Delimitation is the last thing the Indian Union needs today. The resolution adopted by the all-party meet in Tamil Nadu asking to postpone delimitation by another 30 years is not just about protecting the interest of one state or one region. It is about strengthening the bonds of national unity. A permanent freeze on the re-allocation of parliamentary seats would help secure the Indian Union against possible challenges. The best way to honour the “federal contract” implicit in the foundation of the Indian Union would be to assume that the current distribution of Lok Sabha seats is cast in stone, as if the Constitution-makers made a sacred power-sharing compact never to be revisited.
This is a strong and somewhat unusual claim. The opponents of delimitation do not normally push for a permanent freeze. And their case usually rests on a limited and flawed argument about the success of some states in achieving “population control”. The idea of an implicit but inviolable “federal contract” does not figure in the Indian debates. Such a claim would, naturally, invite serious questions and objections. Would this not go against the letter and the spirit of the Indian Constitution? Why think of a federal contract now, 75 years after the inauguration of the republic? These are serious questions that demand honest answers.
Let us begin by clarifying the issue. The current debate and the present argument are limited to one of the two components of a fresh “delimitation” of constituencies. No one has any objections to the routine exercise of redrawing parliamentary and assembly constituency boundaries within each state or to an increase in the number of assembly seats for any state. This does not affect the federal balance. The real issue concerns the reapportionment of seats for different states and Union Territories that was frozen 50 years ago. Should we unfreeze it? Or extend the freeze? Or go for a permanent freeze? That is what the debate is about.
It must be recognised that the original constitutional provision of a regular revision was based on a principle — of “one person, one vote, one value”. This democratic principle mandates that each member of a legislature must represent roughly the same number of persons. If there are serious deviations, the value of the vote in large constituencies is less than that of those in smaller constituencies. For example, while over 32 lakh people get one MP in Lok Sabha, the corresponding figure is less than 18 lakh in Kerala. So, the weight of a voter in Kerala is nearly double that of someone who lives in UP. This is an anomaly that should be redressed unless there are other stronger considerations. The Constitution also provided for deviations from this principle in the case of smaller states (less than 8 lakhs per seat in Goa and Arunachal) that were provided greater representation in the Lok Sabha than their share in the population. In these instances, the principle of “asymmetrical federalism”, special constitutional safeguards for different units of a federation, was allowed to trump the normal democratic principle.
My case is that this exception should now be generalised to take into account a reality that the Constitution-makers did not and could not have foreseen. This is not about the success or failure of the population control policy. Birth rate and death rate follow the larger patterns of demographic transition, where the better-off states and social groups witness a faster decline in population. It would not be quite correct for governments to take credit for this. Besides, this reasoning could be extended to argue against any poor and disadvantaged group. My argument is different.
Since the inauguration of the Constitution, India has witnessed a deepening and coalescing of three fault lines — cultural, economic and political — a process sharpened in the last three decades. In this context, a reallocation of parliamentary seats via a fresh delimitation threatens to open a fourth fault line that happens to coincide with, and could activate, the other three. This carries the danger of undermining the spirit of national unity. Anyone concerned with the long-term future of India must redress the existing three fault lines and, in any case, not create a fourth one that coincides with them. Hence the proposal for a freeze.
The first, cultural, fault line involved a difference between the Hindi-speaking North Indian states and the non-Hindi speaking states in the south, east and the west. This difference existed right from the beginning and was accentuated after Partition. But our political leadership did not let this turn into a division by conceding the demand for linguistic states and non-imposition of Hindi as the only official language. Over the last three decades the pattern of economic development has created a glaring inequality between south-west India and northern and eastern India. Interestingly, the regions at the receiving end of the linguistic divide have an upper hand in this economic division.
Finally, with the rise of the BJP, another political fault line has opened up between North Indian states where the BJP is a hegemonic presence and the rest where its presence is contested (Karnataka, Odisha, West Bengal, Telangana) or where it is a small player (Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala). Now, these three fault lines do not fully coincide, but the Hindi belt and the South Indian states are always on opposite sides of the three fault lines.
The real danger of delimitation is that it would open a fourth fault line that might reinforce this pattern. An analysis by Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson shows the likely result if the Lok Sabha seats are reallocated in proportion to each state’s projected population in 2026. In this scenario, all the South Indian states would be losers — Kerala (down eight seats) Tamil Nadu (down eight seats), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (combined loss of eight seats), Karnataka (down two seats). Other major losers would also be non-Hindi states: West Bengal (down four seats), Odisha (down three seats), and Punjab (down one seat). Except Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand (down one seat each), all the big gains would accrue to North Indian Hindi-speaking states: Uttar Pradesh (up 11 seats), Bihar (up 10 seats), Rajasthan (up six seats) and Madhya Pradesh (up four seats). This has the potential of seriously upsetting the already tenuous balance between Hindi and non-Hindi speaking states, especially vis-a-vis the South Indian states. The “Hindi heartland” that already controls 226 out of 543 seats would now have 259 seats, nearly a majority. The southern states (currently 132 seats) that can join hands with a major eastern or western state to veto any major constitutional amendment would lose this critical power under the new post-delimitation arrangement.
This goes against the spirit of non-dominance that underlies the Indian Union and the idea of unity in diversity that informed it. A respect for these fundamental principles is to postulate a foundational social contract, a federal contract, that is implicit in our Constitution. India is not a classic “coming together” federation where such a contract would be written down. We are a “holding together” federation where the contract is implicit but foundational. Acknowledging this contract would mean a permanent closure of two claims: Population-based political representation and tax contribution-based share in federal resources. Hindi speaking and non-Hindi states would be losers in one respect but gainers in another respect. A national consensus on this contract, bypassing the short-term calculus of electoral gains and losses, would be a step towards what Partha Chatterjee calls a “just republic”, the foundational principle of the Republic of India.
Yadav is member, Swaraj India, and national convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan
