Divide and Rule: India should have more and smaller states

The Times of India Editorial, Oct 11, 2007

Mayawati’s call to divide UP into three states is apt. Uttar Pradesh is a monster state with a population of 166 million. That’s more than half the population of the US and 70 million more than Maharashtra, the second most populous state in India. UP is not just one of the least developed states in the country, it is also the most crime prone and one reason for the abysmal state of governance in UP is its unmanageable size. Unlike states formed on a linguistic basis, various regions were fused together after independence to form this unwieldy administrative unit.

Why not now divide it into three or four smaller states of the size of Uttarakhand, which was carved out of UP in 2000? The division could be along the following lines: Harit Pradesh comprising western districts of UP, Purvanchal in the east, Awadh and Bundelkhand. Hopefully, such a division will raise the quality of governance and better use of economic resources in each of these regions, which are quite distinct from one another.

The reasoning for smaller states holds true for other parts of India as well. Popular movements are on in Andhra Pradesh, and to some extent in Maharashtra, for separate Telangana and Vidarbha states. Telangana Rashtra Samiti, a political outfit launched to seek a Telangana state, won a significant number of Lok Sabha and assembly seats in 2004. Congress, which allied with TRS, has promised a second states’ reorganisation commission to study the demands for a separate state. (ఇంకా…)