New Delhi, December 18: The announcement of a separate Telangana state has set off a political storm and at the same time demands of carving out many more states are mushrooming day in and day out.
This raging controversy of creating Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh has in a way fueled many old and new statehood movements across the country. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati was quick to make her opinion felt by her idea of trifurcating UP into smaller states.
This act on the part of Central Government of giving a green signal for separate Telangana state has given reasons to those who have been demanding for separate Gorkhaland, Poorvanchal, Bundelkhand, Vidarbha, Harit Pradesh, Rayalaseema, etc. to raise their voices in tandem. This has also triggered a debate on whether smaller states are better or is this practice just to gain political mileage by the political outfits.
Government has set a dangerous precedent by bowing down to pressure exerted by the politicians and agreeing to their demands. This is a dangerous trend and will only fuel separatism at various levels. On the one hand, we talk of a unified country and believe that we all Indians are a single entity and feel proud of our unity in diversity. But on practical grounds, we see that people keep on fighting on the basis of regionalism, language, and other petty issues that act as deterrent to our national integrity.
We need to understand that all these issues are fuelled on the backdrop political measures. It is the vote bank politics that is misleading people. What is the guarantee that once Terlgana is carved out of AP, people of that region will meet all their ends? There are every chances that later on people from North Telangana would not like to be ruled by leaders from South Telangana or the vice versa. Government has set a wrong precedent and be ready to see more people jumping on the bandwagon for separate States based on their community.
It is high time that this vote bank politics be stopped and the government passed a law freezing the division of states such that no more demands arise henceforth. Otherwise there is no end to this division. If today it is Telangana, tomorrow we may see other politicians like TRS going on starvation with hundreds of people behind them demanding new division ofstates. If every region demands for its separate state, then where do we stand in the coming years. Perhaps it is high time that people understand the real motive behind these demands. They need to understand that it is none other than politicians who are going to benefit.
However, there are certain experts who feel that smaller states are easier to govern, but smaller size by itself is not a guarantee for good governance and economic growth. Merely dividing states into smaller parts is not the remedy to overcome hardships. If that was the case, then Jharkhand, Uttara Khand and Chattisgarh could have become the best in India by this time because the real ground on which the division was made was poverty and backwardness of the region. Same is the case with the North-East states which are still not able to come to terms as far as development is concerned.
Jharkhand has not conducted panchayat elections in the past 10 years and suffered a lot in this period due to bad governance. . Conditions of people have not improved and the ones who have benefited are the politicians like ex chief minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda, who are looting common people. Likewise, the North-East states have witnessed political corruption, unstable governments, ethnic tensions and insurgency over a long period of time.
The recent decisions on creating new states have been taken under political pressures, but the situation demands that the government needs to handle the issue by better political governance, fiscal management and rule of law. Division of states is not something which would make India a prosper nation. All thoughts of regionalism, sectarianism, and casteism are a deterrent to united India and they have to be stemmed out as soon as possible. People also need to wake up to the task and not fall prey to the ill desires of those politicians who just try to draw mileage out of such issues!
–Agencies