3. History of the Demand of Reorganisation of States

The boundaries of provinces in pre-1947 India had been drawn in a haphazard manner as the British conquest of India had proceeded for nearly a hundred years. No heed was paid to linguistic and cultural cohesion so that most of the provinces were multilingual and multicultural. There has been a constant demand for reorganisation of states on the linguistic lines. The Indian National Congress recognised this anomaly as early as 1917 and decided to structure its state units on linguistic basis. But after Independence, having witnessed a partition on the basis of religion, the demands for new states on linguistic basis were seen with suspicion.

In the wake of demands from all quarters for new states, a Linguistic Provinces Commission (also called Dhar Commission), under the Chairmanship of S.K. Dhar, was set up by the President of the Indian Constituent Assembly in 1948 to consider the question of reorganization of states in India. The Commission in its report recommended that the reorganization of states

should be on the basis of administrative convenience rather than on linguistic basis.

The Indian National Congress in its Jaipur Session set up a high level committee called Linguistic Provinces Committee – consisting of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramiah (JVP Committee) to consider the Dhar Commission’s recommendation. In its report, the committee counselled utmost caution in proceeding with the proposal for the linguistic reorganization of States.

However, the Government of India, in 1953 was forced to create the first linguistic state, the state of Andhra, by separating the 16-Telugu speaking districts of Madras state, comprising of the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema Regions, following the long drawn agitation and death of Potti Sriramulu, after a 56 day hunger strike for the cause.

This sparked off agitations all over the Union of India, where the various linguistic and religious regions demanded separate statehoods. Subsequently, Jawaharlal Nehru appointed the States Reorganization Commission (1953), under the chairmanship of Fazl Ali to examine the whole question. The other two members of the Commission were KM Panikkar and HN Kunzru. In 1955, the Commission submitted its report. While laying down that due consideration should be given to administrative and economic factors, it recognized for the most part the linguistic principle and recommended redrawing of state boundaries on that basis.

The four criteria laid down by the State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) for accepting the demand by a region for the formation of a state are:

♤ States are to be formed on the basis of linguistic and cultural unity

♤ Creation of states should strengthen and preserve national unity

♤ Formation of new states should also be governed by financial, administrative and economic viability

♤ It should aid the process of implementation of Five Year Plans.

The State Reorganisation Act was passed by the Parliament in November 1956. It provided for fourteen states and six centrally administered territories. The Constitutional (Seventh) Amendment Act was passed to replace the four types of states, known as Part A, B, C and D with a single class of states.

The reorganisation of existing state boundaries since the consolidation of Indian Union in 1950 can be broadly classified under three broad waves of reorganisation.

♤ The first major reorganization occurred in 1956 following a nationwide movement for the creation of linguistically compact provinces. Kashmir had already been incorporated within the Indian union based on the special status granted to it by Article 370.

♤ The second major initiative came in the 1970s, when the Northeast was split up and several new states were created following the establishment of Nagaland in 1963.

♤ The third phase marked the creation of Jharkhand, Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh in the Northern provinces of India.

Each phase of re-organisation was based on a new balance of political power between the Centre and its federal Units. Reorganization resulted in rationalizing the political map of India, without seriously weakening its unity. The Linguistic reorganization during 1950’s was a major development in incorporating cultural identities into political and administrative units. By reorganizing the states on Linguistic lines, the national leadership removed a major grievance which could have led to fissiparous tendencies. States reorganisation is, therefore, ‘best regarded as clearing the ground for national integration.’

Created by the Andhra State Act (1953) by carving out some areas from the

Andhra Pradesh