THE creation of Telangana by dividing India’s first linguistic state, Andhra Pradesh, has initiated a vigorous debate about the nature of Indian federalism and the central government’s approach to demands for the redrawing of internal boundaries. Strong arguments have been made over time about why Telangana should be created. Yet the quantum of opposition in the residual state of Andhra Pradesh to the state’s division has made this instance of state creation one of the most controversial in India’s history. Although the central government acted on the basis of its powers under Article 3 of the Constitution, the division of a state against the expressed wishes of its legislative assembly has renewed debates about the sanctity of states’ rights within India’s federal system. This article focuses less on the rationale for creating Telangana or a future states reorganization agenda, which have been examined at length elsewhere. Instead, it reflects on the implications of debates about the redrawing of internal boundaries for the polity more generally.

I contend that it is too soon to tell whether the creation of Telangana marks a pronounced shift in the history of states reorganization or a more contingent event to be understood in this particular pre-election context. Yet, the article seeks to view the state’s creation within the trajectory of ‘post-linguistic’ states reorganization since 2000 to ask what implications the creation of smaller states on bases other than language might have for the shape of the wider polity, including the fortunes of regional and national parties.

There are many calls for the creation of more, smaller states on the grounds of improving governance, development and representation.¹ Using a comparative yardstick, India certainly has a small number of states for its population size. Before the creation of Telangana, there were an average of 37.7 million people per state. The next closest federal system is Brazil with just 7.15 million people per federal sub-unit.² Yet, calls for smaller states are increasingly strongly resisted within many linguistic states, with some politicians and commentators seeing the potential division of linguistic states as a move that would re-centralize power in New Delhi. Sub-state regional demands – and responses to them – may be an area of contention in any future negotiations to form a coalition government at the Centre.

 

The article will address three central questions. First, what does the politics of statehood – the demanding and granting of support for new states – tell us about the changing nature of centre-state relations? Second, and relatedly, how does the creation of new, smaller states alter the fortunes of national vis-à-vis regional parties? Third, in light of these, what are the implications of statehood demands for the upcoming elections and any potential coalition negotiations?

I will present evidence that shows that national parties have an increasing advantage over regional parties in smaller states. By contrast, in larger states, the position of regional parties has strengthened over time – with the exception of elections in the mid-late 1990s when the BJP did especially well in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The division of larger states may, therefore, appear to be in the interest of national parties. Yet, bigger states – those with more than 20 parliamentary seats – still account for a substantially larger proportion of total seats than small states (see table). Thus viewed overall, the picture of the last twenty-five years has been the gradual weakening of the position of national parties – vis-à-vis regional parties – in the Lok Sabha.

 

Recent opinion polls have suggested that national parties (particularly the BJP) may see an increase in their vote share in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, though it is unclear at the time of writing whether this will challenge the overall trend in terms of the relative seat share of national and regional parties. In general, it is clear that the creation of new states would need to move faster and more widely to have a serious impact on the balance of power between the central government and the states, or between national and regional parties, as a result of creating smaller states that might challenge the power of regional parties.

Let us turn first in more detail to the possible impacts of statehood politics on centre-state relations. In an intriguing article about the implications of Telangana’s creation for Indian federalism, Arun Sagar has argued that rather than aiding a process of fragmentation of political power, the creation of more states is likely to contribute to the centralization of political power.³ This would challenge the empowerment of the states and regional parties seen in recent decades. He points to the fact that in an era of coalition politics in New Delhi, national politicians have become more likely to support local demands for statehood, which means bypassing the state level and, in so doing, weakening the power of state-level political elites. Others have contended that the departure from a linguistic rationale for the organization of internal boundaries threatens the very basis of federalism in India, and the power of its states. This is, for instance, the position of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), as its general secretary, Prakash Karat, has set out:

