The recent issue on division of larger states to smaller ones created over the row of Telangana troubled me a lot. The ineffiency or rather the immaturity shown by the central government (I am not taking sides here) is really shocking. I mean we are talking about the oldest political party in India, The Indian National Congress, which for decades fought the foreigners and won us freedom… we are talking about a legacy it has left behind….we are talking about a united India which it had promised when we attained our freedom… Yet again we got split up in to Pakistan and Bangladesh. And did it do any good to these countries. Well, we all know the answer. Similarly, will the further splitting of our states going to improve the conditions of our people or will it result in a complete political chaos? I find myself more inclined towards the latter.
Development doesn’t depend on the size of the state…it is the men behind the reins who are responsible. Or else we would have found the small north eastern states as the most developed regions of the country. It has not happened. The division of the states will only lead to an increase number of seats in the parliament, more political unrest, more political parties emerging from these states and of course more tax money going to Swiss banks. Yes, the largest democracy in the world will only get larger.
At the present scenario of happenings, I find it comparable to the divide and rule policy adopted by the British, a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. It’s time for us to think whether decision of the centre was based on fear that the bigger states are getting more power than the centre rather than on the real issues which are being portrayed like social and economic development. Such influence of one of the state political parties on the formulation of the central government was quite evident in the last general election.
Another thing that amuses me that India was never a single nation. It became a single entity only when the British united it. And, the moment they left our shores, we again divided ourselves into India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc, etc. So, it is our hypocritic nature that we call ourselves the Indian 'Union'. Our order of precedence is caste, region, religion, state and then only maybe during an India Pakistan cricket match, India.
I was laughing at a recent statement made by one of the leaders of our time that for a citizen ‘the state comes first, and then the nation’. It is strange even 50 years after independence such ideologies still haunts the Indian society. These are people who say Sachin Tendulkar plays only for the country and not for Mumbai. The same person should understand that the money with which Mumbai was developed didn’t come from their own pockets. It has come from the purses of each and every Indian and any Indian from any part of India has right to live, work and party anywhere in Mumbai. It is indeed a surprise that after 50 years of independence, the very ideas of caste, region, languages and cultures that have divided India 50 years prior to independence are creeping up again. I am wondering whether the history is repeating itself here. I am sure Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and other freedom fighters will get a heart failure hearing the above mentioned statement by our present beloved leader of the state. It would be ironic to say India has moved forward.
There is predisposed feeling in many people that smaller states will ensure better governance and better development. I wouldn’t say its not completely true. But Tamil Nadu is example of a state which has done considerable development in all aspects despite being one of the largest states in the country. It again proves the governance or the ministers of the state are directly responsible for the affairs of the state. The division of states on cultural, economic or linguistic basis is going to further increase the rift between the states rather than to induce development in them. All this hampers the unity of our country as a whole. The reservation on the basis of caste only increases their feeling of isolation, or deepens the feeling that they are a minority. It is high time our system changes. Reservation on the basis of income can remove this conventional feeling of caste. It can bring the people of same standard of living but of different caste on a single platform. It can unite the people of our country who from the time immemorial have been fighting in the name of caste and religion. If such unity is possible in our country where 42% of the population falls below the international poverty line, the minority can turn out to be the majority.
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