Happy Independence Day!

1 day to go...we will be commemorating india's 63rd year of independence from British rule in 1947 and the birth of the world's biggest democracy! From automobile to aeronautics, education to economy, agriculture to sports, we have come a long way to become a leading nation of the world.

A fact that marred the happiness of the fruits by the blood of martyrs was the fact that the country was divided into India and Pakistan. But thats past and we are now 63 years ahead from that incident. People say, we must look forward taking the learnings from the past. However, it does not appear to be the case for us. I dont think we have taken that drastic event which happened almost six decades ago as a learning! Why?...what am I referring to?

Countrymen, I am referring to the initiatives within the country demanding for division of states. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 was a major reform of the boundaries and governance of India's states and territories. The act reorganised the boundaries of India's states along linguistic lines. What triggered implementation of such an act? Post independence, ethnic tensions spurred the Indian Parliament to reorganize the country along ethnic and linguistic lines and in 1956 by means of the States Reorganisation Act, it was implemented.

Well...isn't there an interesting aspect here! There were spurts of tensions in the indian parliament around ethnic and linguistic lines barely 8 years after we gained our independence from the british rule! So, while I mentioned above about learning from the past, what is there after all to learn? The indian political bandwagon is simply carrying on the legacy. Demands to separate states based on ethnic and lingusitic lines are still in vogue. Statehoods were conferred to many states after 1956, the latest being , Jharkhand and Uttaranchal in November 2000.

The question here is not about how justified the demands for creation of new states are but whether it is right to do so on ethnic and lingusitic lines? I feel it is very important for the administration to scrutinize such demands. There must be a guideline which should be used to justify such initiatives. Whether the creation of a separate state will foster better economic development and facilities for people residing there. Such guideline should weed out initiaves taken to gain unfair political advantage by some parties.

Personally, I dont think, merely creation of separate states should be looked as a solution even if the demands are justified. As this results in overlooking the bigger picture. Creation of new states, reflects the government's inability to address the regional developments at the first place, which is one the root cause that brings people together to join agitations and demand for a new state. This gives a great opportunity for some politicians to use the people's anguish to gain political mileage. This is where the real purpose of demanding a separate state is defeated. Politicians lure the "mis-motivated" people into unreasonable protest, processions and even illegal activities.

So, the real solution lies on the shoulders of the people and the government representatives o make sure that their regions received due importance and on the governments to immediately address any disparity issues. If this is not addressed properly, sooner or later, there would be many more unreasonable demands for separate states, and the basic issue of regional development disparities would be forgotten, and the concentration would be on just getting a separate state.

Happy Independence day to all!