Small States-A Bane or Boon – Social Issue Essay, Article for Class 12, Graduation and Competitive Examination.

Small States-A Bane or Boon

For the critics of Uttrakhand, Vananchal, and Chhattisgarh small is ugly. Smaller states, they say, will not be economically viable because of administrative costs. By carving these states they argue the centre will open a Pandora’s Box. How can then the demand for Bodoland and Barakland is Assam and Jatland land in U.P., Telangana, and Raisina states in Andhra Pradesh, Maru Desh and Brijbhase Desk in Rajasthan, Gorkhaland in West Bengal, and Coorg in Karnataka, be rejected. The process they caution will break one nation into small pieces.

But when Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his cronies sank down to boxing MP’s votes to survive a no-confidence motion in Parliament one promise that they doled out was that the Jharkhand state would be carved out of Bihar. How ready our rulers are to break India into fragments whether those fragments are viable or not Rao’s success on in office have been divisive, nearly as tractable and nearly as willing that this or that part of some state will be hived off and promoted into a new state all by itself. Historically speaking it was Potti Sriramulu’s fast unto death that resulted in the carving up of erstwhile Madras to create a separate state of Andhra Pradesh in 1953. The subsequent linguistic reorganisation of states in 1956 left its own unfinished legacy- resulting in agitations and the bifurcation of the bilingual Bombay state into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960 and the division of Punjab and the creation of Haryana in 1966.

Already our states vary vastly in population and size, from Uttar Pradesh, which has 1,400 lakhs, to Mizoram, which has 7 lakhs, and Sikkim, with four lakhs. To set the scale, remember that Greater Mumbai has a population of 120 lakhs.

One tendency to divide and fragment ourselves contrasts with the trend in the developed world, where whole nations are coming together in economic unions and communities for mutual benefit. In India, we now have fewer Indians than ever before at any rate, who profess their Indianness. We are Punjabis, Biharis or Sikhs, Tamils o Maharashtrians, all proud sons of the particular parochial soil we are born in. At the other extreme, we also have the BJB, rewriting school textbooks in Rajasthan to expand the nation’s boundaries and include even Tibet in its frontiers. A Sunday Times Opinion Poll carried out by Development & Research Services (DRS) in eight metro cities (Delhi Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta, Bangalore, Ahmedabad. Lucknow, and Patna) reflects the ambivalence in national attitudes to this complex issue.

A large majority of the respondents agree that the national experience shows that smaller states are better able to address the needs of the people; and that, after division, Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh have all experienced high levels of prosperity and development Arguably, this has been the case with all the Southern states, and with Maharashtra and Gujarat-in contrast to the large, undivided states to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which have been comparative laggards i economic and social development.

Thus a large majority (61 percent) of the respondents agree that the removal of grievances and accommodating the aspirations of regional communities by granting them separate statehood could actually lead to greater national cohesion and unity. However, though most agree that small is beautiful, there is a concern also about the ‘domino effect’.

But does every reduction of state boundaries bring promise and improvement? Response to the opinion poll I just cited may have been inspired by the Punjab case where the poll respondents believe Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have benefited from secession from their parent Punjab. In 13 years, Punjab’s per capita income races ahead of all the states; it has risen by 70 percent in real terms. Haryana too has done well 60 percent.

But Himachal Pradesh’s per capita income has risen only by 40 percent, which is far from spectacular. Even Bihar’s figure is a higher percentage. Manipur rose 39 percent, while Assam’s rise in per capita income was 65 percent at constant prices.

Take a more tangible indicator: Himachal Pradesh’s Seventh Five-Year Plan (1983-1988) promised the supply of potable water to some 11,800 thirsty villages. In 1993, the Comptroller & Auditor General reported that water had not reached 1,150 of those villages.

Rising politicians love the prospect of setting up a new state for the little domain in which they operate today. Before they rise vast visions, not so much of service but of power, patronage, and plunder, which are beyond the reach of ordinary MLAs in a large state.

The new capital will be built for a new Vananchal, with a legislative building and grand houses for the new ministers and their civil servant lackeys, and new imported cars for ministerial families, with money to be made on contracts for extensive building. For the politicians who don’t make it to minister level, there will be jobs in plenty. In Madhya Pradesh, even without division, Digvijay Singh has shown how nearly half the MPs in his state can be elevated to minister rank with all the perks that ministers enjoy and misuse.

On such a trivial but costly pursuit, there will be no thrifty scruples. For, the new ministers in the new domain will be even smaller men than the Laloos and Digvijays who now rule. The opportunity for greatness and glory-and for plunder and loot-will be thrust on smaller men, on more men with a criminal past than we already have, on the sort of people when Narasimha Rao tried to bribe.