‘Those who advocate the breaking up of existing linguistic states and the creation of smaller states are asking for the weakening of the federal structure. It will lead to the Centre dominating the states. It is because we have strong language-based states like the four southern states, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and so on, that the states are able to have their role in the federal system. The powers and rights of the states will get weakened further if the identity and role of linguistic states are weakened.’⁴

 

Other commentators argue that it is the process of creating the state of Telangana, rather than the principles involved, which raises concerns for federalism.⁵ By dividing a state without the consent of the state legislature, the central government has effectively broken with long-standing conventions that have ensured states reorganization to date has largely been a gradual and consensual affair. The decision has also re-inspired calls for the revision of Article 3 to better protect the rights of states from division against their will.⁶

 

The creation of Telangana does stand in contrast to the other states created in the era of national coalition government – Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. In those states, there was a good degree of agreement and at a minimum, acquiescence, among the state-level political leadership, especially in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh that state bifurcation would not damage the interests of political elites in the parent state. Indeed, the political mobilization of lower castes in the Hindi belt provided a degree of momentum from within state capitals for rethinking political boundaries to respond to new electoral geographies.

In Bihar, the creation of Jharkhand was drawn into a battle between the BJP-led central government and Lalu Prasad Yadav, Chief Minister of Bihar. This led Yadav at times to claim that the BJP was seeking to divide Bihar in order to undermine him. But even in Bihar, there was an electoral logic to state bifurcation that made sense for a new generation of political leaders in Patna. The Bihar legislative assembly approved the State Reorganization Bill forwarded to it by the Centre in 2000.⁷

It is difficult to say, however, whether the modalities of creating the state of Telangana represent a historical break in the nature of the central government’s response to regional demands or a precedent that is likely to be followed in the future by a different central government.

 

To analyze the question of the longer term historical significance of the Telangana decision from a different perspective, I will now turn to look at some of the cumulative effects of the phase of ‘post-linguistic’ states reorganization we have seen since 2000. I will look especially at whether the creation of new states has changed the fortunes of national vis-à-vis regional parties. With the creation of four new states since 2000 (Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and the pending creation of Telangana), there will be a total of 24 states or union territories in the Lok Sabha which have fewer than 20 MPs.⁸ These states will have – after Telangana’s creation – 120 Lok Sabha seats between them. That leaves 12 larger states – Kerala, Orissa, Rajasthan, ‘Seemandhra’, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. These larger states will still account for the majority of seats in the Lok Sabha: 423 of 543 seats.⁹

The accompanying graphs show the performance of national parties as a proportion of total seats in states of different sizes.¹⁰ It demonstrates that in Lok Sabha elections since 1999, national parties have won an increasingly large proportion of seats in smaller states – 81% in 2009 – as compared to regional parties, whereas their seat share in larger states declined to 59% in 2009. The performance in larger states is in line with the overall decline in the share of seats and votes won by national parties since the early 1990s, and an increase in the proportion of votes and seats won by regional parties.¹¹

 

So we can see that national parties appear to have a clear advantage in smaller states in Lok Sabha elections, and that this advantage has increased since the creation of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in 2000. It is logical that national parties would have an advantage over regional parties in very small states and union territories that elect only one or two MPs. But it should be stressed that the newer states which account for a significant proportion of the total seats in the smaller state category are states in which national parties – the BJP in the cases of Chhattisgarh (11 seats), Jharkhand (14 seats) and Uttarakhand (5 seats) – had built a strong foothold before the granting of statehood and expected to consolidate their position after state formation. Thus, very small states and union territories with one or two MPs may be natural territory for national parties by virtue of their size. But it is difficult to make a simple argument that national parties are likely to do better if more states with 10-20 MPs are created. Conversely, it is also likely to be the case that national parties are more likely to support statehood in regions where they perform well, or expect to perform well.

