The duality of India

The relative calm in southern states, while the north of the country sees frequent protests should be a cause for concern

A visit to a few cities in two south Indian states a few days after demonetisation of November 8, 2016, was a significant reminder of how the south of India is different in many ways from its northern counterpart. There were hardly any queues outside banks to exchange old, demonetised currency notes in return of the new ones. Online transactions by credit or debit cards or through payment wallets were relatively easy, without shopkeepers insisting on shelling out cash in return of goods. Tour operators were even willing to accept old, demonetised currency notes without charging any premium. There was relative peace and life seemed to be, by and large, tension-free.

All this was in stark contrast to what was happening in most north Indian cities and towns. Not just the capital city of New Delhi, but many other towns in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and even Gujarat reported long queues of customers at banks waiting to exchange old currency notes, traders reluctant to accept online payments, insisting on cash instead, and a general environment of tension as well as unease prevailing in public places.

Somewhat similar developments were noticed when the farmers launched their agitation against the three farm laws in 2020 and 2021. The opposition to the farm laws was initially believed to be an all-India agitation, with farmers across the country unhappy with the newly promulgated laws that they feared would harm them. However, after some initial protests in Maharashtra and West Bengal, the farmers’ agitation soon became an agitation led mainly by farmers of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Farmers of south India simply ignored the new laws on agriculture. Once again, the states in south India reacted to a policy move by the Centre quite differently from their counterparts in north India.

And now in the last few days, the protests against Agnipath, the Modi government’s scheme for recruitment of soldiers, are largely concentrated in the north Indian states. There were some incidents in Telangana, but in subsequent days, protests have been mostly seen in north India. Once again, this showed how south India responds to the Centre’s major policy initiatives in quite a different way from north India.
 

Illustration: Binay Sinha

Old-timers will recall that this is not an entirely new phenomenon. When Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency in June 1975, the states in south India responded in a completely different way than those in the north. There will be many more instances to show this duality in response to major disruptive economic or political initiatives from the Centre. But the question that needs to be answered is why the response from south India is so different from that of north India and whether this indicates a deeper fault line in the country’s governance structure.

Economically, the south of India has been growing at a pace that certainly is better than that in both the north and east of India. The average population growth in most south Indian states has been much lower than that in states in the north, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. This has to some extent contributed to a higher rise in per capita income in the southern states. Many states in the south have seen a gradual reduction in their population’s dependence on agriculture as a livelihood. This has given rise to manufacturing and the technology-enabled services sector in these states. The spread of education, health-care services and infrastructure improvement are three other areas, where the southern states have moved ahead at a faster pace than those in many states of the north.

In contrast, the southern states do not enjoy the same political clout in national politics as the states in north and west. This equation is likely to get worse for the south if the constituency delimitation exercise is undertaken after 2026, the year set as the deadline for this exercise through an amendment to the Constitution in 2002. Clearly, the northern states would increase their say in national politics, with a larger number of representatives in both the houses of Parliament, while the southern states may not add to their representation in either of the chambers. The thought that a national party can hope to lead the government at the Centre, even though it rules only one of the southern states is a disturbing reminder of the declining electoral as well as political importance of the south.

This disconnect between the politics as practised in the north and the politics as played out in the south could have other serious ramifications for the future of India. From an economic point of view, the southern states have a big stake in the huge growing market offered by the states in the rest of India. But the dangers of increasing political disempowerment of the southern states could become an emotive issue for the regional parties at the helm there. They could legitimately ask for a greater role in national politics, which would be further challenged by the rapidly rising electoral power of the north.

Already, there have been protests from southern states on the way the finance commissions have decided to allocate central resources to states based on population and development parameters — factors that once again earmark a relatively higher share of the central resources for many states in the north. The southern states also feel that they have lost out in the new framework for the goods and services tax, in which the consuming states tend to collect more taxes than those which produce those goods and services. The southern states may be grumbling about this as well.

It is important that the south’s disconnect with and disenchantment about north India should receive due attention in New Delhi. These may well be early days of a bigger problem that may have just begun to brew. Sooner this is nipped in the bud with positive interventions through policy initiatives, the better it would be for the governance structure of the country in the coming days.