Wednesday, December 9, 2009

India: Re-Dividing or Re-Arranging

Telangana Issue...So much fuss over dividing regions...
When the world: Europe, North & South America, even Indian Subcontinent (SAARC) are moving to form United lands, States within India think otherwise.

It would be highly unfair to either support or not support divisions. Both sides have their own reasons. Lets take this opportunity to go to the roots of the issue.

Problem: As I see it, there are various issues:
  1. Non-uniform levels of penetration of development to various areas..... Here development includes knowledge/education centers, employment, infrastructure.
  2. The whole of the power being concentrated at the Capital city of a State. As a guy from Chattisgarh puts it, before division, people had to travel 14 hours to Bhopal for any high court case, counselling or any other major work...... But now after the formation of Chattisgarh, the capital, Raipur is 4 hours from different regions of the state.
Now, I must clarify, I am not in the favour of dividing regions, but in favour of finding effective solutions for the issues. Lets brainstorm some probabilities:
  1. Maximum of the issues would get resolved if India's political & administrative structure take a cue from the corporate houses. If the MPs, MLAs, Municipalities, Panchayats do their job [ONLY requirement is they do their JOB]. This would eradicate a lot of non uniformities.
  2. De-centralisation is the key. I agree that we have Panchayats to meet this. But we need more. We need to develop satellite towns and cities across the state, which can cater to the needs of the people across the length & breadth of the State. These cities can have shared networks, so that the burden is eased off the capital city.
  3. A strong point to aid the points above is taking responsibility & rising to the occasion. A very strong factor is culture. People grow up to be what they are as per the way they are groomed. Political parties, Organisations, Corporates should develop a culture of inclusiveness, mixing local factors along with internationalisation.
As a common man, an individual, I am concerned with facilities reaching me at the end of the day. I want to see my "tax paying Rs" creating value for me & my family. Be it 1 state or 2 or 3 is immaterial when it comes to existence.

We do not live in a world of seclusion. There is high level of inter dependance between all sections, n that is a great factor fostering evolution & growth. So the solution lies in acceptance; In Enforcing present structure rather than creating new complexities.