Just before the 2024 Lok Sabha election, cleavages emerged with a specific reference to the North-South divide and it has intensified in recent times. There are at least two grounds for the cleavages, which include the stabilisation of the population in south India due to various historical, socio-economic, political and policy initiatives. However, there has been a population explosion in north India, especially in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The contrasting models of population stabilisation in south India and explosion in north India has been adversely affecting the distribution of financial resources and representation in terms of the number of seats in Parliament. The second ground is the imposition of Hindi as part of the three language formula on south Indian states—that too without imposing any south Indian language in the north.
Delimitation Threatens Both NDA and Non-NDA Parties
Delimitation will affect not only the non-NDA parties, but also NDA partners
Initially, the argument of disproportionate distribution of financial resources came from Kerala, with statistical figures in the payment of taxes and returns from the central government before the 2014 election itself. The issues of downsizing the representation through delimitation and the anti-Hindi agitation have emerged from Tamil Nadu after the 2024 election. In recent times, Tamil Nadu has taken a lead for the constitutional rights of the south Indian states, and one after the other, southern states have been joining the chorus.
The North-South divide isn’t being articulated merely by financial resources, representation and language, but it also has deeper historical roots, which are raising questions of cultural diversity and civilisational variation. Historians argue that south India is the representation of Dravidian culture, which is indigenous, linguistically plural and rational in thinking. North India is the manifestation of the Aryan civilisation, monolinguist domination and religious life centred within the four-fold Brahmanical varna and caste system.
Political parties argue that the advanced performance of the south Indian states has become a demographic penalty in representative politics.
Historically, the southern states were home to diversified religious and philosophical traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam and Christianity. The focus of the monarchical rule in south India—like the Cholas, the Vijayanagara Empire, the Kakatiya Kingdom and the Verma dynasty—was on local administration, irrigation, temple-centric art and architecture, and contribution to the flourishing of literature in regional and vernacular languages, multi-cropping agricultural practices and artisanal handicrafts. Therefore, the symptoms of the industrial revolution like oil pressing and weaving came into existence during the segmentary state of the Vijayanagara Empire. In the modern period in the south, it is also evidence of the spread of colonial political legacy that contributed to the modern western, rational and scientific education, ideas and thought. The colonial legacy also reflected in the administrative system, legal procedures, media, cultural ethos and the religious practices of south Indian states, which were under the control of the Madras Presidency, except the princely states like Travancore and the Nizam of Telangana.
There was also the anti-colonial national movement right from the mid-19th century in the form of zamindars, peasants, tribal revolts and the Gandhian agitation led by the Indian National Congress. The anti-caste social movements—spearheaded by Sri Narayana Guru, E. V Ramaswamy Naicker in the early 20th century—and the anti-feudal Leftist movements in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana set the agenda for the electoral politics as well as social justice. South India has a long history of struggle for social justice in the form of reservation policy to distribute public resources to different segments of the socially marginalised , ranging from the untouchables (Dalits), tribals, to the backward classes and religious minorities. North India is known to be a land of the Aryans with Sanskrit and Hindi domination, a rigid caste system, and anti-reservation movement. But with the rise of new social classes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the agitation for reservations started and the newly-emerging assertions were guided by Jayaprakash Narayan (a kayasth) and Ram Manohar Lohia (a baniya). Therefore, Christophe Jaffrelot, in his 2003 book India라이브 바카라 Silent Revolution, observed that the historical roots of the reservation policy in south India go back to the pre-independent colonial era and in the north, it started in the post-independent period.
Initially, the social deprivation was perceived by colonial administrators in the Macaulay education system in the form of disparity between Hindus and Muslims, while Christian missionaries were sent among the untouchables and tribals. Over a period of time, the artisanal communities and cultivating groups expressed themselves in the form of caste associations for identities and a share in the public resources. Therefore, from 1910s onwards, a series of caste associations—which came into existence to build awareness and mobilise for their identity in particular—began to prepare the social infrastructure for democratic politics in the post-independent period. The process of social identity-centric mobilisation, in fact, has attracted behavioural scholars like Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph to study the social basis for the operation of democratic politics and functioning of the elections in the caste-ridden society with special reference to Tamil Nadu. The 1967 study titled The Modernity of Tradition is a path breaking one to understand the role of caste in Indian politics and provides the theoretical framework to liberal democratic scholars like Rajni Kothari to bring out a volume on Caste in Indian Politics in 1970. The reference of these studies is that the democratisation of the hierarchically structured Indian society started much early in south India through caste associations for their proportional share in social and economic policies.
