Recently, there were some questions regarding demands for smaller states and their practicality in Indian scenario, posted in a blog named Pragmatic Euphony. These questions no doubt were critical in trying to examine the practicality of present telangana separation demand. I felt that these questions were thoughtful and needed to be answered. Most of the comments were actually positive in asserting the assiduity in the questions but few really have attempted to answer them pragmatically. So I tried to answer these questions in a most pragmatic way I can. However I did not receive any comments on my answers. I am just posting these Q&A in this blog.
Q1. Why has a comprehensive study of the societal, political and economic impact of smaller states not been undertaken so many decades after the creation of smaller states?
A.
Smaller states is a relative term. Smaller by no means indicates a small administrative area or low population. So it would have been better if question was asked in absolute terms.
SRC-I(state reorganization commision 1953) can be considered as one of such first efforts by Union Govt. immediately after independence. Indeed as most people think and propagate SRC did not just look only on linguistic terms but on various socio-political and economic conditions prevailing at that time. Recently three states were created and certainly was based on sustainance and political analysis.
Regarding telangana,
SRC-I recommended that telangana to remain a separate state is beneficial to its people and warned against merging citing differences in socio-economic conditions between the regions and viability of telangana based on its surplus revenues. However,contrary to the reccomendations the merger was done based strictly on linguistic lines. This certainly was the key factor that is the reason for today’s dicontentment among telangana people.
Ofcourse there are several independent studies conducted and published in various journals on these very issue since last 50 years and most of them actually recommend smaller territorial administrative divisions compared to present divisions. Some of them even concentrate on telangana issue and dates back to 1970 to 1997 analysing most aspects of underdevelopment in telangana.
Q2. What is holding the government back from announcing the formation of a new State Reorganisation Commission with eminent personalities on board?
A.
Because of the failure of strictly following SRC -I reccomendations there is a widespread mistrust among political circles regarding a second report especially in present conditions where personal liability and lobbying play major role in decision-making. No one including the organizations, political parties and people are in favor of a Commision and put their complete future on a commision whose recommendations may or may not be actually truthful. Instead they are trying to push the Union Gov. to decide depending upon popular vote and referendums.
Q3.Should a new state not be created only after its economic viability has been established by a non-partisan statutory body and vetted by the Parliament?
A.
Contrary to the demands for separate states after independence that were mostly based on culture, language and ethinic identity, most of the present demands cite economic and social backwardness in their regions. So only stressing on economic viablity would backfire considering the actual economic retrogression that was prevalent in most of these regions due to unequal political and bureaucratic dominance after first state reorganisation. Indeed a special package and policy changes favorable to these newly formed states should be considered. However it is necessary to concede to their demands of forming new states to improve general people’s trust on the policy makers. Also necessary steps should be taken to stabilize the administration and proper channeling of funds in these new states. Moreover given the political and bureaucratic imbalance it is highly likely that these special packages and policy changes will be implemented unbiased. This has been already proved in the case of telangana several times. None of the policy changes and packages were ever implemented in correct dimension, lest atleast implemented.
In all conditions it is in the best interest of all people, Union should concede to these demands.
Q4. Isn’t the public dissatisfaction and discontentment in states — big or small — really about (lack of) governance, and has nothing to do with smaller or bigger states?
A.
Exactly that is what I meant when I mentioned that “smaller” is a relative term. But not considering if the state is really smaller or bigger in relative terms,(unless it is too small and surrounded by a single state on all sides) most of the territories are actually not small in area and population. Territorial division and administatorial sharing provides better decentralization, political autonomy and managerial convenience. Trying to fix the governance with out territorial division would only cause secondary discontentment in other parts of the parent state because to equate the economic conditions the regional govt. and federal govt. has to focus their major resources on to these territories away from other parts.
In all conditions it is in the best interest of all people, Union should concede to these demands.
Q5. If smaller states are a ploy to bring political governance closer to the populace, then shouldn’t empowerment of local self-government institutions provide a more permanent answer?
A.
That is a bigger picture and certainly is required irrespective of the formation of new states. Even though empowerment and self governance are one of the key points in new state demands, they also are because of the political and economic domination of certain parts of the present states. So empowering local bodies is not just enough.
Indeed empowering local government institutions is highly essential presently and in future to attain what Gandhi’s dream of “Grama Swaraj” it is necessary not to correlate this with the demands of separate states which are purely based on economic and social backwardness due to political neglect.
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