are not.’

Changes since the adoption of the Constitution:

At the time of the commencement of the Constitution, there were nine Part A States, eight Part B States and ten Part C States. Since then, Parliament has, by law, established a new Part A State, namely, Andhra, and merged one Part C State, namely, Bilaspur, in another such State—Himachal Pradesh.

In this backdrop, it is important to understand that the states can’t remain in the hallucination that they are kingdoms. Outside the states and also within, there is rampant racism, with some people repeatedly demanding “their share” of income from tax. Others call migrants as outsiders and discriminate severely.

States have separate flags and boast about language superiority. Any law passed in the centre is inevitably annulled or bent by state governments. Important sectors like education and law and order are state subjects which bleeds India. There is no uniformity in justice, education, skill requirements, knowledge, reservations, and even health insurance. Meanwhile, “minorities” like Telugus in Tamil Nadu and Odias in Andhra have already lost their cultural identity completely in the new states – their schools closed, signboards changed and language killed.

It is high time all this changes. Jingoism will lead us to nowhere and keep breaking us apart. We need to emerge as one nation at the earliest and one-nation-one-election is by no means going to achieve it.

While it is impossible to unify the nation completely and three or four provinces, what can be done is to form smaller states on lines of geography. The US has thrice the area and one-third the population of Indi and still has line drawn states numbering over 50. India needs to have more or at least a fifty states now with each state bearing a cosmopolitan structure.

It is urgent on the government and the people to put India first and take corrective actions. Actions that will solidify the idea of India and help us leap ahead as one nation. Though it may taste like a bitter pill, and cause considerable discomfort, in the long run, India will be unshakeable. Some ideas may seem preposterous, but this opinion is meant to be a starting point for a swift reorganisation – to get the ball rolling with just a bit of space for it to roll.

Do chip in with your suggestions and share the idea widely, so that pros and cons of this serious problem could be addressed sooner than later.