A State Belongs To The People Who Live In It: Telangana Is The Latest Example

By Veluppillai Thangavelu -August 29, 2014

Veluppillai Thangavelu

“A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”  - Jawaharlal Nehru, “Tryst With Destiny” speech celebrating Indian independence.

August 15, 1947 midnight India won its freedom from colonial rule ending nearly 350 years of British presence in India.  But, freedom was not without pains. It also saw the saw the birth of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  When the British left, they partitioned India, creating the separate countries of India and Pakistan to accommodate religious differences between Pakistan, which has a majority Muslim population, and India which is primarily Hindu. While the Indian National Congress called for British to Quit India, in 1943 the Muslim League passed a resolution demanding the British Divide and Quit. Before British, Mughals ruled India for over 300 years.

It is still a debatable point whether the partition of these countries was a wise move by the British. The partition has not stopped conflict between India and Pakistan.  Boundary issues, left unresolved by the British, have caused three wars and continuing strife between India and Pakistan. Sixty years on, the status of Kashmir remains unresolved despite a tenuous peace process between India and Pakistan. The bad blood between the two countries  is largely due to the ideological divide between the Muslims and the Hindus of India.  Incidentally  Pakistan  became world’s first Islamic Republic in 1956.

British India, which included most of present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, consisted of fifteen provinces, all British possessions, ruled directly by the British in all respects, either through a Governor or a Chief Commissioner and officials appointed by the Viceroy. Existing alongside British India were 565 princely states, ruled by local hereditary rulers, who acknowledged British suzerainty but who enjoyed local autonomy. It may be recalled the  British Crown assumed control of British India from the East India Company in 1857 and thereafter controlled the internal governance through a Secretary of State for India in London and a Viceroy in India.Read More