Not only in the southern States but also in the Punjab, Bengal and elsewhere the view was generally expressed before the Commission that the present structure of government led to the dominance of Uttar Pradesh in all-India matters. GB Pant was home minister. UP was his state.
He was not at all amused at any suggestion to divide UP. How could this imbalance be redressed? Panikkar offered the example of Germany in the time of Bismarck, when the state of Prussia, dominant in population and in economic strength, was given less than proportionate representation in the national legislature, so as to reassure smaller populous states that a unified Germany would not be excessively Prussianised.
Panikkar could also have mentioned the case of the United States of America, where every state regardless of size has two seats in the Senate, likewise to offset excessive dominance by populous states like California. However, these precedents had been foreclosed by the Indian Constitution, which had made representation in the Lok Sabha proportionate to population.
By this principle, in the year , Uttar Pradesh accounted for as many as 86 out of MPs after the creation of Uttarakhand in the year , this has become 80 seats out of This seems to me an obvious proposition. And it was still less obvious to the ruling Congress Party, whose prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was from Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh had been an epicentre of the Congress-led freedom struggle and in the year, , the party still massively dominated the politics of the state. We are against it. Visit www. Follow us on :.
Times Now Digital. Moreover, we find that states that have been a small part, or on the periphery of, a larger entity gain much more than states that were significant parts of the larger states. It has been a mixed experience on the ground. The smaller states of an earlier generation — Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, for instance — are doing very well. The more recent examples — Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, which were carved out of bigger entities in November — have recorded solid growth.
But they also have been hard hit by violence from Left extremists. In Jharkhand, rogue politicians have been running riot. One former chief minister, Madhu Koda, is in judicial custody for illegal money transfers. Another, Shibu Soren, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder case, although the judgment was later set aside by the Delhi High Court. The fact that there are no clear answers is evident from Telangana. In early , facing mounting protests including hunger strikes and suicides, the Union government announced the formation of a committee under retired judge of the Supreme Court B.
Srikrishna to look into all aspects of the matter and come up with a recommendation. On 30 December , a day before the deadline, the committee published a page report.
It is hoped that the Union Government may now be able to find a solution to this long-standing and contentious issue. Yet rental housing is not a reliable option for most because of lack of development and other challenges. Meanwhile, many[…]. Log In or sign up to comment. Sign up for the weekly Knowledge Wharton e-mail newsletter, offering business leaders cutting-edge research and ideas from Wharton faculty and other experts.
As OBC parties began to win a larger share of the vote in the s and s, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar doubled down on religious polarization, mainly by stoking tensions over the Babri Masjid. In recent years, vigilante groups and majoritarian mobs have increasingly attacked minorities, activists, and human rights defenders, often with impunity. Notably, the number of hate crimes against Muslims related to the issue of cow slaughter a transgression in the Hindu faith has risen sharply since the BJP assumed power in Yet another consequence of rising polarization is the marginalization of minority groups in political life.
Indian Muslims have been underrepresented in parliament since independence. For instance, ahead of the elections, Rahul Gandhi, the former president of the Congress Party, made frequent visits to Hindu temples to woo Hindu nationalist voters.
More seriously, major parties have become wary of defending religious minorities, particularly Muslims, and at times they have refrained from speaking out against hate crimes.
The February local legislative elections in Delhi vividly demonstrated how thoroughly the Hindu right has set the terms of political competition. Though the regional party in power won a resounding victory over the BJP, it did so by adopting a softer version of Hindu nationalism. Thus, even in defeat, the BJP has pushed opposition parties closer to its majoritarian position on identity issues and left few defenders of pluralism remaining.
Importantly, national security matters are discussed in hyper-nationalistic rhetorical terms. As the Indian economy has weakened, the government has placed increasing pressure on the Reserve Bank of India.
White-hot polarization has also exposed the frailties of Indian institutions tasked with safeguarding accountability. The Supreme Court, too, has come under heavy partisan attack—a trend that began under Indira Gandhi in the s. In recent years, politicians from various parties have sowed doubts about the validity of election results.
Initiatives to address the causes and consequences of polarization in India can be roughly divided into two categories: those that seek to counter majoritarian politics and those that aim to improve civic dialogue. First, political parties, including not only the main opposition but also many regional parties, have begun to form electoral alliances to contain the BJP.
In the general elections, opposition parties again built coalitions at both the state and national levels, though these efforts failed to prevent the BJP from decisively winning reelection. Although the BJP won a landslide victory in the national elections, it has lost power in six states in the past two years, including in several key heartland states. In , the court created a special bench to monitor hate crimes, especially incidents of mob lynching, and it asked the parliament to enact legislation addressing this issue.
On numerous occasions, the court has called on the ruling party to desist from majoritarianism and hate mongering.
Other efforts to reduce polarization have focused on countering the divisiveness of political discourse. To begin with, both political and nonpolitical actors have begun to regulate social media and address the role it plays in spreading misinformation and fomenting violence, complex though this issue is in a democracy.
Furthermore, various elements of Indian civil society—including academics, activists, artists, and journalists—have used public demonstrations to raise consciousness about growing intolerance.
Since , writers have publicly surrendered awards on numerous occasions to protest attacks on the freedom of expression, while press associations have held candlelight vigils to call attention to hate crimes and violations of press freedom. Until the coronavirus made it difficult to stage protests, people across India demonstrated against the new citizenship law for several months despite violent police attacks, demonization by rightwing politicians, and the imposition of sedition laws.
These protests, which included the protests in the Shaheen Bagh neighborhood of Delhi, attracted impressive participation from youth, women, and people of all faiths, including the majority Hindu community. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims rose together in solidarity against the new citizenship law, embracing symbols like Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalit icon B.
Although the BJP-led government has shown no signs of withdrawing or amending the citizenship law, the countrywide protests and open resistance from opposition-controlled state governments have forced the ruling party to retract its promise to roll out a nationwide citizenship verification process.
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