State size has not to date been a major focus of studies that have sought to explain the fortunes of regional vis-à-vis national parties in India or elsewhere. There is, however, a good deal of agreement that, in general, higher levels of fiscal and/or political decentralization favour the emergence of larger numbers of regional parties, and that conversely when power is more centralized, voters are more likely to prefer national parties.¹³ Pradeep Chhibber and Ken Kollman argue that where there is greater centralization, ‘smaller, regional parties will be squeezed as voters will increasingly prefer that candidates belong to parties most able to influence policy making at the levels of government that can either regulate economic activity or secure public resources.’¹⁴ Furthermore, they show that national parties tend to perform especially well in small states with ‘special category’ status, and union territories which are more fiscally dependent on the central government.¹⁵ Baruah argues that this was the aim of states reorganization in the Northeast: to create smaller states that would be more dependent on the Centre.¹⁶

However, creating new states does not necessarily imply that they are likely to be more dependent on the Centre or easier to control, as we can see from the first set of ‘post-linguistic’ states. Chhattisgarh, for instance, has been governed since 2003 by an independent-minded BJP Chief Minister, Raman Singh who has been far from a client of the central government. Furthermore, not all new smaller states will have special category status giving them greater access to central government grants as opposed to loans, and the ability to offer special incentives to industry. Of the three states created in 2000, only Uttarakhand was made a special category state. This status has been offered to ‘Seemandhra’ to support its development after bifurcation. But it does not seem immediately likely that giving this status to Seemandhra will strengthen the position of national parties; indeed two regional parties – the Telugu Desam Party and the breakaway YSR Congress are likely to dominate the political scene at the upcoming elections.

Overall, it should be remembered that the seats in smaller states account for less than a quarter of total seats in the Lok Sabha. Thus, it is in the larger states that the crucial contests between national and regional parties will continue to play out. States reorganization would need to move faster and deeper to have a bearing on the wider party system and on the balance between national and regional parties.

 

This leaves us with the question of how demands for redrawing internal boundaries are likely to feature in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Clearly, it will be in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana that the most immediate effects will be felt. But other demands for statehood remain on the table, and are likely to receive a further push during the election campaign. Regional leaders from Gorkhaland and Bodoland have made a renewed attempt to lobby the central government on their statehood demands since the creation of Telangana. Voices have also been raised locally in Vidarbha in support of separation from Maharashtra.

Both Gorkhaland and Vidarbha are demands that the BJP has supported in the past. In 2009, former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh contested the Darjeeling parliamentary seat for the BJP with support from the pro-statehood Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM). The Vidarbha demand has previously been included among the BJP’s manifesto pledges. But the national BJP leadership is treading carefully in the run up to this year’s elections to avoid antagonizing allies (the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra which is opposed to the state’s division) or potential allies (such as the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal which is also strongly opposed to the state’s bifurcation).

 

The other demand for reorganization that continues to circulate is that for the potential division of Uttar Pradesh into four states. This is an idea that Mayawati encouraged in her latter days as chief minister of the state.¹⁷ It has had some support from local Congress leaders in UP in the past, and following the passage of legislation to create Telangana, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has spoken in support of such a reorganization. The Samajwadi Party, however, remains opposed.

Thus, in the current scenario there are ongoing demands for redrawing internal boundaries from various regions despite continued opposition by regional parties who may have a pivotal role to play in government formation after the next elections. In this context, it is likely that federalism and the rights of existing states will feature strongly in any coalition negotiations – either within a NDA-led alliance, or any potential Third Front formation. The relative fortunes of national and regional parties in these elections will therefore have important implications for how states reorganization is likely to play out in the future.

 

Footnotes:

1. I have considered these arguments elsewhere; see Louise Tillin, ‘Between The Lines’, The Caravan – A Journal of Politics and Culture, 1 April 2013.

2. Louise Tillin, Remapping India: New States and Their Political Origins. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2014, p. 10.

