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Remapping India: new states and their political origins

Article  in  Commonwealth and Comparative Politics · October 2014

DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2014.960711

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Remapping India: new states

and their political origins
a
Katharine Adeney
a
University of Nottingham
Published online: 26 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Katharine Adeney (2014) Remapping India: new states and
their political origins, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 52:4, 569-571, DOI:
10.1080/14662043.2014.960711

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2014.960711

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 Book Reviews 569
Ferguson, J. (2010). The uses of neoliberalism. Antipode, 41(s1), 166–184.
Macartney, H. (2009). Variegated neo-liberalism: Transnationally oriented fractions of
capital in EU financial market integration. Review of International Studies,
35(02), 451 –480.
Mathai, R. (2013, April 17). India’s perspective on South-South cooperation, develop-
ment assistance. Retrieved August 11, 2014, from http://www.safpi.org/news/
article/2013/indias-perspective-south-south-cooperation-development-assistance
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Menon, S. (2009, September 11). Maritime imperatives of Indian foreign policy

(National Maritime Foundation). Retrieved October 12, 2013, from http://www.
indiahabitat.org/download/Maritime_Imperatives.pdf
Springer, S. (2011). Articulated neoliberalism: The specificity of patronage, kleptocracy,
and violence in Cambodia’s neoliberalization. Environment and Planning – Part A,
43(11), 2554–2570.

Priya Chacko
University of Adelaide, Australia
priya.chacko@adelaide.edu.au
# 2014, Priya Chacko
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2014.960714

Remapping India: new states and their political origins, by Louise Tillin,
London, Hurst and Co. Ltd, 2013, v + 268 pp., £20 (paperback), ISBN
9781849042291

India’s federal system is one that has confounded expectations in many ways.
An example of what Stepan (1999) has referred to as a ‘holding together’ rather
than a ‘coming together’ federation, many comparative scholars of federalism
have also termed it a ‘quasi-federation’. This is partly as a result of the over-use
of the emergency powers enabling the centre to dismiss state governments, but
also because of the existence of Article 3 of its constitution enabling the central
government to redraw state boundaries without securing the consent of the state
concerned (although it must consult them). However, this flexibility in consti-
tutional provision enabled India to accommodate its extreme ethno-linguistic
diversity through states reorganisation in 1956 (Adeney 2007). The initial
round of creating linguistically defined states was very uneven and so the
process continued in the 1960s with the division of Bombay and Punjab, and
in the 1970s with the creation of smaller states in India’s incredibly hetero-
geneous north-eastern region. The secessionist movements of the 1980s were
not the result of this recognition of identity, but were the outcome of centralisa-
tion of power and political machination by political elites in New Delhi.
Given the relative ease with which new states could be formed, Louise
Tillin’s work seeks to problematise why India’s ‘political geography is not as
fluid as might be expected’ (p. 1). She focuses on explaining the creation of
 570 Book Reviews
three new states, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand, in 2000. These
states were created by a government headed by the Hindu nationalist BJP, a
party with a historical proclivity towards unitarism rather than federalism
(although Tillin details the Jana Sangh’s earlier support for the creation of
new states (p. 48) in opposition to the centralisation of Indira Gandhi). These
new states were also created within the Hindi heartland, a heartland that the
Downloaded by [University of Nottingham], [Katharine Adeney] at 07:10 10 December 2014

original States Reorganisation Commission was reluctant to divide.

Her answer is an institutionalist one: ‘state boundaries held to reinforce and
reproduce patterns of power’ (p. 1). She argues that the creation of these three
states did not reflect ‘a radical break in the distribution of power’ (p. 3), instead
focussing on gradual social and political changes. These include the change in
interactions between social movements and political parties once the Congress
Party’s hegemony declined; the mobilisation among lower castes, undermining
‘upper caste political dominance’ and the way in which the BJP adapted to the
logic of coalition politics (pp. 5 – 6). She stresses that unlike previous reorgan-
isations it is not ‘clear who the new states are “for”, if anyone’ (p. 24), a clear
departure from the identity politics behind previous waves of reorganisation.
As she analyses, the rise in lower caste assertiveness was the sign of the div-
ision of the dominant linguistic community of India: Hindi speakers.
Coinciding with ‘a broader decentralisation of political and economic power
to the state-level across India’ (p. 148) this created the conditions to question
the ‘sacred’ nature of the boundaries of the larger Hindi-speaking states of
the north, particularly Uttar Pradesh, traditionally dominated by the upper
caste Congress. Therefore, as she sets out, Arjun Singh in Madhya Pradesh
‘encouraged the politicisation of sub-state regional identity in Chhattisgarh
as a means of recognising the growing assertiveness of lower and middle
castes in that region’ (p. 153). In Uttar Pradesh too, caste conflicts played a
role in the division of the state ‘in the course of political contestation around
responses to Mandal’ (p. 161). In all three states, therefore, ‘political entrepre-
neurs manipulated statehood demands to serve short term political goals’
(p. 166).
Tillin’s book could not be more timely; the new state of Telangana having
recently been carved out of Andhra Pradesh (and Tillin discusses the case in her
book, though the bifurcation occurred after publication). It should be read by all
scholars of Indian politics. It is extremely well written and engaging and, in her
engagement with caste tensions, centre – state relations and the politics of the
party system at the national and the state level, has knitted together an impress-
ive amount of theoretical material to provide a convincing explanation for the
creation of new states. As she notes, many more prominent demands for state
creation exist. Some fall into the new patterns that she analyses, others are of
more long-standing duration, such as in the northeast. India now has its 29th
state, and we can expect the creation of many more in future years.
 Book Reviews 571
References
Adeney, K. (2007). Federalism and ethnic conflict regulation in India and Pakistan.
New York: Palgrave.
Stepan, A. (1999). Federalism and democracy: Beyond the US model. Journal of
Democracy, 10(4), 19 –34.
Downloaded by [University of Nottingham], [Katharine Adeney] at 07:10 10 December 2014

Katharine Adeney
University of Nottingham
katharine.adeney@nottingham.ac.uk
# 2014, Katharine Adeney
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2014.960711

South Africa pushed to the limit: the political economy of change, by Hein
Marais, London/New York, Zed, 2011, 576 pp., £26.99 (paperback), ISBN
9781848138599

Hein Marais’ most recent book builds upon the reputation he has built for
himself following his seminal exploration of the transition to democracy in
South Africa, South Africa: limits to change: the political economy of
transition (Zed Books, 1998). The ambition of this new book is admirable
in terms of the breadth of the subject matter covered, which includes: econ-
omic policy, labour relations, inequality, poverty, social welfare, the develop-
mental state, education, health, and also the political foundations of the
ANC’s power. Marais delivers on this lofty ambition and in so doing has pro-
duced an unrivalled account of the political economy of South Africa’s
transition.
Marais manages his diverse survey extremely effectively. As his introduc-
tion states clearly, each chapter is designed to be read as a stand-alone piece of
work offering an excellent introduction to each topic, a reasonable review of
the literature available, and a clear and incisive contribution to the debates. In
short, Marais has produced a book that represents the essential entry point for
any scholar of the transition to neoliberal democracy and, from my own
experience, I know just how invaluable students have found this book as
an introduction to the complex debates surrounding South Africa’s political
economy.
The first section of the book offers a detailed examination of why and how
the ANC adopted neoliberal policies during the transition period which, as the
author admits (p. 1), effectively reads as an abbreviated version of his pre-
vious book Limits to change. The chapter on health (particularly AIDS and
tuberculosis) is particularly compelling. Marais provides a nuanced analysis
of how the AIDS crisis escalated under the Mbeki presidency and the political

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