Question

What do you mean by a linguistic state in India?

Answer 1

Linguistic states are the states divided on the basis of language.

States in India – Creation of States on Linguistic Criteria After Independence

• During the rule of British rule in India, the states were merely divided on the basis of administrative convenience, princely states, and coinciding with the areas annexed by British.
• The National Movement of India had rejected division of the states on the above given basis and promised that new states would be formed on the basis of linguistic principles.
• During the freedom struggle, linguistic criteria was used for formation of provincial congress committees and reorganization of Indian National Congress party.

Postponement on Creation of States on Linguistic Criteria – After Independence

• After independence, Indian leaders were initially hesitant to bifurcate states on the basis of linguistics as they felt it may lead to disintegration and disruption.
• Leaders felt facing and solving economic and social challenges were of more priority.
• The memories of partition of India were still fresh and the fate of Princely states were not completely decided yet at that point of time.
• There was concern that separate states would put the unity of India in danger.
• There was fear that separation of states on the basis of linguistic principle, it would encourage separatism in India.

Formation of States

• The then Prime Minister of India announced the formation of a separate Andhra state in December 1952. This was the result of mass unrest, violent protests, injuries and deaths of protestors due to police firing, resignation of some legislators.
• This outburst of people was due to the death of Veteran Congress Leader Pottu Sriramulu who had gone on an indefinite fast for 56 days which ultimately led to his death. His fast was for reorganising the earlier Madras Province and creation of a separate state of Andhra Pradesh for Telugu speaking people.
• The movement for separate Andhra was known as the Vishalandhra Movement.
• The Andhra movement created the struggle for creation of other states on the basis of linguistic principle. Hence, the Central Government formed the States Reorganisation Commission in 1953 to redraw the boundaries of the states.
• On the recommendation of the Commission, the State Reorganization Act was passed in 1956 which led to the creation of 14 new states and 6 new union territories in India.
• The Indian leadership felt that it was more democratic for creation of states on linguistic basis, the threat of division and separatism would subside

Linguistic States in India

• The principle of diversity in India was accepted with the acceptance of linguistic states.
• All the states did not immediately become linguistic states with the acceptance of the principle of linguistic states. The states of Gujarat and Maharashtra were created in 1960, prior to this there was an experiment on a bilingual Bombay state having Marathi and Gujarati speaking people.
• There were two linguistic groups in the state of Punjab – Punjabi-speaking and Hindi speaking. There was a demand for a separate state by the Punjabi speaking people. However the separation of state materialised only in 1966, 10 years after 1956. The states of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana were carved out of the state of Punjab.
• Nagaland became a state in 1963.
• In 1987, the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram were created.
• In 1972, Meghalaya was carved out of Assam.
• Tripura and Manipur were also created in 1972.

Later on, linguistic basis was not the only criteria for creation of new states. Regional imbalances in a region and separate regional culture raised demands for formation of new states, this Jharkhand was split from Bihar, Chhattisgarh was separated from Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh. These new states were formed in 2000.

Separation of States on Linguistic principles strengthened national unity, since it did not lead to disintegration of India.