1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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Linguistic Affiliation as an Organizing Principle majority. Figure 11 reveals the extensive changes
Language, formerly of relatively little political impor- wrought by linguistic reorganization over the period
tance, has since 1947 emerged as a potent political 1951-72.
force in Hindu-majority areas despite the lingering
role of religion as an aspect of ethnicity in postparti- The government's conciliatory attitude in regard to
tion. As a matter of organizational convenience, the linguistic reorganization did not mollify linguistic
Congress Party, beginning with Bihar in 1908, began groups sufficiently to guarantee their loyalty to the
to organize itself into linguistic provinces, even Union government. Within Madras, in particular, a
though most of the provinces of British India and sev- demand arose for an independent Dravidian nation-
eral of the larger princely states were multilingual sometimes dubbed "Dravidistan"-to comprise the
entities. It was not until 1920, however, that the Con- four new linguistic states in which Dravidian lan-
gress Party established linguistic units throughout guages were spoken. As matters transpired, the three
British India and made the creation of linguistic other Dravidian states of South India showed rela-
administrative provinces a plank in its platform for tively little enthusiasm for a Tamil-led Dravidian
political reform.: As Congress saw it, the arbitrariness nation, and the movement lost its momentum. But one
of the political map that resulted from the unplanned lasting outcome was the rise to power of the D3ravida
history of British territorial acquisition in India was an Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a Tamilian ethnic party
affront to the natural aspirations of-India's major lin- established in 1949. Alone or at the head of-a multi-
guistic groups. In any event, the call for linguistic party coalition, the DMK has ruled Madras, or Tamil
provinces was overshadowed as an issue by the more Nadu as it was renamed in 1969, for all but six years
inclusive agenda of Gandhi's noncooperation move- since it first came to power in 1967. Arguably, the pru-
ment. Conceivably, an unstated motive in the Con- dent willingness of the Congress Party to allow ethni-
gress Party's call for linguistic provinces was to divert cally minded Tamil politicians to enjoy the rewards of
popular attention away from communally based poli- power did as much as the lack of separatist ardor in
tics. neighboring Dravidian states to blunt secessionist
demands. Had the movement succeeded, it would
The first postindependence demand for a linguistic almost certainly have led to the Balkanization of
state came from Telugu speakers, the largest among India.
several major minorities in the then Tamil-dominated
state of Madras. The demands persisted, and Congress Demands for reorganizing the political map of inde-
conceded by establishing the new Telugu-speaking pendent India were not all rooted in linguistic con-
state of Andhra in 1954. This opened the floodgates to sciousness. Several newly created linguistic states
calls for additional states based on linguistic criteria. contained regions that lagged notably behind others in
The government then established a States Reorganiza- levels of economic and social development. As a rule,
tion Commission to study the problem, and ultimately areas that had formed a part of British India were gen-
the States Reorganization Act of 1956 led to a radical erally more advanced than those previously ruled by
redrawing of the political map. The 1956 Act, how- the less progressive princes, such as the Nizam of
ever, failed to divide the essentially bilingual state of Hyderabad. Regions lagging behind the political core
Bombay and the putatively bilingual state of Punjab. areas of the states to which they were joined soon
These intentional departures from the new linguistic sensed that the state was not doing enough to rectify
state norms were short lived. Bombay was partitioned the ill-effects of past neglect. This, in turn, led to sev-
in 1960 to form the Marathi-speaking state of-Maha- eral demands for separation, fueled by local politi-
rashtra and the Gujarati-speaking state of Gujarat. In cians who sought to harness local discontent as the
1966, Punjab was also partitioned, allegedly on a lin- vehicle for furthering their own political ambitions. To
guistic basis, but in actuality on communal grounds; what extent those politicians and their followers were
when the government acceded to the Sikh demands
for a reconfigured Punjab, the reduced area of-the new
state was one in which Sikhs became an absolute
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