{"id":107940,"date":"2020-10-23T14:04:45","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T21:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107940"},"modified":"2020-10-25T16:18:40","modified_gmt":"2020-10-25T23:18:40","slug":"the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-a-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/23\/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-a-1\/","title":{"rendered":"THE POHOTTUWA GOVERNMENT OF SRI LANKA Part 2 A 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Part 2 of this series is on international relations. The series\nstarts with India. Despite its impressive size, India is a very young sovereign state,\ndating only from 1947. Before foreign rule, India consisted of a number of\nseparate kingdoms. These vanished under Muslim and British rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nresponsibility of creating the new \nRepublic of India  in 1947,  from an inherited  jumble of \nprincely states and British ruled states, was given to Nehru, who solved\nthe problem by creating a set of linguistic states.  In the process all sorts of adjacent areas\nwere dragged in against their wishes, to form contiguous states.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andhra Pradesh was the first to be created. It was created out\nof   former Madras province, Hyderabad,\nand Mysore, so that Telegu speakers would constitute its majority. Karnataka\nwas created by merging the Kannada speaking areas of southern Deccan. Madhya\nPradesh was created out of linguistically heterogeneous area of the former\nCentre Province and Madhya Bharat. Gujerat, Maharashtra,  Bombay became one state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These artificially, hastily drawn states were not going to last\nand India knew this. The Indian constitution\ntherefore permitted the formation of new states, provided that the division was\nhelpful to India. Parliament can  \ncreate, abolish, truncate, or rename  \nstates.  It can alter boundaries,\nincrease or decrease the size of states. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  India has eagerly accepted this invitation to\nfragment. The original boundaries are disappearing, said analysts. Gujarat\nbroke away from Marathi speaking Maharashtra.   \nJharkhand, Chattisgarh and  \nUttaranchal were carved out of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.\nTelengana became India\u2019s 29 state in 2014. Telengana was enthusiastically\nreceived in India <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More new states have been asked for. Maharashtra said they want\na new state of Vidharba.  Uttar Pradesh\nwanted to divide into Harit Pradesh, Sundelkhand, and Provanchal.  In Assam the Bodo people want Bodoland, and\nKarbi want their own state. West Bengal wants Gorkhaland for Nepali speaking\nGorkha community, and Cooch Behar for the locals. In Rajasthan they want a Maru\nstate.  All these states complained that\nthe existing states had confined development to the centre. India\u2019s northeast is a very combustible\nregion. Some 250 ethnic groups are arrayed against one another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

State governments are now very powerful . The states are unruly\nand difficult to control. Power is flowing away to state capitals where some s\nstrong men and women are ruling, said analysts. \nUttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati cancelled a land grant made by the\ncentral government, banned a meeting Sonia Gandhi was attending and diverted\nher motorcade in 2010. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The states are now represented in regional parties, and the\ncentral government consists of coalitions of these parties, so states cannot be\nignored at central level either. A new dimension has come with coalition\ngovernments at the centre, said analysts. State parties are now able to\ninterfere in centre policies and influence centre-state relations. . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nIndian central government has been in headlong retreat for the past three\ndecades, said Chandraprema. The powers\nof the Central government were challenged in Supreme Court in West Bengal vs.\nUnion (1962) Rajasthan vs. Union (1977). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe West Bengal case, the central government had wanted to take over some coal\nbearing state land. West Bengal said that centre could not take over land\nvested  or owned by the state. In the\nRajasthan case, Central government had asked six states, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,\nPunjab, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Orissa to dissolve its assemblies and hold\nfresh elections. The states     said this\nrequest was illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian Constitution gives the President the power to take\nover a state when necessary. By 1998, President\u2019s rule had been declared 106\ntimes in the states.   