Redistribution of Provinces

BY R. R. DIWAKAR

(Member, The Indian Constituent Assembly)

The demand for the redistribution of Provinces in India, broadly on a linguistic basis, is as old as 1903. It was then taken up by Lokamanya Tilak. That veteran politician, who was the first mass leader of India, mentioned it in the Manifesto of the Democratic Swaraj Party published in 1916. Gandhiji not only appreciated it but incorporated the principle of Linguistic Provinces in the Congress Constitution in 1920. Since then all Congress activities have been organized and carried on through Provincial Congress Committees, which (except Delhi and Bombay) were formed in 1921 on the basis of common language and culture. The Congress has been consistently advocating the redistribution of administrative Provinces, and the Nehru Committee on the Draft Constitution of India, after careful consideration, recommended the formation of Andhra and Karnataka Provinces. In 1937, when the Congress came into power and accepted ministries in Bombay and Madras, both the legislatures passed resolutions recommending the formation of Linguistic Provinces such as Andhra, Karnataka and so on. The Election Manifesto of the Congress in 1945 clearly enunciated that Provinces should be constituted, as far as possible, on a linguistic and cultural basis. As recently as 1947, the Bombay and Madras Legislatures again passed resolutions recommending to the Constituent Assembly of India the redistribution of Provinces on a linguistic basis in the new Constitution.

It is a fact recognised by all alike that, during their long career of conquest, the British went on adding territory to territory and forming new Provinces without any principle. Thus historical and political accidents were responsible for the Provinces of Madras, Bombay, Bengal, etc., and no administrative principle was followed. It was only later that Bihar was separated from Bengal. The Simon Commission (1928) recognised the force of the popular demand for redistribution of Provinces on a linguistic and cultural basis, and the Government of India Act of 1935 saw the creation of the two new Provinces of Sindh and Orissa.

Thus in the course of the long and varied administrative and constitutional history of Indian Provinces, as well as in the course of popular agitation for redistribution, the case for the formation of Linguistic Provinces has been stated and restated many a time from different points of view. Therefore, there is really not much that is new to be stated on this question.

Still, when freedom has dawned and when the framing of the new Constitution for India by the sovereign Constituent Assembly is on, some important considerations bear repetition. There is really an overwhelming case for redistribution of Provinces mainly on a linguistic and cultural basis. It goes without saying that the existence of some of the Provinces, for instance, those of Bombay and Madras cannot be defended on any rational basis. Unless one is a blind follower of the laissez faire policy, one would instantly think of redistributing them.

Briefly stated, the rationale of the formation of Linguistic Provinces is very simple, logical and highly intelligible. It is as follows: -

The advocates of Linguistic Provinces have never asked for one Province for each language. They know that there are more than 250 languages and dialects in India, and the formation of 250 Provinces in this country, or for the matter of that in any country, is inconceivable. The number of Linguistic Congress Provinces is only eighteen. That number excludes the Provinces of Delhi and Bombay, which were formed on considerations other than linguistic. Thus the number of administrative Provinces on a linguistic and cultural basis is not going to be either staggering or unmanageable. The United States of America has 49 States with a population of about 130 millions, while the U. S. S. R. has 17 Republics with a population of about 160 millions. Some of the States and Republics of the U. S. A. and U. S. S. R. respectively consist of a few lakhs of people, whereas in India it has not been contemplated that there should be any Province with less than about four or five millions. The number Linguistic Provinces would not go beyond fifteen or so.

Nor have these advocates ever dreamt of sovereign or independent Linguistic States. What they ask for is only administrative Province within the framework of the single State of India. Adequate constitutional safeguards can be provided for, so that such Provinces may not be able to lay claim to any right to cut themselves adrift from the Union. The movement for Linguistic Provinces should not be mixed up with, or mistaken for, the Dravidistan movement which is communal in origin and thinks in terms of a sovereign State in South India. It is anti-Aryan and anti-Sanskrit. It is but an off-shoot of the Non-Brahmin movement in the South.

The vastness of the country and the big population point out that there must be handy Provinces, if real good efficient administration is to established. The present Provinces are adventitious and are the product of historical factors, and not of planning from the point of view of developing them fully. The British masters were here obviously to exploit the country, and they were not interested in anything beyond smooth administration and keeping law and order. Now that there is freedom and that there is an opportunity for reorganizing the country, some rational principle must be adopted for redistributing the Provinces. We must see that the Units of the Federation are homogeneous and handy, and lend themselves to every kind of material and cultural development along democratic lines.

