Problems and promises

The National Agenda of the new BJP-led ruling combine has in two simple, uncomplicated lines Stated that quot;it is committed to the format...

The National Agenda of the new BJP-led ruling combine has in two simple, uncomplicated lines Stated that quot;it is committed to the formation of Uttaranchal, Vananchal and Chattisgarh Statequot;. Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has subsequently announced that his government would not go into the niceties of commissions etc. and will start the process of formation of these States quot;very soonquot;.

And even as the people of these regions are celebrating for some reason the expected break-up and formation of new districts, new seats of power to bow to, facing old set of politicians in new garb and fancy chairs, dealing with more bureaucrats from outside the new State and more central fund allocation to fill up old and new coffers, no one has paused to think how will Prime Minister Vajpayee implement his promise. No long-winding commissions is fine but how will the coalition manage a two-thirds majority constitutionally required to create a new State?

Even if one were to keep aside these problems for a moment andevaluate the claims of the new States, then it would appear that Chattisgarh is getting it on a platter as compared to Jharkhand and Uttarakhand for whose formation there have been violent agitations in the recent past.

Uttarakhandis have heard an Indian prime minister promise them the same in his speech from the Red Fort. They have lost lives, their women have been humiliated and still they have carried on. The fact is that in case of Chattisgarh there has been no such agitation and the danger is BJP may create one. And perhaps the case of Chattisgarh needs to be seen in isolation from the other two mentioned in its agenda.

While there is unanimity in Chattisgarh about a separate State, no single leader or movement has consistently demonstrated the inclination of the people. In fact any attempt to cobble together a Prithak Chattisgarh Morcha has been rejected by the people. The Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha has only one MLA and is confined to Dalli Rajhara mines being composed of labourers working there.People have felt more fervently about issues like a separate Railway Zone for Bilaspur which is the oldest Railway Division in the country and a High Court bench for Raipur. Both these long standing demands of the people have not been met and political parties have tended to club them along with the idea of a separate State to hide their own shortcomings.

quot;You have got to have a State if you want thesequot; they kept telling Chattisgarhis while Jabalpur got itself a new zone last year because Sharad Yadav willed so.

In the absence of a spontaneity about the demand, which is often an indicator of the collective emotion, the theme has been stolen by leaders of both BJP and Congress. The same leaders who represent the region in MP Assembly have for the past 30 years promised their constituents a separate State telling them that at present funds are a problem which will cease to be once they had their own State.

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In effect it boils down to the same promises, same sops but with a special packaging called quot;yourown rulequot;. The leaders have often come together on the same platform but never agreed on any sort of direction to the movement and nor have had any concrete vision of a progressive new State, its industries, mines and factories.

In mid-8217;80s the then chief minister Arjun Singh had made a beginning in the right direction with the formation of the Chattisgarh Development Authority headed by his minister for industries Jhumuk Lal Bhendia. The Authority which had its headquarters at Raipur was to make suggestions about the all-round development of the area and its special requirements in fields of education, industries, water resource management and agriculture. Though the body had limited powers it could have been used effectively under a more sensitive leadership. The Shukla brothers, of course, saw it as a threat and hurtled it along to its early demise presided over by the very next Congress chief minister Motilal Vora.

Politically, the BJP may claim the credit if Chattisgarh is made a separate State butit does not have the leadership capable of taking charge of a new State. It does not have one single name of any stature to reap the rewards from such a gigantic step, the best known of its leaders are Ramesh Bais, Nand Kumar Sai and Chandrasekhar Sahu. Compare the weaponry in Congress armour from the region 8212; S.C. Shukla, V.C. Shukla, Vora, Bhendia, Arvind Netam who has just quit the BSP, Satyanarain Sharma, Charandas Mahant and B.R. Yadav. While BJP has seven out of 11 MPs, the Congress has the lion8217;s share amongst the 90 MLAs. Thus if the political aim is to seal a region for itself 8212; and the RSS has for long treated it as a separate State in its organisational set-up 8212; the BJP may not succeed entirely. Geographically, the Chattisgarh State will comprise seven districts 8212; Raipur, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Bilaspur, Bastar, Raigarh and Sarguja. Of these Sarguja is also included in the Jharkhand map so there is that little problem to be sorted out even amongst new States.

As a separate State, themineral-rich Chattisgarh may be able to generate its own resources but the whole gamut of formation needs to be gone into carefully. If in the end, the BJP is unable to create what it promises it will have created a new problem not only for itself but for the region whose aspirations have been raised sky high.