Maya’s surprise
by
AJ Philip |
The move to split Uttar Pradesh can create new problems
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati sprang a surprise on the nation when she announced her decision to have her state split into four separate states, namely Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Avadh Pradesh and Paschim Pradesh. Though she had mooted a similar proposal about four years ago, nobody had expected her to take it up with renewed vigour, with just a few months left for the elections to the UP Assembly.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader thinks that once the state assembly passes a resolution favouring a split, the federal government will be forced to act on it. There are precedents for the same. States like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand were set up in this manner. Under the Constitution, only parliament has the power to create new states or even redraw the map.
Political parties have reacted variously to the proposal. They all see it as politically motivated and as a premature admission of her defeat in the next elections. Though Mayawati has not indicated how the 75 districts that constitute the state would be split, the assumption is that it would be done in such a way that her party, which has the solid backing of the Dalits, ‘suppressed’ for generations on the basis of caste, would have the upper hand in all the four new states.
The Samajwadi Party, the main Opposition party in UP, is bitterly opposed to the proposal, while the Congress, heading the coalition government at the Centre, has suggested the setting up of another states’ reorganisation commission to look into the vexed issue. As a policy, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main Opposition party at the national level, supports creation of smaller states. However, Mayawati sees the suggestion of a new states’ reorganisation commission as a dilatory tactic.
It was on the basis of the report of the first three-member states’ reorganisation commission, submitted in 1955, that many new states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh were created on linguistic grounds. It’s a different matter that the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh now wants to become an independent state. In other words, linguistic unity is no longer a prime consideration in the setting up of new states.
Interestingly, editor, author and diplomat Sardar K M Panikkar, who was a member of the commission, had in a dissenting note pleaded for splitting Uttar Pradesh into smaller states. He argued that UP, at that time, accounted for one-sixth of India’s population, which made it equal in population terms to Andhra, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala combined, or larger than the sum of Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. He also pointed out that the state would create an imbalance in the federal system as it accounted for 85 members of the Lok Sabha (out of 499) and 34 of the Rajya Sabha (out of 216).
Even after the creation of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh accounts for 16 per cent of the country’s population – 199.5 million according to the 2011 census – and is spread over 2.41 lakh sq. kms. Did the pre-eminence it enjoys benefit the state? At one time it was believed that any party which controlled UP ruled the country. There was an element of truth in it as all the first prime ministers, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, were elected from UP.
But when P V Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister in 1991, despite the Congress losing heavily in UP, it disproved the adage that without winning UP, no party could rule the country. On all indices of growth like per capita income, infant mortality rate and literacy, UP lags behind much smaller states. In fact, it is considered a laggard that pulls down the national average.
Today, Gujarat created from the erstwhile state of Bombay, Haryana from Punjab and Mizoram from Assam lead the country in many sectors like industrial development and education. Splitting UP, therefore, makes sense, though it can generate demands for new states like Vidarbha from Maharashtra, Mithilanchal from Bihar, Mahakoshal from Madhya Pradesh, Gorkhaland from West Bengal and Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir.
There would also arise demands for settling some of the unresolved issues of states’ reorganisation. Maharashtra claims some areas of Karnataka as its own. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka also eye some areas of Kerala, just as there is a demand for a greater Nagaland, incorporating some areas of Manipur. All these are issues that even a states’ reorganisation commission would find difficult to resolve. But there is no harm in attempting it as, after all, politics is the art of the possible.
Oman Tribune |
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