Unbreakable India!

Raju Korti
Before I unleash my two cents on a conundrum called statehood, let me concede honestly that I have no claims to any authority on the issue. Any deviation therefore from substantivity begs to be excused on the premise that this is at best a fragile attempt at untangling the Gordian knot. But let me bring to you a small piece of history now that Telengana has been granted separate statehood after decades of heart-burn and struggle.
As a school-going boy in the mid-sixties, who couldn't understand head or tail of the issues of the day, I often heard my cousins in Hyderabad mimicking the votaries of Telengana -- their protests against the establishment. For that matter, they were as enlightened on the issue and its political ramifications.
Decades later, with more grey hair on my head, when I took a closer look at the issue, I learnt that the States Reorganisation Committee had recommended that the states be formed on the basis of the language spoken in the region. But devarifications lay beneath this simple exterior. Thanks to former union minister for food and civil supplies C Subramaniam who in the early eighties, explained the nitty gritty of the subject to me like a patient teacher would explain an addlebrain.  The nickel began to drop during my brush with political leaders from Vidarbha -- the eastern fringe of Maharashtra and geographically closer to Madhya Pradesh . They would often unmask their disciplined party face and submit me to their angst on how the region was grossly discriminated and given step-motherly treatment by their influential counterparts from western Maharashtra. It didn't occur to their directionless and spineless minds that mere jingoism and public display of emotion was going to get them nowhere. The leadership in Delhi, pussyfooting but deceptively sympathetic, played ball by setting up a committee to assess imbalances (economic backlogs) in Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan. The entire exercise achieved little except consume time and witness some rhetorical grandstanding between the protagonists and adversaries. What began with a bang ended up with a whimper and there were hardly any disgruntled noises thrown in when Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand was sliced out of Bihar and Uttaranchal delivered from Uttar Pradesh's labour pains; right under their nose.
Those championing Vidarbha's cause on the determinant that the resource-rich region was viable; could never muster up cohesive political will. The Bhartiya Janata Party did espouse the cause but it was vociferously shot down by its own ally, the Shiv Sena. The Congress played its habitual dithering game although the region always threw its weight behind it when it came to elections. In contrast, the public posturing in Andhra Pradesh for a Telengana state was palpably stronger and that showed remarkably in the season of juke ballot box. When it came to translating its vote power, the politically intestate Vidarbha leadership cut a sorry picture, often falling in line with their party whips.
The reason behind choosing the linguistic state as the defining principle of the Indian Republic’s political architecture was not because any other type of political reorganisation would have threatened the country’s unity. That was not part of the discourse when the States’ Reorganization Commission went into the issue.
It was chosen primarily because it was the strong aspiration of people speaking the same language to stay together in the same administrative unit. These aspirations found expression even during British rule and are not merely a post-independence phenomena.
Opposition to the division of Bengal, and the creation of Orissa (Odisha) during British rule are enough to see the raison d’être of a linguistic state. From Bengal in the east along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, up along the coast of the Arabian Sea, up to Gujarat and then up till Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, India is politically organised broadly on linguistic basis.
However,  there is a running battle between smaller-is-beautiful or bigger-is better. Advocates of small States may have their bones to pick but where they fall short is in bringing any rigour to their criteria. Anything smaller than the existing State is small in their book. Is it small in area? Or in size? Or in resources? And how small is small?
Take for example the newly announced Telengana state. The BJP which has always batted for smaller States wanted Andhra Pradesh to be divided because of administrative convenience. But if the Telengana Regional Samiti is to be believed, a separate Telangana will be 12th largest State in the country.

Small states for administrative convenience and economic development’ argument will not run its full course and stop with making States small. Inevitably one day, sooner than later, we will have to face the question, ‘why not smaller countries for administrative convenience and economic prosperity’?
The debate over Smaller States Vs Bigger States, to me, is irrelevant. Both will be continued to be poorly governed until there is just devolution of funds and functions to percolate to panchayats or local bodies. If you looked at the issue from the point of view of providing quality living, education,  health and other basic amenities, it becomes less complex than it is made out to be.
We must also bear out that creation of separate states on developmental issues became a paradigm after the language model started falling apart. Europe is a striking example of division of states on linguistic basis and its vivisecting aftermath.
But never mind. We live in "Akhand Bharat".