Political Diary
New Delhi, 3 August 2013
Telengana India’s 29th
State
SMALL GIVES BIG
HEADACHE
By Poonam I Kaushish
How big is big? When does big become small? Does beautiful
small make big ugly? Will small fetch better dividends than big? Or vice-versa?
Confused? Don’t be. Not when we are talking about our netagan and their vote-bank shenanigans. The latest brainwave to
emerge from the Congress stable is to once again carve big States into small,
Telengana from Andhra. Raising a moot point: Will it come out smelling of roses
or reeking of rotten eggs?
After four years of going back on its pledge, the Congress
accepted one of the oldest demands in independent India for a separate State and
split Andhra Pradesh. The new 29th State Telengana comprising 10
districts including Hyderabad
which would be the joint Capital for 10 years till the other regions,
Rayalaseema and Andhra identify their own.
Undeniably, the Congress decision has nothing to do with the
bigness and smallness of Andhra or with national interest but everything to do
with crass opportunism, massaging vote-banks and improving its winability
quotient. The Party feels it has dealt a masterstroke to check-mate opponents in
the 2014 elections. Camouflaged as imperative for “political stability” in the
country. Sic.
The Party is hopeful that whatever losses it incurs in
Andhra, it would reap big dividends in Telangana provided TRS Chief K
Chandrasekara Rao doesn’t backtrack on his word of merging his outfit with the
Congress. Of the 42 Lok Sabha and 294 Assembly seats in Andhra, Telangana gets
17 MPs and 119 legislature seats. Also, by carving Rayalseema it would reduce
YSR Congress Jaganmohan Reddy’s clout and weightage in the region.
Besides, the Congress has a tough
task ahead to contain the collateral fallout and assuage the Rayalseema and
Andhra leaders, already 7 MPs, two State Ministers and 7 MLAs have resigned. Making
matters worse TRS’s Rao extolls people of the two districts living in Hyderabad to quit their
jobs and make way for Teleganites!
Alongside the Centre has to grapple with the communal
fall-out of the new State. Given that the raison
d atre Hyderabad
is sandwiched between the two warring sides. Currently the Muslim population of
Telangana is 4.5% but with Hyderabad
the total Muslim population would touch 12.5%. Whereby, small regional outfits
like the Hyderabad-based All India
Majlis-e-Ittihad al-Muslim would become increasing crucial for the ruling
dispensation.
But after Telangana, what? Already, over 10 new entrants are
rearing to go. BSP’s Mayawati favours bifurcation of UP --- Harit Pradesh out
of Western UP, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal out of south-eastern UP. Leaders in
Maharashtra have raised the ante for Vidarbha and Gorkha Mukti Morcha for
Gorkhaland in West Bengal but both the
Trinamool and CPM oppose.
Then there is a demand for Saurashtra in Gujarat, Coorg in
Karnataka, Gondwana from portions of
Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Madhya Pradesh, Kodagu from Karnataka’s coffee belt,
Bodoland from Assam, Ladakh
and Jammu from Kashmir, Garoland from Meghalaya
and Mithilanchal from North Bihar.
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 Jammu or
Vidarbha? RJD’s Laloo Yadav’s was ever so right when he warned, “Yeh madhumakhi ka chatha hai, chedho ge toh
pashtaoh ge” over Jharkhand’s creation in 2000.
Undeniably, a few States 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 2000 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. Or that Goa has
had 18 Chief Ministers in 26 years and a Government lasted only 10 days in
Meghalaya in 2008.
Take the case of Jharkhand. That state, carved out of
southern Bihar in 2000, demonstrates that small
isn’t always beautiful. Till date it has seen five Chief Ministers across three
Assembly terms and been under President's Rule thrice. See how Koda milked the
State of over Rs 4000 crores. Clearly, hiving off new States should not come to
mean a panacea to development, resource allocation and governance.
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.
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 and austerity drive, we continue to multiply our expenses.
Authoritative sources aver that the creation of a State would cost the national
exchequer over Rs 1,500 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”? Remember, the Dar Commission recommended that no new provinces
should be formed as India
was burdened with problems more urgent than the problem of redistribution of
provinces. Such as poverty, food, inflation and production. Grounds which more
than hold true today.
The tragic irony is that successive Prime Ministers bought
peace at the cost of strong integrated India by carving out new rajyas for acquiring “new chamchas” and assured vote banks. Unfortunately for the Centre, its
policy of going populist and opting for quick-fix remedies has boomeranged.
In the ultimate, the UPA Government needs to learn from old mistakes, diagnose the
disease afresh and hammer out solutions for better governance. Much can be
achieved through decentralization of administration without adding to the cost
of governance through top-heavy ministerial baggage.
Time to stop netas
from creating new pocket boroughs motivated by petty personal interests,
undermining national unity. Are we now going to roll back history to
pre-Independence days and create 562 States? “It will be a folly to ignore
realities; facts take their revenge if they are not faced squarely and well”,
said India’s
first Home Minister Sardar Patel. Let not history resound to: We learn nothing
from history except that we learn nothing from history! ----- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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