Fast Forward Creation of new states The acceptance of the principle of linguistic states did not mean, however, that all states immediately became linguistic states. There was an experiment of ‘bilingual’ Bombay state, consisting of Gujarati- and Marathi-speaking people. After a popular agitation, the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat were created in . In Punjab also, there were two linguistic groups: Hindi-speaking and Punjabi-speaking.
The Punjabi-speaking people demanded a separate state. But it was not granted with other states in . Statehood for Punjab came ten years later, in , when the territories of today’s Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were separated from the larger Punjab state. Another major reorganisation of states took place in the north-east in .
Meghalaya was carved out of Assam in . Manipur and Tripura too emerged as separate states in the same year. The states of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh came into being in . Nagaland had become a state much earlier in .
Language did not, however, remain the sole basis of organisation of states. In later years sub-regions raised demands for separate states on the basis of a separate regional culture or complaints of regional imbalance in development. Three such states, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand, were created in . Telangana has emerged as a new state on June, .
The story of reorganisation has not come to an end. There are many regions in the country where there are movements demanding separate and smaller states. These include Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Harit Pradesh in the western region of Uttar Pradesh and the northern region of West Bengal. The US has one-fourth of our population but states.
Why can’t India have more than states?