Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin (file photo)
The Chief Ministers' meeting being convened by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin in Chennai on March 22 should be seen as the beginning of a major effort to reclaim India's democratic federalism. The purpose of the meeting is to jointly resist the Union government's hasty moves to unilaterally demarcate parliamentary constituencies. Apart from Tamil Nadu, the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana will participate in this. In addition, the Chief Ministers and other leaders of states like Odisha, West Bengal and Punjab have been invited. The delimitation process is being carried out without any transparency. The main concern is that it will lead to some states (especially the southern states) losing seats in Parliament and others (especially the Hindi states) gaining seats. Although the Union Home Minister says that the strength of any state will not decrease, no one takes his word at face value. Moreover, the Union government has not released any indication about the composition or members of the Delimitation Commission. As in many other matters, the Modi government's opacity in this, too, is questionable. The fear that the huge imbalance in the strength of the membership will increase the dominance of the North Indian states in governance and policies that are already there and that the South Indian states will become irrelevant is not unfounded. In that sense, the attempt about to begin in Chennai is also to restore the democracy and unity of the country.
The delimitation of constituencies demands urgent attention. At the same time, the states are facing other equally important issues. The secret plans implemented by the NDA government to expand and maintain the dominance of the Sangh Parivar are of such nature as to concentrate power in the Union government. While delimitation of constituencies aims at the monopoly of political power, many others aim at cultural-economic-educational totalitarianism. Tamil Nadu itself has taken the lead in the struggle against the imposition of Hindi, not as an issue of one state alone. The National Education Policy and the new UGC rules all undermine the states' right to self-determination in education which is a subject under the concurrent list. There is no doubt that giving too much importance to one language, when India has many official languages, is a path to centralization of power and cultural homogeneity. There are other political methods by which the BJP imposes its dominance over the states. An example is the ‘super governors’ who do not hesitate to openly express their bias and mock people’s governments. Turning states into dependent territories through economic discrimination is also an abuse of power that affects all states. While in the past the tax money distributed by the Union government to the states was distributed above politics, under the BJP, politics and other sectarian considerations are seen on a large scale. The figure of how much the Union government returns to the states for every rupee they pay to the Union government shows a huge gap.
For example, in 2017, every rupee paid by Kerala brought back just 25 paise, while UP got 1 rupee, 79 paise. This year, a total of Rs 27,336 crore was given to the five South Indian states (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), while Rs 62,024 crore was given to the three Hindi states (UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh). The five states that contribute significantly to the Indian economy are getting only 15 percent of the total funds. Last year, when UP alone got 17.9 per cent of the funds, these five states put together got 15.8 per cent. The unilateral plans being implemented by the Modi government today are defeating the goal of a secure and progressive India. Such blatant injustice is a threat to the integrity of the country. One wishes that the regressive forces, who had come out making noise when the rupee symbol was changed to Tamil, had given a fraction of that importance to the value of the rupee. The struggle against the centralization of power by the Union government is a struggle for federalism, which is essential for the unity of the country - a struggle that patriots should take up.