But President\u2019s\nrule is now questioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nM.M.Punchhi commission of 2010 supported  this approach. The commission was willing to\nallow the states to decide on who would be their governor. It was prepared to\nrestrict the discretionary powers of the Governors of the states in appointing\nand dismissing chief minister and informing the central government that a state\nof emergency has arisen. The commission also recommended that when a situation\nof public disorder justified central government intervention in a state that\nthe state be asked before intervening. They also  recommended that the imposition of presidents\nrule on a state should be subject to judicial review. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Constitution of India recognizes only one common citizenship for\nthe entire Indian people, but the\nIndian states are not interested in creating a unified India.  They \nemphasis language .There is linguistic chauvinism and intolerance. State\njobs are exclusively for the majority language group.  India had the world\u2019s biggest ever electricity\npower outage In July 2012, where three regional grids, collapsed entirely. The\nreason was that every state draws far more than their specific quotas from the\npower grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The states oppose each other. There are disputes over territory\nand water. Karnataka and Maharashtra are fighting over Belgaum, they both want\nit. It is a Marathi speaking district which had been given to Kannada speaking\nKarnataka in 1955.  Maharashtra has gone\nto courts. New Delhi is on the side of Karnataka, because otherwise it will get\ninvolved in reopening boundary cases. Commission appointed to study the matter\nstated that Belgaum belongs to Maharashtra but still the two states are\nfighting over it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nare fights over water management between the states. Punjab and Haryana fought\nover Sutlej water, Kerala and Tamilnadu  \nover Mullaperiyar dam. Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are now fighting\nover Bhabli dam. Delhi and Uttar Pradesh had a running feud on a host of things\nincluding bus routes. Jammu and Kashmir want to leave Mother India and join\nPakistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006 Kerala and Tamilnadu were clashing over Mullaperiyar\ndam.  The public also joined it and burnt\nKerala buses, and blocked the road between Tamil nadu and Kerala. Prime Minister\nManmohan Singh deployed at Tamil nadu\u2019s request, the Central Reserve Police\nForce to protect the dam which irrigated the states four districts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

India has two national languages, Hindi and English.\nNo one knows English and Hindi is spoken only by about 42% of the population. There\nare also 22 state languages, which operate only in their states. These include\nTamil, Malayalam, Telegu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujerati, Rajastani, Urdu, Punjabi,\nKashmiri, Hindi, Bihari, Oriya (Orissa) Bengali, Assamese. Primary education is\nin these languages. In the 2014 general election, the media reported that MPs\ntook their oaths in Hindi, English, Kannada, Assamese, Oriya and Sanskrit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis also the Hindu Muslim clash, which is well known.\nHindus and Moslems have fought over the Babri mosque at Ayodhya.  In Gujarat, Muslim mob had in 2002 burned a\ntrainload of Hindu activists at a railway station. Then in 2014 also in Gujerat,\nHindus had locked 23 Muslims who had fled into a house and then set it on fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India presently  has 28\nstates and 22 languages. Kuldip Nayar notes that that India has many fissiparous\ntendencies. The states are solidifying into separate entities and threatening\nto become permanent compartments. Consensus is becoming difficult. Even basic\nissues cannot get approval in Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 India will eventually\n\u2018Balkanize\u2019 into separate sovereign states, despite the anti-secession clause\nin the Indian constitution.  It will be a\nmessy break up. Landlocked states will try to get access to the sea.   States will fight over boundaries and water.  Experts now warn\nof water wars due to scarcity of water and have identified India as one country\nwhere this will take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninternational community knows that India will eventually break up. That is why\nIndia is never described as an emerging political power, only an economic\npower. Once it balkanizes it will not be an economic power either.  \u2018TIME\u2019 says China views India with disdain.\nChina thinks India can be easily dissolved into its composite, regional\nparts.  ( continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Part 2 of this series is on international relations. The series starts with India. Despite its impressive size, India is a very young sovereign state, dating only from 1947. Before foreign rule, India consisted of a number of separate kingdoms. These vanished under Muslim and British rule. The responsibility of creating the new  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}