India's Southern States Up The Ante !

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BY R.K. MISRA

Vanity is the quicksand of reason .It sucks into the muck.

 Many a glory seeking political gamble began with fanning dormant ambers only to find the fiery red of the flames descend on their dreams like the blackening haze of falling ashes.

 What began as a face-off between the Centre and Tamil Nadu over the non-implementation of the 3- language formula as part of the National Education Policy (NEP) has now engulfed many more issues critical to the Southern states.

Barring Chandrababu Naidu’s, Andhra Pradesh, all the others-Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have come together on a common platform. That the mounting disquiet amongst the Southern states of the country is crossing the bounds to engulf leaders of other opposition states as well as political entities should be cause for concern for the BJP- ruled Centre which is hobbling on the crutches of Naidu and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. Both have been put on notice for their silence on the Waqf amendment Bill.

On March 22,leaders of several states came together to express solidarity against the BJP bid to reduce the number of Lok Sabha seats in the Southern States through delimitation. “It is doing so to stay in power by winning seats in the northern part of the country”, they said. The Joint Action Committee set up for the purpose has sought an extension on the freeze, based on the 1971 census, by another 25 years.

The meeting was hosted by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, and attended by the Chief Ministers of Kerala, Telangana, and Punjab — Pinarayi Vijayan, Revanth Reddy, and Bhagwant Mann, respectively — Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K.T. Rama Rao, and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik (through video conference), among others.

An international study has surmised that when the South refuses to pay for the North-or be under its political domination the divergence between the trajectories of the Northern, Southern as well as the Western part of the country is creating tension in the Indian union. The redistribution of financial resources remains a contentious issue, not only because of the very uneven development of the country region-wise but also because of demographic reasons. In India, the main taxes are collected by the central government which then allocates funds to the states in keeping with a complex distribution system

The study titled” the challenge of contrasted regional dynamics” focus on India  and has been led by Dr Christophe Jaffrelot,a senior fellow on India at the Institut Montaigne, an independent think-tank based in Paris. It points out that the five southern states which pay a great deal of taxes, receive little in return. ”The five southern states by virtue of their low population growth rates and higher levels of urbanization, have lost out the most. Kerala lost 27.7 per cent of the funds allocated to it between the 12th and 15th Finance Commissions and Tamil Nadu 23.1 per cent. Today, when we calculate, the difference between tax collection in a state as a percentage of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and what it receives from New Delhi, again as a proportion of its GSDP, we find that all the states in the South and East are losing out (except Andhra Pradesh) and are subsidizing those in the North(starting with Bihar) and the East”. The study goes into great amount of detail and backs its reasoning with considerable data.

The north-south divide is gathering resonance. Stalin is advocating for a “Dravidian” model common to the south emphasizing priority investment in human capital. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has already denounced the tax grab from which the south was suffering to the benefit of the north. The idea of a “Southern States Forum” is being talked about. Tensions are likely to increase for political, economic and social reasons.

Even otherwise, the anti-Hindi agitation has been a continuing strand of Tamil Nadu’s social fabric since 1937, when its teaching was made compulsory in the schools of Madras Presidency causing periodic upheavals. In January 1965 the agitation took a violent turn and 70 people including two policemen died prompting the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to issue an assurance that English would continue as the official language as long as the non-Hindi states wanted. The Official Languages Act was amended by the Indira Gandhi government in 1967 to guarantee the use of Hindi and English as official languages. The Congress lost power to the DMK the same year and has never regained the status of yore thereafter. Covert as well as overt attempts at promulgation of Hindi continue. Repetitive attempts ditto, the same fate ditto.

The Narendra Modi- led BJP was knocked out of reckoning of the southern states after losing its sole bastion in the South, Karnataka to the Congress in 2023. The Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BHRS) yielded to the Congress in Telangana later the same year. The saffron set-up is now desperate for a toehold down under. After its drubbing in West Bengal, consolidation in Haryana and worsting of AAP in Delhi, the BJP is now eyeing Bihar where elections are due later this year. Though short by a long hop, it still wants to keep Tamil Nadu and West Bengal perennially on the boil before it goes to the hustings in 2026. And that’s where the rub lies.

The Centre has virtually stoked the smoldering ashes and handed chief minister M.K.Stalin a burning issue by withholding the Samagra Shiksha funds of Rs 2,152 crores as it has refused to implement the three language formula in its schools where Hindi is the third language. Tamil Nadu has point blank refused to implement the three language formula as part of the National Education Policy (NEP).The state terms it as an attempt to bring in Hindi and Sanskrit through the backdoor.

Except the BJP, all the political parties in Tamil Nadu have opposed the implementation of the NEP. These include BJP allies, the Pattali Makkal Katchi and the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam. It is an infringement on state autonomy, they say.

Those who divide seeking to rule, invariably end up uniting the divided, at lethal cost to themselves. India’s history is liberally sprinkled with examples of expansion seekers ending up contracting their footprints into oblivion. #

 This syndicated news column was published in the Indian newspapers Orissapost and Lokmat Times editions dated  March 25, 2025  . Their links are given below:-

https://odishapostepaper.com/edition/5263/orissapost/page/9

https://epaper.lokmat.com/articlepage.php?articleid=LOKTIME_NPLT_20250325_6_1

 

 

 

 

 

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