The first constitutional amendment Act to the Indian Constitution was the result of an initiative from south India, where a communal Government Order for a caste-wise quota for reservations in the composite Madras state was made. However, it was challenged by Champakam Dorairajan in the Supreme Court, while referring to provisions of right to equal opportunities, which are ensured in the Constitution. Therefore, the then Supreme Court struck down the reservation policy. The then Congress government at the national level, anticipating the widespread agitation from the lower castes for reservations, initiated the first constitutional amendment to insert the clauses to identify the socially and educationally backward classes. The first constitutional amendment, which was the result of the reservation policy experiment in south India, subsequently became the basis for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation policy at the national level.
Tamil Nadu has taken a lead for the constitutional rights of the south Indian states, and one after the other, southern states have been joining the chorus.
In post-independent India, one of the finest Congress politicians, Kamaraj Nadar, as chief minister of Tamil Nadu, introduced the mid-day meal scheme in public schools for the first time in the country, and over a period of time, it has been replicated all over the country. Nadar rose to the national level. However, the grounds on which he was denied the prime ministerial position was due to his lack of fluency in Hindi. Dravidian rationalism has been the political ideology of the parties in Tamil Nadu. With their social justice agenda, the state enforced 69 per cent reservations for different segments of the society for a long time.
Taking a cue, states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have started implementing reservations in the education and employment sectors, and local bodies. Kerala went ahead and introduced radical land reforms, total literacy campaign, people라이브 바카라 campaign for democratic decentralisation and the self-help group movement. It is evidenced that the post-independent developmental programmes, the construction of the multi-purpose irrigation dams, the Green Revolution, decentralisation of power and making them accessible to the common man through digitalisation have immensely contributed towards the socio-economic and educational advancement of the people in south India, while outperforming the north Indian states in key human development indicators such as health, education and economic opportunities.
For better performance of south Indian states on the social and human development indicators, there has been a long historical process. The process has been taking place due to the social movements, caste associations, and the state policies. For the proper implementation of the state policies, institutional arrangements are made for the active participation of the citizen in the distribution of resources in proportion to their population size. All these factors have immensely contributed to the social transformation in south India for the formation of potential social and human capital. However, it is stagnant in north India.
Therefore, the political parties, which have been articulating south Indian concerns, argue that the advanced performance of the south Indian states has become a demographic penalty in representative politics. In fact, the two north Indian Brahmin prime ministers—Indira Gandhi of the Congress in 1971 and A. B. Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2001—postponed the delimitation for 50 years, which is the genesis for the present controversy. The basic intention to postpone was to balance the population size of North-South states, but that never happened—rather, it has intensified the developmental divide. At the same time, there were two prime ministers from south India, P. V. Narasimha Rao and H. D. Deve Gowda. However, during their period, delimitation was not a political issue.
In the 2024 general election, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 49 of 129 Lok Sabha seats in south Indian states. That number mattered a lot to form the government at the national level for the third consequent term, as its own strength had declined in the Lok Sabha from north India. Therefore, these issues—which have been emerging in the south Indian states—are not only concerns for non-NDA parties, but also for the NDA partners. That라이브 바카라 why the NDA partners like BJP, the Telugu Desam Party, the YSR Congress Party, the Jana Sena in Andhra Pradesh, the Janata Dal (S) in Karnataka, the smaller parties in Kerala and Tamil Nadu will have to take their stand for the purpose of electoral mobilisation in the future.
(Views expressed are personal)
E. Venkatesu is with the department of political science, University of Hyderabad
This article is a part of 바카라's April 11, 2025 issue 'Viksit South', which explores the growing north-south divide in India. It appeared in print as 'Winners’ Loss'.