Welcome. Please ask yourself which state do you reside in, and the further, the basis of formation of that state.
States, in India, have been formed based on percentage population of people speaking a language.
Such a basis, coupled with other factors, have set India on a path to disintegrating which should gain momemtum, in my estimtates within the next decade, with visible extreme negative results by 2025.
The intensity of this problem has aggravated in the last decade, simply due to the change in technology, making people more connected, in many cases amplifying perceptions of injustice to a particular group.
Why such a basis of division has been accepted, and used so far, is a question that needs serious answering.
Worse, the momentun of such activity has been increasing in the past 15 years, bringing us periliously close to a Europe like reality.
Chattisgarh - formed 1 Nov 2000, separated from Madhya Pradesh.
Uttarakhand - formed 9 Nov 2000, from Uttar Pradesh
Jharkhand - 15 Nov 2000, from Bihar, largely tribal
all have a linguistics basis to a large extent, or some similar demography.
The latest demand for Telangana, which is almost all set to be approved, is another case.
The power that India achieved through Chanakya's achievements have been a thorn in the side of our enemies for far too long, one that is continuosly chipped away at. But an error (if unintentional), a self-goal, of this scale, will always result in damages in such a high-stakes game of nations.
Some additional info -
The current division of states has following issues -
a.
Communalism, based on linguistic, religious lines, encouraging an fiefdom approach, where each state acts as an independent nation, in silos, sometimes completely
contrarian to the national interest or objectives.
The federal approach is a good de-centralisation tool, and can provide better management. The pitfall, and a key challenge, is an absence of a mechanism to align
states with national objectives, which intuitively should be development objectives, devoid of basis of language/religion/caste etc; without stifling power at the
state level.
This problem worsens in coalition politics, when the key party of a coalition chooses resource allocation aligned with changing power equations required to sustain
power at the center, instead of the nations interests.
Further, this being the most dangerous issue, makes a reality of the disintegration of the nation.
b.
Absence of a focus on the common issues. There are many common issues which are facing the nation, and execution of resolutions maybe a little easier in
case of an issue based division.
Some basis of formations could be - geographic + resource based, where similar resources can be exploited. An example would be of the West Coast, where the first
division would be from the Pakistan Border to Mumbai (peaks at 300 mts.), the second till GOa (heights of peak 1 kms) , and the third all the way to Kanyakumari (peaks
at 4 kms) and about a 100 kms into the shore. Similarly northeast belts have a peak at 7 kms.)
Where the size of the state formed this is greater than the average size (based on population + land area), such states can be split into 2, if feasible providing some
instances of competition.
- issues based, The area where Maharashtra meets AP and Chattisgarh have a serious problem of Naxalites.
From the inception of the Naxal problem in 1970's, till quite recently, there is I believe, an absence of a national level response. Had these areas been divided into
another state or 2, either president's rule, or multiple solutions could have been experiments in 2 states, giving us either a resolution or atleast a better
understanding of the problem.
This would also have freed up the CM, especially of Maharashtra to focus on development.
c.
Absence of a consistent framework of measurement
Most recently Mr. L.K.Advani kicked up a storm within NDA by comparing Nitish Kumar to Narendra Modi. On one hand, there was talk that Gujarat was an already developed
state, to which the answer was that it ignored the 2001 earthquake. For Nitish, the question asked was why its labourers still laboured in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka if it had truly generated employment.
While such statements may have its political relevance, it is not a quantitative assessment across multiple parameters.
What the above incidence does bring out, is the absence of quantitative measurement, and the absence of a clear benchmark of assessment.
2 Chief Ministers may claim at the fag end of their terms that they have 75 % and 97 % literacy, and instinctively it seems the second CM did very well. When faced with the information that the first CM started with 45 % and the second with 93 %, we get greater clarity about actual performance.
Another example of a benchmark required is the revelation that construction of 50 % of the National Highways in the NDA regime spanning about 6 years, of all NH construction in the
last 30 years, which generally maybe simply quoted as 'x kms of NH are ready in our tenure'
Some concluding thoughts -
Maybe 10-15 % of the state boundaries should be amended every decade (and I understand the administrative hassle in doing this), since issues faced by the states would itself have changed in that duration. Most of the hassles faced by such changes, can be to some extent offset by use of good technology, I believe.
There maybe other methods / basis as well, ones, which I would love to hear. Please post them in the comments below.
As the world is more globalised, communication becomes very easy, so does collaborating with those outside nations. While ideally, this should be a facilitator of world peace, as the world citizens interact with each other, seeing and understanding that they are all very similar to
each other in aspects of life and livelihood.
Fact is, international players of power and politics leverage this global integration to gain greater power within the borders of other nations..
P.S. This is my attempt to create awareness and think abot a solution, to what I perceive to be a very grave and very real problem, of possible disintegration of India.
