Redrawing the map: linguistic states

Independent India's internal map did not match its languages. The Constitution's original scheme grouped states into four categories — Part A, B, C and D — inherited from provinces and princely unions, cutting across linguistic communities. Demands to redraw boundaries by language began immediately, and the government at first resisted, fearing that linguistic states would weaken national unity. Two early commissions, the Dhar Commission (1948) and the JVP Committee (1948-49), recommended reorganisation on administrative convenience rather than language, and their reports were shelved by popular demand.

The turning point was Andhra. Potti Sriramulu, a Gandhian activist, fasted for a separate Telugu-speaking state and died on 15 December 1952 after 56 days; the protests that followed forced the government to create Andhra State in October 1953, the first state formed on a linguistic basis, carved out of Madras. The States Reorganisation Commission, appointed in 1953 under Justice Fazl Ali with K. M. Panikkar and H. N. Kunzru as members, then recommended a broader linguistic reorganisation, accepting language as the main basis while weighing administrative and economic factors.

The States Reorganisation Act, enacted on 31 August 1956 and in force from 1 November 1956, redrew the map into 14 states and 6 union territories, abolishing the Part A-D classification through the 7th Constitutional Amendment. Andhra Pradesh united Telugu areas; Kerala united Malayalam areas; Mysore, later Karnataka, united Kannada areas; and Bombay remained a bilingual state of Marathi and Gujarati speakers, a compromise that lasted only until 1960, when it split into Maharashtra and Gujarat. Punjab, with its mix of Punjabi, Hindi and Pahari speakers, was reorganised later, in 1966, into Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

Linguistic reorganisation is often judged a success: it gave large language communities a state of their own, made administration accessible in the local language, and, contrary to early fears, strengthened rather than weakened the Union, because linguistic identity found expression within the federation instead of against it. But it did not end boundary disputes or demands for new states — Telangana, created in 2014 from Andhra Pradesh, is the most recent — and it left linguistic minorities inside every state, a problem the Constitution addresses through safeguards for linguistic minorities and official language provisions.