The unfurling of the tricolour on the ramparts of the Red Fort, Delhi, the impeccable discipline exhibited by leaders and jawans of the defence services, and the enthusiastic display of order and neatness by school children, cannot but arouse intense sentiments of liberty, equality and fraternity in even the most cynical citizens and analysts of the Republic which somberly celebrated its 67th Independence Day on August 15. Yet it’s difficult to recall an Independence Day — normatively an occasion for celebrating the gains of freedom from banishment of oppressive foreign rule — when the mood of the nation was more despondent.
A contributory cause of the cloud of gloom which has descended upon the nation was the flood and devastation visited upon the people of the northern state of Uttarakhand (pop.10 million). The prime cause was not so much an overabundant monsoon, but continuous dam-building activity on rivers flowing through the state, uncontrolled mining, construction and timber felling in a region sited in the foothills of the Himalayas, which precipitated floods and landslides in July-August, killing over 5,360 citizens and causing property and livelihood damage estimated at Rs.3,000 crore. In his address to the nation on Independence Day, the prime minister dutifully expressed sorrow and solidarity and promised that “our government is working with all the resources at its command to rehabilitate those whose houses have been destroyed and rebuild damaged infrastructure”. But there’s the rub.
Under the Congress party which has ruled in New Delhi with occasional breaks for 57 years after independence, the cancers of corruption, nepotism and dynasty rule have so deeply permeated government and politics at the Centre and in the states, that even if there was will, the State has lost the capability to rebuild or rehabilitate.
While there’s general unanimity that the first term (2004-09) of the UPA-I government was a period of satisfactory economic growth and development when GDP growth averaged 7.9 percent, the seeds of the fiscal disaster and disarray which have flowered in the second term of the UPA government were planted towards the end of its first quinquennium, when massive giveaways aggregating Rs.100,000 crore were made by introduction of the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and farm loan waivers. This heavy burden imposed upon the economy enlarged the fiscal deficit and made it impossible for the Central government to release resources for investment in law and order and justice, education and health. Moreover this fiscal irresponsibility ignited the wildfire of inflation.
Against this dismal backdrop your editors have launched the Children First Party of India, recently registered by the Election Commission of India. CFPI has drafted a compr-ehensive manifesto covering all sectors and issues of the collapsing India polity (see www.childrenfirst.in), and has been promoted on the premise that while it may be too late to save independent India’s first generation, it’s not too late to save the next. By recklessly electing the dynastic Congress and communal BJP in election after election, you have ruined your lives. But you can still save your children.
Concede demand for smaller states
The in-principle grant of full statehood to the Telangana region comprising ten districts of the state of Andhra Pradesh (pop.84 million), conceded by the Congress-led UPA-II government in New Delhi on July 30, has exposed the fragility of the national unity forged during the past 65 years since India wrested political independence following almost 200 years of British rule. It is apposite to remember that at the time of independence, the subcontinent was defined by over 500 major and minor principalities and fiefdoms. One of the great achievements of the first post-independence Congress government — and home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in particular — was to have coaxed, cajoled and coerced hundreds of maharajahs, princes and nawabs to sign the instrument of accession to the Indian Union which in the mid-1950s comprised the Central government in New Delhi and 14 state governments.
But after independence, the adoption of inorganic policies stifled economic growth and resulted in the revival of sub-national agitation and identity politics. In 1956, following the fast unto death of a Telugu-speaking Andhra politician, a States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) recommended the redrawing of state boundaries on the basis of dominant regional languages. Consequently, contemporary India comprises 28 states and seven Union territories (small principalities with mixed populations governed by the Centre). Now 67 years after independence, unsatisfactory economic growth and income distribution — and expansion of the middle class, especially in non-Hindi belt states — have triggered new identity pressures which are manifesting themselves across the country.
The demand for separate states of Telangana, Vidharbha, Gorkhaland, Bodoland, Bundelkhand etc needs to be evaluated in this context. Within the linguistic states demarcated by the SRC in 1956 and subsequently, sub-nationalist demands have arisen because dominant elites and castes concentrated development within and around state capitals, to the neglect of peripheral regions. This has aroused envy and anger in the neglected hinterlands. There-fore transparent, needs-based revenue sharing and develop-ment expenditure formulae have to be devised to prevent continuous redrawing of state boundaries.
Against this backdrop, the demand for new smaller states to be carved out of the huge states of India, is legitimate and rational. Administrative efficiency will improve if smaller, administratively convenient states are carved out of the larger states of the Indian Union. Nor is it a coincidence that India’s smallest states are the almost fully literate and dominate NUEPA’s Educational Development Index.
It’s also pertinent to bear in mind that smaller states automatically translate into a stronger Central government, necessary to preserve the unity and integrity of India. If the United States of America with a population of 300 million can profitably host 50 state governments, so can India with its population of 1.25 billion.