Remapping India: New States and Their Political Origins

by Louise Tillin

There is a widespread consensus today that the constitutional flexibility to alter state boundaries has bolstered the stability of India's democracy. Yet debates persist about whether the creation of more states is desirable. Political parties, regional movements and local activists continue to demand new states in different parts of the country, as part of their attempts to reshape political and economic arenas. Remapping India looks at the most recent episode of state creation in 2000, when the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand came into being in some of the poorest, yet resource-rich, regions of Hindi-speaking north and central India. Their creation represented a new turn in the history of the country's territorial organisation. This book explains the politics that lay behind this episode of 'post-linguistic' state reorganisation and what it means for the future design of India's federal system.

Genres: India

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 2013

Reviews

[Mayank Bawari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, and somewhat detailed analysis of the regional demands for redrawing states before the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh bifurcation, and the states of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand as popular case studies. The author points at different levels of movements at region, state and national levels for redrawing states before boundaries; with the economic and/or political inequalities, along with the centre-state political ploys as the primary reasons. She finds that UK, had a mostly peaceful movement, that could only gather steam once the movement had all but died out in the 1990s, the JH movement far from a sub altern movement but more a need to manage governing body for local resources, and CG a case study where the state was bifurcated to cast off the poorest regions, which had no political or public support.

The post state bifurcation also tells a different story of uneven development, with UK reducing poverty at triple the national rate to lose its identity for grander ambitions of not just being a hill state, the JH faring not much better than its phantom limb in Bihar, pointing out that the poverty reduction is more than redrawing boundaries, the worst care being CG which has increased poverty rates since it’s bifurcation. The books falls short of some deeper analysis, and uses the talking points of the leaders of the movements and opposition verbatim, without much cynicism or critical thought, castes Mulayam as a driving force into Uttarakhand making, the objection from landlord migrant as legitimate, ignoring any and all ground realities, and the Rampur Goli Kand getting a passing by reference as usual hostilities. The author tries to force fit her ideas into a neat structure, which is not how it ever played out.

A decent read for anyone interested in the topic, but needs to be layered with other contemporary works.

Rating: 4/5