I just posted the following question on Living in India:

With the demand for the creation of the state of Telangana, getting frontpage coverage recently, I would like to ask the readers of Living in India the following question:
If the states in India were to be reorganized from scratch today, would a linguistic basis be a beneficial one?

[Living in India • blogzine]

I am mainly interested in knowing the various points of views on this issue. I understand that there is no absolute right or wrong on this issue. I myself believed (note the past tense) that a linguistic basis was a logical one. For one, it empowers the people speaking a language and belonging to a common culture. A person belonging to a particular community knows better than others the problems facing their community and what compromises(if need be) can be made in order to solve it. Secondly it preserves the local language and culture belonging to the region. Third, the states had to be reorganized anyway for better management of both people and resources and any form of reorganization would have created some discontented groups. So in that sense, a linguistic basis is better than any ad hoc demarcation.

But recent events have certainly have made me think once more about these issues. Last year the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (ABVS), a student body of the Shiv Sena, ransacked the offices of the Railway Recruitment Board to protest the hiring of non-Maharashtrians. A TOI covergage of this incident can be found here. Also now, it has become more difficuilt for the central government to refuse the demands of smaller communities of any state, who ask for a state of their own citing injustice and neglect from their state governments. Take the case of Telangana. While Telangana obviously appears to be the victim of such neglect, doesn’t giving in to the demands of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti take the pressure of the state government of Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, there are clearly other states (Uttar Pradesh for instance) that are too large in their current form that probably are in more need of reorganization. The demand for statehood has now become a hot political issue. It is not difficuilt to imagine political parties raking up such issues for their own political ends. With the rise of regional parties in India and their critical role in Central and State politics, the situation can very easily deteriorate.

While it is not possible to change the past, I feel it is time for the next Central government to take stock of the situation and develop a consistent policy on how to handle the issue of reorganization. This policy must be developed in consultation with the opposition for it to be effective. Also it is certainly worth debating the idea of giving more autonomy to the states and holding them accountible for mismanagement of their people. Too many governments are running huge budget deficits and are doing nothing at all to address this problem. They know they can always look to the Central government to bail them out. Coalition politics has made this even more easier now. People have shown that they are willing to re-elect governments that will work for them. Chandrababu Naidu’s re-election in 1999, Sheila Dixit’s relection last year are all clear evidence of this. But the same people have also shown how neglecting them can prove disastrous. As the case with Andhra Pradesh shows, Chandrababu Naidu lost votes across the entire demographics, including the regions of Telangana. Hence it is unfortunate that it is the demand for the creation of the state of Telangana and the coalition of the Congress and the TRS that is receiving such major coverage, when infact the major news item should have been how Chandrababu Naidu failed in giving priority to the people who needed his help the most.