Opinion What’s in a state

The movements for Telangana and Gorkhaland today have the most in common with those for Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. In contrast,Chhattisgarh,a state that came into being without a serious popular movement or sub-state political party committed to the attainment of statehood,has more in common with today’s Vidarbha or Purvanchal. These distinctions matter.

The states with the longest-running — and longest denied — regional movements have seen significant political instability since their creation. Jharkhand,which recently entered its third period of president’s rule in 12 years,has seen some of the highest levels of political volatility in India during this period. Since 2000,the state has seen eight different governments with four chief ministers. The repeated denial of statehood in Jharkhand helped encourage the fragmentation of the regional movement before 2000,producing frequent party-switching and multiple outfits competing with each other to achieve what had been denied to older movements and parties,which were often seen to have sold out or become more focused on the fruits of office rather than the attainment of statehood.

Political fragmentation in Uttarakhand has only been slightly less extreme. It has not produced multiple small parties as in Jharkhand,but the state has seen endemic factional and inter-familial infighting within the BJP and Congress,which remain the main contenders for power in the state. Uttarakhand has seen seven changes of chief minister in the 12 years since it was created — this in a national context in which anti-incumbency election outcomes have become less frequent. We know that some smaller states,such as Kerala and Himachal Pradesh,have historically had more cohesive regional political environments,which have been conducive to the construction of welfare-oriented regimes at different points in time. But the experience of Jharkhand and Uttarakhand tell us that the creation of small — or smaller — states does not necessarily bequeath more cohesive polities. Politics in both states has become highly personalised,undermining the ability of the state to pursue longer-term development strategies. Such effects have been more marked in Jharkhand,where per capita economic growth has been below the national average,and serious charges of corruption have emerged against senior leaders. Uttarakhand,on the other hand,saw the highest per capita growth rates in the country between 2001 to 2009. This was helped by the state’s “special category status”,which gave it the ability to offer tax breaks to industry (as well as a more generous mix of Central government grants with loans),but it should be noted that much of the industrial development in recent years has been in the plains of the state,not the hills. And not all new states can rely on such support from the central government.

In Chhattisgarh,the state created without a serious regional movement,the political environment has been considerably more stable. The current BJP administration led by Raman Singh will seek a third term in the elections later this year. This is a growth-oriented state that has sent clear directions from the top to encourage resource-led industrialisation. It has seen high overall growth and per capita growth rates around the all-India average. Yet it has a narrow,centralised ruling alliance with minimal inclusion of the state’s large adivasi population in leadership positions (unlike neighbouring Jharkhand,where each of the four chief ministers have been tribal,reflecting the strong demand for a tribal state). This is in many ways a less inclusive polity,which has also been accused of human rights abuses through sponsorship of the anti-Maoist Salwa Judum. The proceeds of growth have also been unequal. According to the Tendulkar committee figures,Chhattisgarh saw a 1 per cent increase in the rate of rural poverty between 2004-5 and 2009-10 — at a time when rural poverty fell by 8 per cent across India. However,during this period,the state attempted to use revenues accumulated through industrial development to sponsor new poverty alleviation measures,including innovative food security and healthcare programmes.

What the experience of Chhattisgarh,Jharkhand and Uttarakhand since attaining statehood tells us is that there is no such thing as a blank slate: statehood is not a simple panacea for correcting inter- or intra-regional inequalities. The administrations of new states can pursue distinctive policies and develop styles of governance different from their “parent” states,but they can also face the legacies of ultimately divided — and long-denied — regional autonomy movements. There is a lesson here for the Central government about the consequences of serially manipulating or seeking to ignore regional autonomy movements. This is not,therefore,a caution against the creation of new states: India has considerably fewer states than other federal systems,and there are good arguments in favour of sub-dividing some of its largest states. But given the politics of processes of state creation,we would be wise to temper our expectations of what statehood alone can achieve.

The writer is lecturer in politics at the King’s India Institute,King’s College London and author of the forthcoming book ‘Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins’

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