Sophomoric Debate on Demand for New States

Sophomoric Debate on Demand for New States

To resolve a sensitive political problem such as the demand and agitation for new states requires a serious debate. However, the discourse in the media does not distinguish itself in tone and tenor. If the inherent absurdities in this debate are not pointed out, the issue of states reorganisation would not meet its logical end. And most probably and tragically we will be going through the same predicament all over again in the near future.

No Historicity For Linguistic Boundaries

In its long history India has never seen linguistic boundaries for its geographical regions. This was true for regions either under a single monarch, or multiple monarchies ruling a single region. There was no one to one correspondence between a linguistic area and any uniquely identifiable administrative region.

Linguistic States Are Not Ethnic States

For better or worse we chose linguistic boundaries as the foundational principle for states reorganisation in the 50s and 60s in spite of lack of historical precedent. Hindi-speaking geographical areas were an obvious anomaly due to a large population which couldn’t have been organised as a single administrative unit. Linguistic organisation of states does not translate into ethnicization of people speaking a particular language, as it does not account for bi-linguals or tri-linguals. Geographical ethnicization on linguistic lines also does not account for movements of people across state boundaries in search for economic opportunities who may continue to hold on to their mother tongues for a generation or two. Therefore, even though the linguistic principle was used to reorganise the states, that by itself does not mean an ethnic division of territory.

The linguistic division of territory could be thought of as an ordering principle meant for administrative convenience on account of a language spoken by a large number of people. The state should have an atomic relationship with the citizen that resides within the boundaries of that state, regardless of the language(s) he or she speaks.

India is Not Europe or America

European and American Experience Are Alien To India

Many commentators and journalists base their opinion on borrowed colonial paradigm. In the extant public discourse Marathi-speaking or a Telugu-speaking person is equated with a French or a German or an Italian. This is an absurd thesis at the very root of its conceptualization. Ethnic identities formed in Europe in a totally different matter. The English and the French, the French and the German, and the German and the Italian fought wars as English, French, German and Italian for hundreds of years resulting in linguistic ethnicization. Fortunately, India did not go through such an experience. The wars were fought among kingdoms and between monarchs. The language(s) spoken in those kingdoms had no relationship with the politics of those times. Later during freedom struggle leaders of the Independence movement fought for India’s independence as one whole unit, and not in parts. Gandhi did not fight for independence of Gujarat alone, and Subhash Bose did not do the same for Bengal. All freedom fighters had whole of India in their vision.

Absurdity of “United States of India”

A few Anglophiles in the media have coined the term “United States of India.”  Such people neither have a clue what America is, nor have any knowledge of the Indian experience. Such shallow perception is misleading the public into a suicidal direction. USA is United States of America because of its unique history – where the original thirteen colonies revolted against the British rule to form a union of states culminating into a 50-state union today. That is the reason the Federal government is not allowed by the U.S. constitution to alter the state boundaries. This historical experience is completely different from the Indian experience. There is no scope or consideration whatsoever for a “United States of India.”

The Way Forward

To resolve the vexed problem of demand for new states, native thinking is required that is not held hostage to Euro-Anglo-centrism and colonialism. It is clear that a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) is in the offing. It is expected that such a commission is staffed by persons of high intellectual calibre who can bring indigenous thinking to the table and undo the abuse of public discourse that has been affected by the colonial and eurocentric thinking of the journalists and the chattering classes.