3. Arun Sagar, ‘Why a Telangana Weakens Federalism’, The Hindu Business Line, 24 February 2014.

4. T.K. Rajalakshmi, ‘Threat to Federalism: Interview with Prakash Karat, CPI(M) General Secretary’, Frontline, 7 August 2013.

5. See, for instance, Jayaprakash Narayan, ‘A Challenge to Indian Federalism’, The Hindu, 28 October 2013; Abhijit Bhattacharyya, ‘Sending out the Wrong Signals’, The Telegraph, accessed 3 March 2014.

6. Arghya Sengupta and Alok Prasanna Kumar, ‘Interpreting a Federal Constitution’, The Hindu, 4 February 2014. Arguments have been made to this effect earlier too. In the pages of this journal, see also: Sanjib Baruah, ‘Cutting States to Size’, Seminar 459, November 1997, p. 28. Baruah makes the argument that the process of states reorganization in Northeast India, unlike other parts of the country, has involved top-down intervention by the central government, including to create new states where there was no strong popular demand. See ibid, and Sanjib Baruah, ‘Nationalizing Space: Cosmetic Federalism and the Politics of Development in Northeast India’, Development and Change 34(5), 2003, pp. 915-939.

7. See full discussion of the role of state leaders in this episode of reorganization in chapters five and six of Tillin, Remapping India: New States and Their Political Origins. Op cit.

8. This is slightly larger than the average size of a state/union territory which is currently 15.5 seats. With the creation of Telangana, the average size will decrease to 15. If union territories (all of which, apart from Delhi, have only one seat) are excluded, the average size of the current 28 states is 18.9 seats (or of 29 states, 18.3 seats).

9. See accompanying table for full list of small and large states.

10. Telangana is counted as part of Andhra Pradesh (a larger state) reflecting its status during these elections.

11. It might be noted though that the proportion of seats (as opposed to votes) won by national vis-à-vis regional parties has remained fairly constant since 1999, with even a minor increase in the total seat share of national parties from 61% to 63% in 2009. A good discussion of the changing fortunes of regional parties is provided by Milan Vaishnav, ‘The Complicated Rise of India’s Regional Parties’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, accessed 5 March 2014, http://carnegieen dowment.org/2013/11/13/complicated-rise-of-india-s-regional-parties/gtph

12. This departs from the way that the Election Commission of India categorizes national parties. The ECI category encompasses all parties which are recognized in four or more states. To be a recognized political party in a state, a party must: (i) have been engaged in political activity for five years; (ii) have returned at least 1 MP for every 25 seats (or fraction of that number in smaller states) in the state; or at least 1 MLA for every 30 MLAs (or fraction of that number); (iii) have received at least 6% of the valid votes at the last Lok Sabha or legislative assembly election. This means that even parties whose predominant base is in one state, or which only have a chance of forming the state government in one state, may still be classed as a national party. In 2009, for instance, the BSP, RJD and NCP were classed as national parties.

13. Pradeep Chhibber and Ken Kollman, The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States. Princeton University Press, 2004; Dawn Brancati, ‘The Origins and Strength of Regional Parties’, British Journal of Political Science 38(1), 2008, pp. 135-59; Rekha Diwakar, ‘Party Aggregation in India A State Level Analysis’, Party Politics 16(4), 1 July 2010, pp. 477-496. Adam Ziegfeld makes the slightly different argument that national level coalition government incentives the creation of regional parties. Adam Ziegfeld, ‘Coalition Government and Party System Change: Explaining the Rise of Regional Political Parties in India’, Comparative Politics 45(1), 1 October 2012, pp. 69-87.

14. Chhibber and Kollman, The Formation of National Party Systems, p. 101.

15. Ibid., p. 207-8. Also see Diwakar, ‘Party Aggregation in India: A State Level Analysis.’

16. Baruah, ‘Nationalizing Space: Cosmetic Federalism and the Politics of Development in Northeast India.’

17. See chapter 7, Tillin, Remapping India: New States and Their Political Origins.