With the introduction of adult suffrage, real democracy is ushered in. If democracy is to develop along healthy lines, it is necessary that the man in the street is able to follow what is going on in the legislatures and in the administration. Universities which can give all-sided education in regional languages must be established in every Province. All this can be facilitated only if there are Linguistic Provinces, that is, Provinces in which people will have a common medium of intercourse. Otherwise democracy becomes a farce, and adult suffrage a mockery. Those people who are foremost in demanding the redistribution of Provinces are not mere doctrinaires, nor do they want a Province merely as an ornament. They have real inconveniences, and the bulk of the people are not able to understand what is going on in the administration and legislatures. For instance, if we look at those portions of Karnatak which are now in the Union, they are divided over three different administrations. In Bombay and Madras they are at the tail-end of those Provinces, and they do not count at all. As a consequence we find that they are in a comparatively backward and undeveloped condition. Coorg is rotting as a separate Commissioner’s Province, without resources and without contact with other parts of Karnatak.

For the last 27 years all the Provinces that are demanding redistribution have been functioning as Linguistic Provinces, so far as Congress activities are concerned. To take again the illustration of Karnatak, the Karnatak man in the remote corners of South Canara in the Province of Madras has been feeling one with the Karnatakas in the Bombay Province. They have fought shoulder to shoulder the battle for freedom. They have suffered together, sung and clung together, gone to prison together, and thus they have learnt the value and utility of living together and acting together as linguistic brothers. They have been coming together not only in the political field but they have been meeting in conferences, planning and working together for common development in various fields of cultural and other endeavour. Is it too much for all of them now to say that they should be under one provincial administration, so that they may fulfil their common aspirations and ambitions, rise to their full height and thus contribute their highest to Indian life as a whole? At this time of day, when India has become free and when she can put her own house in order, is it not legitimate that groups of people who are bound by links of common language and culture for ages should as for a common administration and a separate Province, especially when they are conscious that they can thus serve the ends of humanity better?

Some might ask: “Why should language be deified into a principle for forming Provinces?” The simple reason is that that is the best link among men and a mark of homogeneity. After all, language is the best and the only means of intercourse between man and man. A common language also means often a common background, a common tradition, a common memory and a common psychology. We think and feel and dream alike if we have a common history and a common language. Our joys and sorrows, our loves and hates, our art and culture, are all reflected in our literary productions. In fact, our common heritage is stored in our common language. It was the great German philosopher Fichte who first linked up language with nationality, and said that the most important mark of common nationality is a common language. It is in this sense that a common language is one of the most important things that go to make for homogeneity.

None should make the mistake of thinking that language is the only factor that should decide the question of the redistribution of Provinces in India. Every Province ought to be comparatively big in area and population; it should be compact and contiguous in territory; it should be capable of running a provincial administration, if not immediately, at least in time to come; it should have economic resources which can be developed. All these and such other considerations must be given due weight when new Provinces are formed.

Ordinarily speaking, the redistribution of Provinces on a linguistic basis in the present context ought to have been the most natural and easy thing to happen. When the Congress, which has been actually acting upon that principle for the last quarter of a century is in an overwhelming majority in the Constituent Assembly, this ought to have been a child’s play. But unfortunately, certain circumstances intervened which postponed the question being taken up.

The Cabinet Mission Plan of May 16 contemplated and took in account only the then existing Provinces and no other. That was the first hurdle. When it was argued that the Constituent Assembly was a sovereign body and that it could, if it would, take up this question, it was pointed out that the Muslim League would take objection to the formation of new Hindu-majority Provinces. It was also apprehended that possible different on boundaries would hold up the work of constitution-making and thus postpone the date for transfer of power. But all those difficulties have now melted away, and full freedom has come far sooner than expected and has vested the Constituent Assembly with sovereign powers. Now, whatever difficulties there might be in the way of the consummation of Linguistic Provinces, they are of our own making.

