DEATH OF NATIONS AND DISINTEGRATION OF STATES IN INDIA

DEATH OF NATIONS AND DISINTEGRATION

 OF STATES IN INDIA

Kenichi Ohmae wrote a book The End of The Nation State. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayavathi is desperate to come back to power weathering the storm of people’s anger and had suddenly mooted the idea of disintegrating the biggest state in India.

We who view global politics will recall past history. Colonialism led to the formation of nation states. USA became an independent country in 1776. Former colonies of Spain and Portugal got liberation and in between 1810 to 1844, seventeen new states emerged in Latin America. Italy became a nation state in 1861. Canada in 1867. These were days when nations came into existence liberating from monarchies and moving towards democracy. Chin dynasty in China, monarchy in Japan, Ottoman Empire in Turkey and Mogul Empire in India were breathing amidst democracies.

The book Rise and Expansion of British Power in India by Theodore Morrison states that British came to India seeking wealth and commercial chances and in the beginning they never had the intention to capture this country and rule it. Similarly the multi nationals have started to arrive in India seeking wealth and markets. History will repeat and they too will capture Indian states. With many companies competing to grab markets, Indian states are heading for disintegration. Each multi-national or cartel want exclusive hunting ground for profits. In these connection Chinese companies wooing BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi and China inviting Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for Buddhist conference has definitely a hidden agenda. The visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Tamilnadu recently and the awaited invitation to Tamilnadu’s dictator in democratic garb Ms.J.Jayalalitha is to get foothold for more American companies to capture the market in Tamilnadu.

In 1577 Sir Francis Drake and in 1586 Thomas Coventick travelled successfully around the globe and secured space for Portuguese and Spanish in Indian market.

Even before these two Vas coda Gama had reached India via Point of Good Hope in 1497 Portuguese were the first in grabbing South East Asian market. 

It is only in 1596 British Queen invested money in overseas ventures as a result of which Sir Robert Dudley’s vessels set to sail towards India. British traders took hue and in 1599 appealed to Privy Council seeking government’s sanction to float a company. Around 1600, British Queen consented for the formation of The Company of London merchants for Business in East India. After sanction shares were collected from the people. 217 persons contributed 68,373 pounds. Under the leadership of Sir Lancaster five ships namely Mare, Scourge, Hector, Ascension, Gift and Susan started their first voyage and missed India but landed in Java where they set up their first trading centre.  The second voyage by Henry Middleton too failed to touch India. Those share holders in London who invested in these two voyages got two hundred percent profit. Determined to anyhow reach India, in 1607 John Hawkins started his journey. He reached India and met Mogul Emperor Shajhahan at Agra. He gave the letter of British Monarch seeking permission to set up trade posts in India. After three years of stay in Agra, he obtained in principle approval of the Mogul rule to start a business company in Surat of current Gujarat State.

The Mogul Emperor might have thought only a company is arriving similarly our Manmohan Singh is dreaming multi-nationals are here for only business and wont unseat him.

Portuguese came in 1500 and British, a century later. “The East India Company was founded in 1600 to sell British woolen cloth to India. Their ships arrived in Surat in 1608 with vast quantities of broad cloth but the trade soon faltered and died out. What changed their fortunes was the discovery of cotton which was completely unknown in Europe” wrote Rosemary Crill of V&A Museum of London.  Three scholars Ms.Crill, Ruth Barnes and Steven Cohen in their book Trade, Temple and Court: Indian Textiles from Tapi Collection report that Millions worth of Indian cotton arrived in England so much so that the wool and linen weavers began to protest and law prohibiting the import of Indian textiles was passed in 1700.

See how our weavers were of world class in 1700 which made British weavers protest and British monarchy pass law preventing import of Indian textiles. Our soil that grew cotton which enriched our farmers and made our weavers a matter of envy to British weavers have lost their livelihood with East India Company sneaking into India and unknowingly Mogul Emperor gave them a foothold here.

Similarly when P.V.Narasimha Rao’s and his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh when they signed in GATT, were not aware that India’s democracy will be hijacked and be subverted into corporate democracy. Now in 2011 we realize the after effects of April 15^th of 1994. 

If we look at our democracy we would be able to notice centralization of powers in Union Government converting States into municipalities. This trend continued as long as few multi-nationals found concentration of power in Center beneficial and useful for their interests. They could manipulate the players directly or with the help of lobbyists like Nira Radia.

The beeline made by many nations and its multi-nationals led to diversion of these corporate towards various states of India. I would like to recall my meeting with NDA Government’s Finance Minister in his residence where I went with a 15 political party memorandum welcoming the introduction of Uniform Sales Tax in the UT of Puducherry.  Yaswant Sinha said that Europe started with various currencies but had arrived at a common market, but we in India have a common currency but could not arrive at Indian Common market. This situation helped corporate to lobby with State Chief Ministers or their wives/concubines/sons/daughters/ to create a favorable climate for them to set foot in that state. As an extension of this game-plan, now through UP Chief Minister Mayawathi, these corporate want to break UP and create 4 new states in Indian Union.

If we could go back to pages of history we can find that States Re-Organization Commission had given its verdict against break up of Uttar Pradesh, though one of its Keralite member K.M.Panikker recorded his dissent. Ironically it is the Congress which is now in dilemma over Mayavathi’s game plan, while debating an electoral debacle in UP formed a Committee under K.Karunakaran to study the reasons and it is this committee then suggested creation of 4 semi-autonomous units for UP Congress Committee. Yes a prelude to state break up, AICC contemplated party break up in UP. Though entire working committee of Congress endorsed this till date Congress is dilly dallying over creation of 4 units for 4 regions of UP.

Are we going back to break up of Indian states based on early princely states and loyalties to those past memories? Are we going to break bigger state that could send more members to Parliament so that the clout of UP in Union Government could be weakened?

In 1923 Europe had 23 states with 18,000 kilometers of borders but by 2004 it had broken into 50 states with 40,000 kilometers of borders. So Kenichi Ohmae in his book The End of Nation State argues that advance of markets and economic inter-dependence will see nation states being largely replaced by city states. Are we going towards that goal to turn Indian Union into city states numerically more than princely states?

The forthcoming winter session of Parliament should be used by political parties to deeply debate the trend involved in break up of UP to begin with..

Dravida Peravai endorses the stand taken by Akilesh Yadav M.P, leader of UP Samajwadi Party against break up of Uttar Pradesh.

N.Nandhivarman 

General Secretary Dravida Peravai, 

Puducherry 605001.

16.11.2011