Question

Discuss three reasons for setting up the States Reorganization Commission after India’s independence.

Answer 1

Reasons for setting up the States Reorganization Commission:

1. Our national movement had promised the linguistic principle as the basis of the formation of states. In fact, after the Nagpur session of Congress in 1920, the principle was recognized as the basis of the reorganization of the Indian National Congress party itself. Many provincial Congress committees were created by linguistic zones which did not follow the administrative divisions of British India.
2. Things changed after independence and partition. Our leaders felt that carving out States on the basis of language might lead to disruption and disintegration, so the central leadership decided to postpone the matter of reorganization of states.
3. This decision of the national leadership was challenged by the local leaders and the people. Protests began in Telugu-speaking areas of the old Madras province which included present-day Tamil Nadu, parts of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka. This came to be known as the Vishalandhra movement.
4. This movement demanded that the Telugu-speaking areas should be separated from the Madras province of which they were apart and be made into a separate Andhra province. Very soon this movement gathered momentum.
5. Congress leader and veteran Gandhian died after 56 days of an indefinite fast. People in large numbers took to the streets and their violent outbursts in the Andhra region. Finally, the Prime Minister announced the formation of a separate Andhra state in December 1952.
6. The formation of Andhra Pradesh spurred the struggle for making other states on linguistic lines in other parts of the country. These struggles forced the central government into appointing a States Reorganization Commission in 1953 to look into the question of redrawing the boundaries of States.