. R egionalism in the I ndian C ontext Regionalism in India is rooted in India’s diversity of languages, cultures, tribes, and religions. It is also encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity markers in particular regions, and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation. Indian federalism has been a means of accommodating these regional sentiments (Bhattacharyya ).
After Independence, initially the Indian state continued with the British- Indian arrangement dividing India into large provinces, also called ‘presidencies’. (Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta were the three major presidencies; incidentally, all three cities after which the presidencies were named have changed their names recently). These were large multi-ethnic and multilingual provincial states constituting the major political-administrative units of a semi-federal state called the Union of India. Soon after the adoption of the Constitution, all these units of the colonial era had to be reorganised into ethno-linguistic States within the Indian union in response to strong popular agitations.
(See Box . .) Linguistic States Helped Strengthen Indian Unity The Report of the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) which was implemented on November , , has helped transform the political and institutional life of the nation. The background to the SRC is as follows. In the 1920s, the Indian National Congress was reconstituted on lingusitic lines.
Its provincial units now followed the logic of language – one for Marathi speakers, another for Oriya speakers, etc. At the same time, Gandhi and other leaders promised their followers that when freedom came, the new nation would be based on a new set of provinces based on the principle of language. However, when India was finally freed in , it was also divided. Now, when the Box .