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Why we need a state

Louise Tillin Posted online: Thu Aug 01 2013, 21:57 hrs

Notes to a future states reorganisation commission Although the Congress has studiously avoided pronouncing on any demands for statehood other than Telangana, the debate about other pending statehood calls is naturally picking up in other regions across the country. There have long been calls for the establishment of a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) to take a more comprehensive look at the shape and size of Indias states. Both those who seek a thorough, dispassionate analysis of the issue and those who seek to kick difficult political decisions into the longer grass have called for a fresh exercise. If one were to be established, and this is far from certain, a new SRC might address a range of questions. Firstly, does India need more states? India sits at the bottom of the federal league table of numbers of states per capita population. It has an average of over 35 million people per state. That compares to about 7 million people in Brazil, 6 million in the US or 4 million in Nigeria. However, in geographical terms, the size of its states is less startling. Indias states are an average of about 110,000 square kilometres in size compared to almost 200,000 sq km in the US and over 300,000 sq km in Brazil. German Lnder are much smaller, at an average of 22,000 sq km, while Swiss cantons are an average of only 1,588 sq km. So, in per capita terms, it lags behind other federal systems, but it is not an outlier in terms of geographical area. Secondly, a new commission might ask whether smaller states are likely to improve governance. One thing that the creation of new states is likely to do is to increase the density of the state. New states require new capitals, administrative structures, high courts and personnel to man them. While this idea of a gravy train is one of the reasons that critics sometimes rail against the expense and inefficiency of creating new states, an increase in the depth of the state may improve its capacity. As Milan Vaishnav has pointed out, India has one of the lowest rates of public sector employment among G20 countries. Gaps in the public workforce undermine the ability of the Indian state to tax, deliver justice, security and basic goods like education and healthcare. Yet, filling vacancies depends critically on improving skills and higher education new states hold no guarantees in this regard. There is no necessary connection between reducing the size of states and improving governance. Those who see a link between state size and governance often do so on the assumption that smaller states will be more geographically compact, more socially cohesive and thus will help to improve the efficiency of public spending. It is also assumed that smaller states can improve accountability by reducing the distance between elected representatives and voters. Yet if one looks at the states that perform better in terms of economic growth, or in terms of poverty reduction, we do not see a clear relationship between state size and performance. Nor is it the case that the newness of a state is likely to give a boost in itself the mixed experience of Indias newest states, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, demonstrates this. A third question for a new SRC is whether there are alternatives or additions to creating new states that could address some of the concerns of those who propose state creation on the grounds of administrative efficiency. What mechanisms of administrative devolution below the state level might be better explored? Here it might be noted that states have extremely mixed records in the extent to which they have empowered sub-state institutions such as
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municipal corporations, autonomous regional councils or panchayati raj institutions. One still under-explored dimension of the future administrative set-up in Telangana is the consequence for urban governance in Hyderabad, especially while it remains a shared capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. This touches on important issues around the administration of big cities and their relationship to state governments which continue to address large rural electorates too. These questions also affect other metros, and we are likely to observe more demands in coming years for new administrative set-ups in other big cities such as Mumbai or Bangalore in order to increase their autonomy from state governments. A future SRC could usefully consider the place of cities and mega-cities within new state set-ups. Fourth, a new SRC might wish to ask who should decide whether new states are created. It is an interesting feature of Indias constitutional settlement that despite the centralised nature of Article 3, which effectively gives the Central government the power to make or break states, the real battles over state division are fought in state level arenas. This makes the dynamics over state creation quite different in India from those other federal systems. For instance, in the history of the admission of new states into the American federation in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the strongest controversy was over the impact of admitting new states on the balance of power in the Senate. Because American states are represented on an equal basis in the Senate, regardless of their size, the entrance of new states had a major impact on the composition of the Senate. In India, by contrast, the main concern tends to be on the political fallout at the state level. A new SRC might consider whether a state assembly resolution supporting bifurcation should be made a necessary requirement. Lastly, any future SRC would need to adjudicate on other actually existing demands for statehood in Gorkhaland, Vidarbha, Bodoland, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh and elsewhere. A question that any future SRC would or should not easily find an answer to is that of the right size of a state. There is no one-size-fits-all or abstract answer to which regions should become states. States can only emerge as a compromise or balance between regional political cultures, identities and demands for recognition, geographies and economic factors. Whether or not a new commission is created to adjudicate on these issues, one thing is certain: the fate of other statehood demands will depend, above all, on politics, and often on quite contingent factors in New Delhi and state capitals. The writer is lecturer in politics, Kings India Institute, Kings College London and author of Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins (Hurst & Co; Oxford University Press, forthcoming) express@expressindia.com

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