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POLITICAL DIARY
New Delhi, 5 January 2008
Small Is Beautiful
WHAT PRICE STATE REORGANISATION?
By Poonam I Kaushish
From maut ke saudagar to small is beautiful. The latest brainwave to emerge from a desperate Congress, hurting after its electoral massacre in Gujarat and Himachal, is aimed at once again reigniting the flames of ‘separatist tendencies’ by talking of carving big States into small. The bigness and smallness of a State has little to do with national interest but everything to do with massaging its vote-banks and improving its winability quotient. In the hope that the smaller units will fetch the Party big political dividends.
Camouflaged as imperative for “political stability” in the country (read Party), it has mooted the idea of setting up another States Reorganisation Commission ((last suggested in July 2007) to explore the formation of new States. No matter that till its electoral rout in UP May last, the Party had opposed tooth and nail the creation of small States. It even let the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti quit the UPA alliance.
Today, with Assembly polls in nine States and the General Election just 15 months away, the Party has now backtracked or, should one say, had a rethink and is all set to create Telengana. Primarily, to take the sting out of the TRS political plank, now also backed by the BJP. Recall, the UPA had set-up a sub-committee under Pranab Mukherjee (who else?) but as it had failed to reach a consensus, the decision was left to the Congress.
Needless to say, this out-of-the-blue plan to appoint another SRC is bound to open a Pandora’s Box on the demand for statehood from every nook and cranny of the country. Already, over 10 new entrants are rearing to go. It remains to be seen whether the Congress-led UPA Government will come out smelling of roses or reek of rotten eggs.
The task is, indeed, tough, as the issue is both emotive and politically sensitive. Against the backdrop of many regions and sub-regions aspiring to be full-fledged States. Moreover, the Left is divided. While the CPM, which faced a violent demand for Gorkhaland in West Bengal, is opposed to carving out separate states, the CPI has of late has softened its stand on the demand for a Telengana. The NCP also remains lukewarm to the demand for Vidarbha, even though it has no major presence in the region.
Besides Telengana and Vidarbha, BSP’s Mayawati favours trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh --- Harit Pradesh out of Western UP, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal out of south-eastern UP. Then there is a demand for Gondwana from portions of Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Madhya Pradesh, Kodagu from Karnataka’s coffee belt, Bodoland from Assam, Ladakh from Kashmir, Garoland from Meghalaya, Mithilanchal from North Bihar and Gorkhaland.
Nobody can deny that a few States in India are much too large and unwieldy for efficient governance. It takes nearly two days to get from one end of UP to the other by road! Obviously, administrative efficiency is the first casualty. As the recent experience of Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and, earlier, of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, shows, smaller States are able to meet better the rising expectations of their people for speedy development and a responsive and effective administration. Today, all are shining examples of “small is beautiful.”
However, protagonists of bigger States disagree, often sharply. What guarantee, they ask, is there that this will end internal fissures. Make the rivers flow smoothly from one State to another. Merely look at the ugly riparian fight between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu and Punjab and Haryana.
What warranty that it would decrease the ever-rising disparities between the haves and the have-nots which are all the more glaring and difficult to camouflage in small states. Clinching their arguments by asserting that with caste and creed dictating the polity’s agenda presently, any fresh redrawing of India’s political map would only give monstrous fillip to separatism.
Just see how pandering to casteism over the past many years has unbottled the genie of separatist tendencies. Almost every caste now wants to be included among the Other Backward Castes (OBCs). Even Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians are demanding reservation on the basis of caste which their religions do not accept. Would this be in India’s best national interest? Further reinforcing that if smaller incisions have to be made as in the USA, then the body politic of India would need to be wholly restructured on that pattern.
Besides, it may make sound political sense but lousy economics. When the Prime Minister goes blue in the face talking of cutting back on costs, we continue to multiply our expenses. Authoritative sources aver that the creation of a State would cost the national exchequer over Rs 1,200 crore. Entailing expenditure on setting up a new State capital, Assembly and Secretariat but excluding the annual recurring expenses.
In addition, it could well encourage fissiparous tendencies, ultimately leading to India’s balkanization and stoke the sub-terranean smouldering fires of disputes over borders--- and cities. Both Haryana and Punjab still claim Chandigarh. Orissa demands the return of Saraikala and Kharsuan. Nagaland still wants to cut into large chunks of Manipur and certain forest areas of Assam to create Nagalim. Bihar yearns desperately for the mineral-rich districts of Jharkhand.
Will not a further partition of the existing States result in an India that would fit Jinnah’s classical description of Pakistan as being “truncated and moth-eaten”? The only purpose it will serve will be to whet regional and separatist appetites, as it happened at the time of the first SRC in the mid-fifties. The very “black hole” that our past leaders were ever eager to avoid.
Remember, the first State Reorganisation Commission was set up by the Nehru Government in 1954 under Justice Fazl Ali, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It recommended that the component units of the Indian Union would consist of two categories ---“States forming primary federation units of the Indian Union and territories which are centrally administered.” One of its members, K M Panikkar submitted a dissenting note, seeking the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh. This was rejected by the Government.
Typical of India’s political culture, the first SRC and the creation of new States left in its wake more controversies than it sorted out. Regional leaders promptly started demanding the liberation of smaller colonies from the fat ruling classes. While those opposed countered the demand for smaller States by cautioning against India’s break-up into hundreds of smaller States. Did the country want to reverse the historic integration brought about by Sardar Patel?
The tragic irony of history is that successive Prime Ministers bought peace at the cost of strong integrated India by carving out new jagirs for acquiring “new chelas” and assured vote banks. Lest history books omitted their “contribution” in the building of a new India.The controversies and demands generated then continue till date
Logically, if one district of Assam could be made into a full-fledged State of Nagaland, another into Mizoram, a third into Meghalaya and yet another into Arunachal Pradesh, how can one hold back on Telengana or Vidarbha? The last time new States were created was in 2000 when the NDA regime okayed the creation of Uttaranchal (now Uttarkhand), Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Unfortunately for the Centre, its policy of going populist time and again and opting for quick-fix remedies has boomeranged. What, one might ask, is the alternative? Statesmanship and sagacity lie in adopting the middle path. The UPA Government should not set up another SRC just to win votes.
It needs to learn from the mistakes of the recently carved small States, diagnose the disease afresh and hammer out solutions for better governance. Much can be achieved through meaningful decentralization of administration in these days of computerization, without adding to the cost of governance through top-heavy ministerial baggage.
Let us not allow politicians of all hues to create new pocket boroughs motivated by petty personal interests, undermining national unity. India has entered its 60th year of Independence with 27 States, a testimony to a free and vibrant democracy. Are we now going to roll back history to pre-Independence days and create 562 States? Let not history record what Conrad Egbert once brilliantly stated: We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history! ---- INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
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