I am neither a specialist in this field, or its related fields, but a worried Indian.
States, in India, have been formed based on percentage population of people speaking a language.
Such a basis, coupled with other factors, have set India on a path to disintegrating which should gain momemtum, in my estimtates within the next decade, with visible extreme negative results by 2025.
The intensity of this problem has aggravated in the last decade, simply due to the change in technology, making people more connected, in many cases amplifying perceptions of injustice to a particular group.
Why such a basis of division has been accepted, and used so far, is a question that needs serious answering.
Worse, the momentun of such activity has been increasing in the past 15 years, bringing us periliously close to a Europe like reality.
Chattisgarh - formed 1 Nov 2000, separated from Madhya Pradesh.
Uttarakhand - formed 9 Nov 2000, from Uttar Pradesh
Jharkhand - 15 Nov 2000, from Bihar, largely tribal
all have a linguistics basis to a large extent, or some similar demography.
The latest demand for Telangana, which is almost all set to be approved, is another case.
The power that India achieved through Chanakya's achievements have been a thorn in the side of our enemies for far too long, one that is continuosly chipped away at. But an error (if unintentional), a self-goal, of this scale, will always result in damages in such a high-stakes game of nations.
Some additional info -
The current division of states has following issues -
a.
Communalism, based on linguistic, religious lines, encouraging an fiefdom approach, where each state acts as an independent nation, in silos, sometimes completely
contrarian to the national interest or objectives.
The federal approach is a good de-centralisation tool, and can provide better management. The pitfall, and a key challenge, is an absence of a mechanism to align
states with national objectives, which intuitively should be development objectives, devoid of basis of language/religion/caste etc; without stifling power at the
state level.
This problem worsens in coalition politics, when the key party of a coalition chooses resource allocation aligned with changing power equations required to sustain
power at the center, instead of the nations interests.
Further, this being the most dangerous issue, makes a reality of the disintegration of the nation.
b.
Absence of a focus on the common issues. There are many common issues which are facing the nation, and execution of resolutions maybe a little easier in
case of an issue based division.
Some basis of formations could be - geographic + resource based, where similar resources can be exploited. An example would be of the West Coast, where the first
division would be from the Pakistan Border to Mumbai (peaks at 300 mts.), the second till GOa (heights of peak 1 kms) , and the third all the way to Kanyakumari (peaks
at 4 kms) and about a 100 kms into the shore. Similarly northeast belts have a peak at 7 kms.)
Where the size of the state formed this is greater than the average size (based on population + land area), such states can be split into 2, if feasible providing some
instances of competition.
- issues based, The area where Maharashtra meets AP and Chattisgarh have a serious problem of Naxalites.
From the inception of the Naxal problem in 1970's, till quite recently, there is I believe, an absence of a national level response. Had these areas been divided into
another state or 2, either president's rule, or multiple solutions could have been experiments in 2 states, giving us either a resolution or atleast a better
understanding of the problem.
This would also have freed up the CM, especially of Maharashtra to focus on development.
c.
Absence of a consistent framework of measurement
Most recently Mr. L.K.Advani kicked up a storm within NDA by comparing Nitish Kumar to Narendra Modi. On one hand, there was talk that Gujarat was an already developed
state, to which the answer was that it ignored the 2001 earthquake. For Nitish, the question asked was why its labourers still laboured in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka if it had truly generated employment.
While such statements may have its political relevance, it is not a quantitative assessment across multiple parameters.
What the above incidence does bring out, is the absence of quantitative measurement, and the absence of a clear benchmark of assessment.
2 Chief Ministers may claim at the fag end of their terms that they have 75 % and 97 % literacy, and instinctively it seems the second CM did very well. When faced with the information that the first CM started with 45 % and the second with 93 %, we get greater clarity about actual performance.
Another example of a benchmark required is the revelation that construction of 50 % of the National Highways in the NDA regime spanning about 6 years, of all NH construction in the
last 30 years, which generally maybe simply quoted as 'x kms of NH are ready in our tenure'
Some concluding thoughts -
Maybe 10-15 % of the state boundaries should be amended every decade (and I understand the administrative hassle in doing this), since issues faced by the states would itself have changed in that duration. Most of the hassles faced by such changes, can be to some extent offset by use of good technology, I believe.
There maybe other methods / basis as well, ones, which I would love to hear. Please post them in the comments below.
As the world is more globalised, communication becomes very easy, so does collaborating with those outside nations. While ideally, this should be a facilitator of world peace, as the world citizens interact with each other, seeing and understanding that they are all very similar to
each other in aspects of life and livelihood.
Fact is, international players of power and politics leverage this global integration to gain greater power within the borders of other nations..
P.S. This is my attempt to create awareness and think abot a solution, to what I perceive to be a very grave and very real problem, of possible disintegration of India.
I am neither a specialist in this field, or its related fields, but a worried Indian.
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