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KAUTILYA
Pandora's Box
is Open
Three
new states come into legislative being but there is still a long way to
go
By
Jairam Ramesh
Bills
to create three new states have finally been passed by Parliament. Of
these, only the formation of Jharkhand out of Bihar can be said to be
the outcome of a long, long struggle. Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal, for
instance, do not find any mention in the report of the States Reorganisation
Commission that was submitted 45 years ago. What is intriguing about Uttaranchal
is that it has given three great chief ministers to Uttar Pradesh in the
past 50 years -- Govind Ballabh Pant, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and Narain
Dutt Tiwari -- and yet the region felt neglected. Similarly, Chhattisgarh
produced many noted political leaders, three of whom -- Ravi Shankar Shukla,
Shyama Charan Shukla and Motilal Vora -- became chief ministers of Madhya
Pradesh. Two other chief ministers, D.P. Mishra and Arjun Singh, contested
from Chhattisgarh. Yet this region too felt unwanted.
New voices
are being heard. Fresh demands for Bodoland out of Assam, Vidarbha out
of Maharashtra, Gorkhaland out of West Bengal and Telengana out of Andhra
Pradesh are being made. And since Uttaranchal does not solve the problem
of Uttar Pradesh's simply ungovernable size, some cries for a further
break-up of India's most populous state are also being raised. In the
early 1990s, a senior political leader would repeatedly proclaim that
instead of a piecemeal approach, what India needed was a new states reorganisation
commission. Good idea. Yet, this same leader speaking in Parliament a
few days back categorically rejected the idea of such a body saying that
its creation would open a Pandora's box. The name of this politician:
L.K. Advani.
Uttaranchal
is a predominantly upper-caste state where the OBCs form a very minuscule
proportion. But Scheduled Castes (overwhelmingly non-Chamars) form close
to a fifth of this new state's population. Scheduled Tribes form close
to 33 per cent of Chhattisgarh's and around 30 per cent of Jharkhand's
population, the highest proportions in the country barring Mizoram, Meghalaya,
Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
Going by
the 1991 census, Uttaranchal's population of about seven million is 5
per cent that of Uttar Pradesh; Jharkhand's population of around 22 million
is about a quarter that of Bihar; and Chhattisgarh's population of approximately
18 million is about a third of Madhya Pradesh's. If existing liabilities
are shared according to population and per capita income, the debt burden
on the new states, particularly on Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh will not
be crippling. Approximately 60 per cent of Bihar's total revenues accrue
from Jharkhand and about 30 per cent of Madhya Pradesh's from Chhattisgarh.
Jharkhand
and Chhattisgarh will be mineral-rich states. Jharkhand is the nation's
depository of, among other things, coal, iron ore, uranium, mica and manganese.
It has steel plants, engineering factories and technical institutions.
Similarly, Chhattisgarh has abundant forest resources, apart from coal
and iron ore. It too has steel plants and engineering units and is home
to a large number of rice varieties. In contrast, although it has hydel
resources, Uttaranchal will be a markedly revenue-weak state. It is, of
course, a centre of great tourist attraction and has two of India's best
professional institutions -- the Roorkee and Pantnagar universities. There
will undoubtedly be a clamour for declaring it as a "special category"
state like the seven sisters of the North-east, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh
and Jammu and Kashmir.
What is
striking about the new states is the sex ratio -- the number of females
per 1,000 males. Kerala is the only state where this ratio exceeds 1,000.
Bastar and Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh have a sex ratio greater than 1,000.
Uttaranchal has a sex ratio of 1,000. In some of its districts like Chamoli,
Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal, Pithoragarh and Almora, it exceeds 1,000. Migration
of men to other regions in search of jobs explains this phenomenon. Some
ecological historians have drawn a link between women's power and the
success of the Chipko movement -- the anti-tree cutting campaign that
hit the headlines in the 1970s. The sex ratio in Jharkhand is distinctly
more favourable to women as compared to north Bihar although this too
must be attributed to the flight of men to the rest of the country.
One in four
Indians will continue to live in the reorganised Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Governance has simply collapsed here although a valiant rescue effort
has been launched in Uttar Pradesh as part of a $5-6 billion World Bank
programme. Bihar needs a similar initiative. While it is necessary to
hold the local leadership accountable, the challenges that confront these
two states are such that they simply cannot be solved without a vastly
stepped up national investment and management effort.
The author is with the Congress party. These are his
personal views.
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