Not since the early years of Independence has our country been in such a fractured and dissonant state as it is today. Back then it was states like Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, Hyderabad, Nagaland resisting being a part of India. Today the issue is one of opposition ruled states rejecting the over arching authority of the centre and its agencies and attempting to build legislative and policy walls to keep the central govt. away from its shores. The concept of federalism is being seriously threatened by these developments, and though some push back ( by the states) has always existed it has now been taken to a new level by the BJP's contempt for all other political parties, and by Mr. Modi's personal style of adversarial politics and governance. This is in sharp contrast to his 2014 promise of promoting federalism, just one in a long string of promises that have never seen the light of day.
This push back by the states comes in many forms, the latest of course being the surgical strike by Mamata Bannerji against the CBI on the 3rd of February.. It was bound to happen sooner or later, given the manner in which the CBI was being used selectively as the BJPs pit bull against opposition leaders exclusively. The warning signs- three states, Andhra Pradesh, Madya Pradesh and West Bengal withdrawing permission for the CBI to operate in these states- were there but Delhi either failed to read them or ignored them. It thus made the mistake of unleashing the pit bull on the Bengal tigress and has been left licking its wounds, with some band-aid supplied by the Supreme Court. The constitutionality or correctness of her action, as also her disallowing political leaders landing rights in her state, is certainly open to question. The damage to our federal structure, however, has been done- it is now a foregone conclusion that more states are likely to follow the trail hacked out by Mrs. Bannerji.
Mr. Modi's disdain for any consultation with states before ramming through his programmes is also driving a wedge between the center and the states. Never before have so many states opposed central schemes, even though it deprives them of central funds. The Bharat Ayushman health programme has already been rejected by West Bengal, Chhatisgarh, Odisha and Delhi who feel that their own schemes are more beneficial. Similarly, the just announced Farmer Income Guarantee scheme has already been spurned by West Bengal and is likely to be rejected by Telangana and Odisha too as they have better programmes in place; others will inevitably follow. This will in turn create more friction and distrust between Delhi and the state capitals.
An even more disturbing trend is the widening gulf between the southern states and the northern ones, particularly the " Hindi heartland" states. This reverse continental drift is the result of inept politics, economics and demographics. The first is exhibited frequently in the centre's attempts to foist Hindi on the southern states every once in a while, such as by naming Metro stations and milestones on National Highways in Hindi. The RSS ideologue, Mr. Tarun Viay's statement last year about the "dark-skinned" races of the South didn't help matters at all. The economic disparity between the two Indias was exacerbated by the revised TOR of the 15th Finance Commission which adopts the 2011 population census as a basis for devolution of funds to states instead of the 1971 figures, which had been the norm so far. This is significant because the four southern states have had a much lower population growth than the northern ones since 1971: the average TFR ( Total Fertility Rate) of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in 2011 was 1.7 against the average TFR of 2.5 for UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. This will translate into reduced allocations for the southern states, further exacerbating the resentment of the south against the north. As a percentage of central funds, just UP alone gets more than the four southern states combined!
The demographic imbalance has sown the seed for another, more dangerous challenge in the coming years. As the populations in the southern states decline and become older in relation to the rest of India, this will create a vacuum in labour supply. Excess labour from a poorer north will inevitably migrate to the south, creating social tensions and antipathy towards these " outsiders". This will only add to the perceived sense of economic and political "dominance" of the north, engendering violent pushbacks. We have already seen the first signs of this in the attack on people from the north-east in Bangalore a couple of years back, and the more recent violence against people from Bihar in Gujarat over the rape of a young girl.
These forces and perceptions will drive states to devise legal and illegal means to curb the movement of outsiders to their states, thus eroding one of the fundamental premises of our constitution. This has already started in various disguises. Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir already have laws that prohibit outsiders from buying land there. Just last year the Delhi govt. ordered that in govt. hospitals in the state 80% of the beds would be reserved for people from Delhi ( this was struck down by the High Court). It has been trying to impose similar quotas in govt. colleges. Madhya Pradesh has just issued an order mandating that industries which benefit from govt. programmes will have to employ 70% of locals. As unemployment and poverty defy solutions, more and more states will adopt such policies and erect barriers to entry of people from other states. A hyper "nationalism" is forcing hundreds of Kashmiris back to their own state from other states like Haryana, HP, Rajasthan, Jammu post the Pulwama attack.
The centre's obsession with security has already made migration from one state to another difficult for the common man. Various ID requirements such as Aadhaar, EPIC ( Voter Identification card), ration cards etc. are now mandatory in all walks of life, from getting a phone to opening a bank account to obtaining admission in a school to receiving the monthly PDS dole. A migrant from a village will find it difficult to negotiate these barriers, and will therefore in all likelihood be denied all these benefits. He will not even be able to exercise his most fundamental of rights- the right to vote. This appears to be happening in Delhi where the Aam Aadmi Party has been alleging that more than 20 lakh voters ( from UP and Bihar, naturally) have been removed from the voters' list. The denial by the Election Commission doesn't carry much conviction.
These are all straws in the wind that do not portend well for the idea of one India. If states and the centre are in a constant state of antagonism and do not acknowledge each others' writ or powers; if people are not able to move freely, study or work where they wish to, settle down in any state of their choice, access the benefits they are entitled to regardless of where they come from, vote based on their current place of residence; if they are regarded with suspicion in states other than their own, if they are subjected to violence or discrimination because they are "outsiders"- then we are not one country but a federation of silos.
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