http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3673-6995
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article examines the politics of State formation in India by taking up the case of Telangana. Drawing from the emerging literature on the politics of recognition and territorial accommodation in multinational federations, I argue that territorial accommodation of Telangana was made possible by the convergence of strategic interests and role of multiple actors to recognize Telangana’s distinctive territorial identity and accommodate its Statehood demand when an opportune ‘political opportunity structure’ emerged in the late 1990s till 2014. It extends the insights of ‘actor-centred’ institutionalism and contributes to an emerging literature which emphasizes the ‘multi-centred origins’ of border change and State formation in India in particular, and in multinational federations in general. By underscoring State formation as a complex process, this article cautions against a simplistic reading of the politics of State formation in India as an act of one-upmanship whereby the Centre can unilaterally make or break State borders.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges Wilfried Swenden, the co-ordinator of the Leverhulme International Network Project on ‘Continuity and Change in Indian Federalism’ for his kind invitation and support. He is also grateful to Lalithaambica, Officer on Special Duty at the Andhra Pradesh Assembly Secretariat, and staffs of AP Assembly library for their help and giving access to official documents. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the University of Bristol, Edinburgh and Hyderabad. It has benefitted from helpful comments of Harihar Bhattacharyya, Katharine Adeney, Louise Tillin, and Wilfried Swenden, for which he was thankful. He is also grateful to his colleagues K.K. Kailash and K.C. Suri for their support throughout this project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Kham Khan Suan Hausing http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3673-6995
Notes
1 Throughout this article I shall use ‘s’ in the upper case when referring to subunit(s) of the federation and ‘s’ in the lower case to refer to sovereign state(s) in international system.
2 See Tillin (Citation2013). Also see Chadda (Citation2002); Majeed (Citation2003); Mawdsley (Citation2002); Rudolph and Rudolph (Citation2010); Singh (Citation2007).
3 Under Article 3 of India’s Constitution, the Parliament can: (i) form a new State by separation of territory from any State or by uniting two or more States or parts of States or by uniting any territory to a part of any State; (ii) increase the area of any State; (iii) diminish the area of any State; (iv) alter the boundaries of any State; and (v) alter the name of any State. A bill in this regard requires the Parliament to get only the prior recommendation of the President of India and to consult, without the need to obtain concurrence, of the State(s) being affected.
4 Headed by Fazl Ali, SRC was appointed by the Government of India to report on ways of redrawing State boundaries. Both Nehru and SRC were concerned that merging a backward Telangana with a more prosperous coastal Andhra would unleash problems of incompatibilities.
5 The idea of ‘significant others’ is borrowed by Taylor (Citation1994, 32) from the psychologist, George Herbert Mead.
6 Many thanks to Katharine Adeney for drawing my attention to this.
7 In a recent article, Adeney (Citation2017, 131) considers that 16 of the 29 Indian States were created along ethnofederal lines.
8 Also see Cunningham (Citation2011), Cunningham and Weidmann (Citation2010), Keating (Citation2001), McGarry and O'Leary (Citation2009), and Nordlinger (Citation1972).
9 This was, however, a pretext to drive a religious wedge between Hindus and Muslims.
10 Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mayawati were known for their initial hesitation to concede separate States in their earlier stints as Chief Ministers of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, respectively.
11 Interview with Kodanda Ram, Chairman, Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC), Hyderabad, 29 December 2015.
12 The ‘negotiating power’ of parties is understood in terms of their electoral vote and seat share. See Petersohn, Behnke, and Rhode (Citation2015, 4).
13 The limited electoral representation of Telangana region in the State Legislative Assembly (119 out of the 294 elected members) pale into insignificance as numbers matters in the first-past-the-post system. Again under conditions of single dominant party, regionalist party like TPS hardly counts with their insignificant polity-wide seat share.
14 For a clarity on ethnic identity, see Chandra (Citation2006).
15 Interview with S.V. Srinivas, a film critic, 18 November 2014, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.
16 The term ‘ethno-symbolism’ is from Smith (Citation2009, 110–114).
17 The size of RC was subsequently expanded from 20 to 100 (Rao Citation1972, 99).
18 This practice was put in place by the ‘mulki rule’. It was originally issued as a firman (royal decree) in 1919 by the Nizam of Hyderabad to secure preferential access to subordinate civil service jobs to mulki (local residents) who fulfilled the residential requirement of staying in Telangana region for at least 15 years.
19 Interview with Ashok Tankashala, journalist, Hyderabad, 29 January 2016.
20 Computed from table 9.2 in Vaugier-Chatterjee (Citation2009, 289).
21 The first wave of Telangana movement started in 1968–1969 and the second wave started in 2001 with the formation of TRS and when liberalization of India’s economy happened to coincide with the demise of one party system both at the Centre and the States.
22 Chief Minister of AP from 1956 to 1960 and 1962–1964 who subsequently became President of India from 1977 to 1982.
23 This Formula, among others, sought to accelerate development of the backward areas and gave special consideration to the education and employment needs of educated youths hailing from Telangana.
24 Interview with I. Thirumali, historian, Hyderabad, 27 May 2015.
25 The Congress had formed the Telangana Congress Legislative Forum in 2001 to soar up its support base.
26 To understand why and how PWP change their ‘behaviour’ and ‘strategic’ choice/interest when confronted with a popular ‘niche party’ see Meguid, 2008.