Some are found arguing that there is no necessity for redistribution, and that the present Provinces are working quite satisfactorily. These people do not exactly know how deep is the dissatisfaction in Provinces like Andhra and Karnataka, for instance. If not for anything else, even for the simple reason of removing the major cause of dissatisfaction, Linguistic Provinces may have to be formed. What I mean is that it has already assumed the proportion of a major problem. Some argue that new memories have been built up in the composite Provinces. These people do not know what they are speaking about. Quite the contrary is the case. The different linguistic groups in the composite Provinces have become more language-conscious than before, and the problem is keener today than at any other time and will grow far keener tomorrow than it is today. Some others try to brand the tendency to Linguistic Provinces as a ‘fissiparous one’. It could have been called so only if it either aimed at, envisaged or encouraged the formation of independent States. It is quite the other way. The tendency is to make the Centre stronger while making the Units more homogeneous and autonomous. Some feel that Linguistic Provinces will weaken the Centre. There is absolutely no basis for this fear. What makes the Centre stronger are not language or difference of it, but the subjects that the Units voluntarily surrender to it. That Centre which requires the suppression or disintegration of homogeneous groups is not worth becoming, nor can become, a strong Centre. Democracy is not an imposed order but a willed order; it does not rest and prosper on ‘divide and rule’ but on voluntary union and co-ordinated advance.

To sum up, on the occasion of drawing up a new Constitution for India, the present haphazard arrangements as regards some Provinces must be recast, and the most natural and rational principle of lingual and cultural affinities should be adopted in rearranging the same. Such a re-arrangement alone can ensure the progress of all peoples inhabiting this vast land, and can ensure also the development of ordered democracy in the Units and the Centre. A new enthusiasm is sure to spring up when the destinies of homogeneous groups are entrusted to them, and they will then be far more willing and abler partners in the great task of building anew an ancient Nation. That way lies not only the interest and progress of those groups, but also the harmonious and synthetic blending and common advance of the totality of the Indian people.

If an analogy may be permitted here, Russia, on the eve of drawing up a new Constitution in 1918, was faced with what was called ‘the problem of nationalities’. Stalin’s masterly handling of that question is memorable. Ultimately, the arrangements arrived at assured to every language and culture group not only mere protection but steady advance, and thus secured the highest loyalty of all concerned to the Union Republic. The experience of the last twenty-five years and more shows that even the most backward of the groups in the Russian Republic have progressed far beyond expectation, and their industries and agriculture have developed on a far more respectable scale than was expected.

Let us now see how the problem stands and what stage it has reached in constitution- making. It could have been taken up straightway by the Constituent Assembly and the necessary Committee or Committees appointed for going thoroughly into the question. That would have solved the problem, once for all, by now. If knotty problems like the division of India and partition of Provinces on communal lines could be achieved within the space of less than three months, I do not see why the redistribution of a few Provinces should occupy more than a few months. Moreover, in this case, the parties are willing, the policy has already been accepted long long ago, and many activities, political as well as cultural, in the respective areas–of course excepting administrative ones–are already being carried on as if Linguistic Provinces existed.

But somehow that was not to be, and it was only after division and partition schemes had been agreed to by the major political parties in India that this question was taken up by the Union Constitution and Provincial Constitution Committees appointed by the Constituent Assembly. Those Committees appointed in their turn a Sub-Committee to go into the matter That Sub-Committee recommended that the Dominion Government of India do appoint a Commission to go into the question of the formation of Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala Provinces, and make a report with a view to the enumeration of the new Provinces in the new Constitution Act, on the lines of Section 46 of the Government of India Act of 1935 and Section 289 of the same Act.

This recommendation has been accepted by the joint session of the Union Constitution and Provincial Constitution Committees, and now it awaits being considered by the Constituent Assembly in the form of a resolution. Immediately after its acceptance by the Constituent Assembly, the Dominion Government of India will have to appoint a Commission charged with the duty of redistributing the Provinces mentioned above.

It is expected that, once the Commission is appointed, it can take up the question immediately and make its recommendations, so that the new Provinces can be enumerated in the new Constitution Act which is expected to emerge by the end of November 1947. The appointment of a Boundary Commission and such other auxiliary bodies has to follow, and, before the new elections take place by about the beginning of 1949, the new Provinces should be in a position to hold those elections and operate as full-fledged new Provinces by the middle of 1949.

This is quite a rosy picture that I have drawn, and, if all goes well, this is the course that events should take in this particular respect. But it is always safer to be alert about such matters. ‘Eternal vigilance’ is a sound maxim, and it surely pays. Those who stand for real democracy, for homogeneous Provinces, for a harmonious development of all linguistic and cultural groups of people constituting the Indian Nation, and for the highest contribution from each group in the Nation, ought to be up and doing, so that linguistic and cultural homogeneous Provinces become a reality within the next few months, thus paving the way for a new set-up calculated to usher a new era.

Back