Breaking up is hard to do

Our problem with history is that we have so much and so little of it.

We live in India – a land that is millennia old. And yet how old are we really? Most cannot even tell our great-grandfather’s name – much less when he was born or what the village or town grew up in was like in those days. Beyond the vague "I come from here / there" label - everything else is haze.

As for our cities – well – other than the odd wall of an ancient fortress or stupa poking its way out of the grime and smog of a million auto-rickshaws and the festering nest of phone, power and TV cables – what history?

But boundaries and the eddies and currents of histories do still wield power. The latest is the rise of the regional assertion.

These students have stripped their shirts to demand the creation of Telangana State

On the face if it, having small states makes a lot of sense. If the US with 300 million odd folks has 50 states – why should we only have only 28 states (that too with 3 of them just turning a decade old), when our national population is at least 1.1 billion!

Smaller states means that the state capital is closer – that the chief minister is more in touch with the people – that the government offices and departments are easier to monitor than in states like Uttar Pradesh where the population is over 120 million people.

These folks have forcefully blocked the Vidharbha Express - in order to demand the creation of ... Vidharbha State

In the 50s our country was divided up into states that were amalgamations of the directly ruled British Raj territories – as well as the previously princely territories that the Maharajas ruled even under the British. Then in the early 60s came the various demands for states to be re-organised and moulded along linguistic lines. States like Gujarat (for Gujarati speakers) and Maharashtra (for Marathi-mother-tonguers) sprung out of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency. Andhra Pradesh took a bow on behalf of Telegu speakers and so forth.

Things held pretty steady through my childhood and growing up years – but gradually the political scene shifting to the powers played by local parties – each region seems to have developed its own nativist or semi-nativist group (Telegu Desam, Asom Gani Parishad, DMK/AIDMK/MDK etc., Shiv Sena, INLD, Akali Dal … the list goes on…). At first these parties made their splashes by ruling their states – and then leveraging into power at the centre through coalitions of the willing (and the billing).

The next wave is still upon us – sub-regional groupings that saw how successful the regional parties were. These sub-regional movements hope to bring utopia by carving out ever smaller sections. And so we have the on-going tussle in Andhra Pradesh to have Telegana carved out of the northern part (including the capital of Hyderabad). The long-drawn fight to have the Darjeeling and hill parts of W. Bengal become Gorkhaland. The simmering demands for a Vidharba State out of eastern Maharashtra to overcome the ‘step-motherly treatment’ that this drought prone area suffers from the rest of fat and sleek Maharashtra State. And the list goes on. There are anywhere between 5-55 areas demanding statehood / autonomy / independence (the latter sometimes used as a bargaining tool).

Strike one for Telangana - this chap takes it out on a bus - all in the good cause of course of carving out a separate state!

These well-fed gents (with a reigning Telegu film super star amongst them) are adamant that Andhra Pradesh should not be split!

One interesting trend is that in the demanded splitting of states which share the same linguistic heritage (Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) we see geographic issues – esp. related to water (or lack of it) coming to the fore. The dry areas want their own freedom (and also a big chunk of the river flows) which they feel the wetter parts of the state are misappropriating.

Distributional justice. Identity and purpose. Self-determination. Better and closer accountability loops.

My gut feeling is that we are wishing in a utopian way for something different. What we really want is basic governance. Justice. Order. Peace.

We want Gorkhaland! A young man wears his demand on his face.

Will these desired-for things drop our way when we make smaller states?

Well the data is in on our newest threesome. The last 3 states to emerge are now a decade old – and we have seen Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh and Uttarakhand all grow at more than 10% - more than many of their parent states. But do we see stability and an Edenic situation which the activists who were demanding the creation of these states promised? Hardly. Politically at least, these small states are just as volatile if not more so – and the horse trading after each election is notorious (esp. in Jharkhand – no surprises here).

So here we have it. On paper there is a strongish case for smaller states. And may a thousand (ok, make that about 75 at least) bloom! But the lived reality is always far from the rhetoric.

Our governance is in shambles not because we don’t have small states – its because we look the other way when top to bottom corruption touches our daily lives. If everyone stopped paying the money under the table – we would see so much real change take place.

But in the meantime our roads sprout pot-holes in 4 months, our water keeps disappearing. And life goes on for most…